Teaching Fails of the Week #1

I think as a way to commiserate with other teachers, and hopefully, make other new teachers feel better, I will share my fails so far. What they don't tell you in teacher education classes is that it is 100% guaranteed that:

- You will not be efficient.
- Your to-do list will NEVER empty.
- You will feel like you are running in place.
- You will NOT be an awesome teacher your first few weeks (months?).

Without further ado, I present Insane Teacher's fails of the week:

- I fried my kids' brains. I thought teaching independent variables and dependent variables would be easy, especially because I had them set up an experiment on Friday with the intent to refer to it as a live example. Nope. Twenty minutes into 1st period, I knew that I would have to scrap my lesson plans. 2 weeks into the school year, 2 lesson plans altered by Wednesday.

- I learned to never to labs and hands-on activities without at least a day's worth of prep beforehand. Friday was hectic, and it was all because I didn't think my lab set-up through. I'm about to commit the same faux pas tomorrow, it seems, as I have scrapped tomorrow's activity in favor of another.

- If you are doing a lab with fire, please know what you are doing. I'll post the picture later on what happened. Let's just say that I'm happy that the incident happened on the weekend and out of sight of the students.

- Grad school + full-time teaching + being a first year = INSANITY. This is all caused by idiocy on my part. I'm now questioning my decision-making skills :)

There are more fails I'm missing here, but these are the biggest ones I've made. Despite my fails, I'm learning from them. Theoretically, the number of fails will decrease each week. However, as I've learned in my first two weeks of teaching, the theoretical rarely matches to the actual. 

Pre-Game Thoughts

I'm going to (try to) make this brief, as I have still have some preparations to do for this week, but I can't do much more without stopping and reflecting over the past week and the upcoming week.

Last week was professional development with the entire staff. As with all other things that happen at this school, the schedule given to us on Monday was not what exactly occurred over the week. Yet, this was okay. In fact, more than okay; it was great! It allowed some of us (i.e. the newbies) time to ask questions and get them answered by the school veterans in an honest manner. It also allowed us to take everything in without the inconvenience of having to edit our thoughts when in the presence of everyone.

 The details of PD would be boring to most people, but I'll say this. After getting my classroom finished (pics to come soon), meeting with my team, getting our hallway together, and meeting with some of our students, I'm less nervous and more pumped. I feel as if I have no time to be nervous, as I'm just too busy to feel it!

However, I'm not too busy to feel the anticipation of kids coming in on Monday and to feel the urgency to get the items on my never-ending "to-do" list checked off. And there you have it. This is where my mind currently is.

It's also on the "Mad Men" Season 1 episodes I want to finish sometime soon.

The two most common questions asked of me this week were "How are you feeling [about your class] [about the school] [about everything teaching-and-learning related]?" and "Are you ready [for your class] [for the students] [for who-the-heck knows]?" I haven't been able to properly articulate myself when responding to these questions. Because I've been BS-ing my responses to these questions all week, I'll answer them honestly now. 

Answer: If I have to assign a feeling right now, it's an unlabeled zen-feeling. I'm calm, yet I have this underlying sense of urgency. I'm not rushing, yet I'm ready to go into "grinding" mode things get settled. I'm nervous, yet I'm more focused on things, so I can't really feel it. The same goes for my excitement. 

[The BS answer: "I feel great!"]

Answer #2: As ready as a young, recent college grad can be to teach and take on a good deal of responsibility for 130+ seventh and eighth-grade students. Actually, is anyone ever really "ready" to do this? Yup. That's what I thought.  

[The BS answer: This one is closer to my real answer than the previous answer, "Yeah, I'm as good as I can be."]

I feel better (and more prepared for tomorrow!) now that I've taken a brain-dump (one of the teaching strategies I learned this week was "Dump and Clump"). Bring on game day!

Charter School Turnover

This article from the LA Times (it's in the feed as well) as popped up twice today in my personal sphere, in my Facebook feed and via email from a friend.

In short, the article discusses high teacher turnover in charters in Los Angeles. I suspect, though, that turnover in other charters across the nation are comparable...including mine. In fact, the principal mentioned the turnover during the interview. 

Of course, turnover is high here!

Yet, I still accepted the job knowing well that a nice percentage of my colleagues this year will not be back next year. I chalk the turnover to two things: the numbers of "hats" teachers in charters must wear and that teaching in a charter is more demanding than in a traditional public school. 

1. Because most charters operate with no input from the local school system, everyone in a charter school building has to do multiple things.* For example, one of our teachers is a teacher/website-updater-guy. Multitasking varies from charter to charter, and this may even occur at some traditional public schools. I'll venture an educated guess, though, and say that traditional public schools are likely to have a people dedicated to simply, say, website development or to data analysis. 

That brings up another point. With little to no non-financial resource input from local school systems and limited local funding, charters can't afford to hire people dedicated to a single, non-teaching job. As a result, everyone, including teachers, is likely to have some sort of "slash" in their official job title. 

* Some charters do have input both financially and otherwise, to a good extent,  from the local school system. To see what I'm talking, about, click here. 

2. Teaching anywhere is pressure-filled, especially during this current age of "accountability". Yet, after talking with non-charter teacher friends and some of my colleagues, I'm convinced that teaching in a charter is a bit more demanding (at least where I live). From the longer hours expected, the number of "hats" we wear to the fact that there is a contract hanging over our heads that basically says "Teach or else...", it's a lot to contend with, especially over a long period of time. 

Apologies for letting my freak flag fly.

With full knowledge of  the insanity, both perceived and real, that occur in charters and that comes with teaching in one, I took the job, because I believe in the mission of school. I believe in the people working there. Last, but not least, I believe in the leader that we have. The mix of these three factors convinced me that even throughout the madness of the school, we are all going to do great things. 

I'm extremely loyal to a fault (six years at a daycare as a part-time job through the end of high school through undergrad!). Probably a bit insane as well, so I'm good with my "crazy" charter teaching spot. 

My teaching hero?

Some people are not good with it, which is okay too. I believe that every good teacher has a school, where they can become excellent teacher. My charter is where I think I can become excellent, so while the odds are against anyone staying long-term , the odds have never phased me before. Besides, wouldn't want to work at Hogwarts the place where they can become excellent?

The First Department Meeting (!)

Few quick notes about my first department meeting...

• It was frickin' brief! An agenda of about 8 items was knocked out in 30-45 minutes. The rest of the time was spent...
• Collaborative working: I worked with another science teacher, with a couple of SS teachers, with a connections teacher, and even with the CI AP! My notepad page was filled to edge with notes of all types of great classroom management and unit/lesson planning tips. 
• Someone actually asked for my opinion. I don't mean to sound so incredulous, but yeah, I'm shocked. I've had the impression that new teachers are to shut up and take it in. I don't mind doing this, but when I want an idea heard for consideration, I want to speak up. Yet, I walked prepared to take it in. Nope! None of that here. 
• There was a strong sense of spirit: Everyone in the room really seemed into the mission and culture of the school, which I loved. 
• The promotion of individuality: While there was certainly team spirit in all the planning work we did, it was made clear that we have control over our classrooms. 

I am stoked to get to work with these people. I can't say enough of how much it means to know that everyone working here is on the same page mission-wise. Just knowing that I'll be working with such hard-working, competent professionals who are excited about their work makes me feel more relaxed and confident. I've got a whole staff of people on my side now. 

Cue the High School Musical:

FYI, we busted out in dance post-meeting. Something like this in fact :)

Student-teacher or teacher-teacher?

As some of you may know, I am in a master's degree/certification program, meaning that at the end of this shindig, I will leave with full teaching credentials in my fields along with a master's degree. In my cohort, most of everyone is a career switcher and has never taught before in a classroom. There are a small handful of people already teaching on provisional credentials. And then there's me, never taught before but has a job for the fall. 

[For those who have read my previous posts, yes, I was a fellow at a charter, but riding a bike with training wheels is different from riding one without the training wheels. Just saying.]

I'm in the weird in-between space. The "non-teachers" will be student-teaching for the year, while the "teacher" will use their classroom as their "student-teaching" experience. Technically, I'm considered as the latter, yet I feel like I should be considered as the prior. As I was emailing a friend, I said something along the lines of "...you will be a great asset to your students, be it as a student-teacher or a teacher-teacher".

How ridiculous was that! What does that mean? While I'm getting more comfortable with the fact that, hey, I will have my own classroom in the few weeks, I still feel like I have much to learn about teaching, curriculum, instruction, and the list continues. I know that I can be at least a good teacher for my students this year, but I won't be the best, precisely because I am still a student of teaching, curriculum, instruction, etc. I don't know everything or even a lot, right now. 

Officially, we are teachers, bur aren't we all student-teachers? Don't we have to continue to learn about teaching and everything that it is loaded with it? Do "teacher-teachers" even exist? If so, can you contact me, because I've got some brain-picking to do?

 Update: I just found out that some schools call teachers in training "preservice" and practicing teachers "inservice". I like this delineation much better. 

Administrative Awesomeness

I've been so busy with all these papers/presentations that I haven't had the time to report the little bit of sunshine in my teaching life. Before I share, I need to give background.

One of my pet-peeves in my classes the summer has been the frequent references to crappy administrators. By now, I think every teacher, if not everyone, knows that some schools are run by incompetant ninnies or scandalous scoundrels. In fact, this applies to any job with superiors and subordinates.

They even made a movie about them.

Don't get me wrong. An ineffective principal and/or an ineffective administrative team can do serious damage at a school. Arguably, they can do more damage than one teacher can. However, I don't see  how constantly harping on the subject does me, or importantly, my students any good. I can't control what they do, but I can control my reactions to their actions. Yet, I have been preparing myself in case things go sour.

The CRCT cheating report finally hit the fan

There are no words for the actual insanity found here, here and here. I'm so angry that a relatively small percentage of stupid, cowardly adults are what reflects the values of the entirety of Atlanta Public Schools.

More importantly, these losers have forever put the proverbial asterisk next to the affected kids' test scores. These kids will never know whether their scores were because of an effort on their part or by the efforts of some jerk administrators and teachers that felt the need to cover their butts instead of...you know, teaching! This, my friends, is real insanity. 

No matter your thoughts on standardized testing, we all should agree that nothing is worth risking our integrity as educators and more importantly, that of our students. 

College-track versus Vocational-track: Why is this a debate?

Two Years at the Blackboard: Mr. N's Curmudgeonly Rant About Everything That is...

I must give a kudos to Mr. N over at Two Years at the Blackboard for his post on the current trend to peddle college to every student. I completely understand that getting a bachelor's degree is worth the large investment in time and money. The data implies that, from the potential earnings standpoint, we should encourage everyone to go a four-year college. However, consider the following: Is it worth it for those who had to drop out due to lack of time, money, etc? Is it worth it for those who don't want to go because they know college "isn't for them"? If you answered "no" to either question or both, then by extension, you don't believe that everyone should go to four-year college. 


It's okay. You are not a bad person for thinking this, especially if you work with kids (However, you may suck as a person if you believe this about kids given social or racial factors. Just saying.) In fact, I believe that all students should be encouraged, if not pushed, into a post-secondary education program. Not necessarily a four-year college, though that's an option. For some of our students, a four-year college is not the best option for them. Not because they are "less than"; it simply comes down to "it is not their thing". This is a hard concept for folks in education to grasp. There isn't a group of factors that we can list and start sorting kids. If that were true, there would be a few less Lifetime movies in existence.

Not going for the obvious "Feed the homeless" extracurricular joke.

We do our students a great disservice when it comes to discussing post-secondary options; we either do a really poor job at discussing options or we don't talk about them at all. I must confess that when I was high school, I looked down on the kids in the vocational track (back when Georgia had one). Sorry, but whenever the counselor interrupted English class once a year, she looked like she was discussing the contents of poo, not post high-school education options.  It wasn't until I realized that I knew a financially successful, hard-working, and smart kid who didn't go to a four-year college, that the vocational path is not one to be looked down upon nor is it one for the "less intelligent". If college were his "thing", my brother would have wiped the floor with the Harvard elite and certainly the nerds at my prestigious public college. However, he chose his own path and is running a pretty successful business of his own (Now that I think about it, he does business with the same nerds from my college). As for me? My name is "Insane" Teacher. Look up the starting salary for one of those.

Accurate depiction of how I look when I open my wallet. 

As for not discussing vocational options, I don't get why not? The HVAC specialist that came by today didn't seem worried about his job security. My car technician is also not worried. However, several of my friends in nice offices are worried. Several teacher friends are worried. Seeing a trend? Many jobs that require an associates or some other training program are more available right now. Jobs that require a bachelor's? Not so much. Bachelors in some domains are a dime-a-dozen, so it is not simply about just getting one (Psychology majors, I'm looking at you! [IT is now avoiding mirrors.]). Besides, have you watched the news on our economy?

Looking from the earning perspective we started with, exhibit A and exhibit B. Many on this path will make as much, if not more, money than I will as a teacher. Certainly more than the social workers working in schools.

I want all of my students to shoot for the moon, and luckily for them, I know that there are several launchpads for them to use. We just need to find the right one. 

Parent-Teacher-Student Relationship: The Blame Game Edition

Through out my first year teaching, I will frequently comment and ask questions about a concept in education that is consistently in heavy rotation: The Parent-Teacher-Student Relationship (henceforth called the PTSR).


Maureen Downey, moderator/writer of the always interesting Get Schooled Blog on AJC.com, published a letter  written by an elementary school administrator, Mr. Dorce. He writes about the tale of a young man he mentored. After attending the young man's graduation and asking about his future, Mr. Dorce realized that all was not as it seemed. Long story short, Mr. Dorce ends with the line, "...I was supposed to help." Please take the time to read the post.


After reading the post and then the comments, the message that I received from the (non-hatred spewing) majority was that the blame for the young man's fate was the parent(s), the young man himself, or both. Many of these comments came from teachers. However, two statements stuck out to me from Mr. Dorce's letter concerning blame for the young man's situation:


"I do not blame anyone in particular for many adults failed Robert, including me."


"Robert is not guiltless. There was plenty that was his responsibility. He could have and should have gotten help for his reading struggles. Lots of people throughout our schools are willing, able and eager to help. He was a child, however, when he started to push back and mask his reading deficiencies." 


As you see, Mr. Dorce does not point out anyone group of people or specific person for Robert's plight, including Robert himself. He does acknowledge that there were several actions Robert could have taken to give himself a better shot at earning his diploma. (He does not discuss the obvious precautionary measures Robert could have taken to avoid fathering children, but I digress.) With all this considered, here's my question. 


Because the blame goes wide and deep, what does assigning blame accomplish, especially when it is assigned to parents and/or students?


To examine this question, let's go back to the PTSR and look at it from the teacher's perspective. I'm well aware of the teacher role, as I'm the teacher! I have direct control over this part, so no problems. The student role is a little trickier; I know what the student should be doing. In reality, this does not always happen. I'll venture a guess and say that students often push back against their role...which is where the teacher role becomes important. As the teacher, I have an element of control here. What I do in my classroom and with my students can have a direct effect on the students.  


To keep score, the teachers have control in two roles in the PTSR: the teacher role and the student role. Granted, the teacher's control of the student role is not 100%, but there are ways of highly stacking the odds in our favor. Continuing on...


The last role is that of the parent. I have a prototype in mind for the parent role, but it's just that, a prototype. It's not real. Different parents have different ideas of the parent role in PTSR. That's not to say there aren't fantastic parents. I have a plethora of examples of fantastic parenting (my parents, for one). Sometimes, though, we have parents of students that are severely lacking. I can meet with them and communicate with them as often as possible and still they won't budge. Needless to say, teachers do not have much control, if any, of the parent role. 


In conclusion:


- Blaming students accomplishes nothing, because the teacher has an element of control over the student role. The amount of control of the student role depends on the individual teacher. We can do something here!


- Blaming parents accomplishes nothing, because there is nothing to little that can be done to control parents. Sorry, it's fact. The overly involved parents will almost always continue to be overly involved. The minimally involved parents will almost always continue to be minimally involved. 


The PTSR is important, and I know that I will be discussing it more when I start teaching. When discussing our children's education, instead of being problem-oriented, we should be solutions-oriented. Currently when there's a problem, we try to diagnose to assign blame, not to solve the problem. In keeping with my philosophy, I'm not going to assign blame for the PTSR blame game when failures in our system happen. However, I will offer my first solution of this whole enterprise:


Eliminate the blame game from education all together. In lieu, use the PTSR and the school community to find workable solutions to problems that arise. 


This includes blaming ourselves, because there is nothing to gain by doing so. (Someone will probably need to remind of this in the coming months.) Reflect and problem-solve. Repeat, if necessary. 

Thoughts on Charter School Ruling

For background and the ruling, visit the AJC Get Schooled Blog (click the link for the story).

Though I'm not a lawyer, I think that this was probably the right decision, legally-speaking. Because I've been following the story for awhile, I've been waiting for this ruling to happen: Charter School Commission is unconstitutional. If I were running on pure logic, I would say that what happened today was good. It's done and over with. All parties involved can just move on. The problem is I'm not running on pure logic, here, which makes me uncomfortable. My day, since hearing the ruling, has been uncomfortable. Here's why.

In my work as an intern, I've seen behind the curtains of one of these schools. I've seen the daily operations, I've worked with the teachers, and most importantly, I've worked with the students. Sure, it seems like a normal school. A visitor just dropping in to see what the fuss is about would complain that nothing seems out of the ordinary. She would ask what was so special about this place.

On a normal day, my answer would be a quick, curt shrug as I run pass the visitor. However, catch me in a reflective mode, and... I still would not know how to respond properly. I really don't know what is so special about this school. I can't pinpoint it. However, ask me about my students and I'd tell you stories about conversations we have during rare free minutes. (My favorite: Their warning to me about becoming a teacher.) Or I might tell you about a day where they rocked the lesson. Or I might tell you about the assembly from last week, where I saw one of the best poets I've have ever had the pleasure of listening to and watching. And she was only in the seventh grade!

As I typed that, I smiled as I remember all of the...awesomeness I've experienced over the past year in this internship. Make no mistake though, it was not easy experiencing all this. I've experienced many hardships in this job, and I'm just an intern. However, I would and will be doing it again and again just to see how far my students have gone in only a year. Not only that, I would (and will) do it again, so they can see how far they have gone. What is really awesome is that they want to keep going! I didn't start thinking about college seriously until high school. (Not to mention, that I recently figured out what I'm going to do with life!) To me, that's priceless.

As a result, logic does not win today.I'm uncomfortable, because I'm truly saddened by today's news. I'm sad for my students and those at the other charters affected. I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a proponent of charters, though I don't consider myself an opponent. They all aren't magic pills that will cure all the evils in education. However, for the ones that are cure for the common school for the students and their parents that choose to send them, why not fund them so that they can exist? Perhaps school systems can collaborate with them instead of compete with them, so everyone can improve.

Long-term, who knows what will happen to the charters affected and their students? I don't, but I know this. I support whatever works in favor of my kids. This ruling ruled against my kids. You do the logic.