Stressors

This year has been remarkably smooth for me up to this point. I don't know if it's because I totally revamped my lesson plans when it comes to scaffolding skills, or if I just have a great bunch of kids (totally do, by the way) but it has been very smooth, and I am very grateful for that.

However.

I have a freshman advisory class that meets twice a week and things are not going so smoothly there. My advisory class is my largest class, with 30 kids, and has 6 extremely.....rambunctious....boys in it that are rude, disrespectful, and extremely immature. I  have separated them, talked to them, been kind, been strict, been snarky, been direct, and they are just acting like tools. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that the lesson plans that have been designed for the freshmen are too easy and too slow, in my opinion. As a result, we end up with extra days where I don't have anything for them to do, and they don't handle free time well at all. They get obnoxious, I get frustrated, and we all end class upset. I feel like I am failing the kids that actually care about their school work and try to work when I give them time to do so, and I am failing to reach the kids who are goofing off. This class is supposed to help them graduate prepared to pay bills, find a job, fill out a college application, and essentially function as an semi-adult, and so far it's falling totally flat. I really dislike this class and it shows.

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This week is the beginning of the multicultural show period...auditions are this week and rehearsals start next week. I am trying to juggle more responsibility this year as the usual coordinator is out on maternity leave and the other coordinator has some major health issues that have forced her to take less of a role than previously, putting the majority of this on my shoulders. I actually don't love being in charge of anything outside my own classroom. I am really good at being a support to others, but I hate being in charge of anything this big and I am feeling really stressed out about it.

Another issue is that each year rehearsals become a battle with one particular coach who does not want his kids to miss any part of his 3 hour daily practice, and while I feel his pain, I'm not going to tell the kids they can't participate in the show because they are part of a sports team. I am planning on meeting with him before hand to work out a system, but an unfortunate and unavoidable issue is the fact that dress rehearsal is scheduled for the exact same time as the first track meet of the season. Oh, and did I mention that I also work the track meets?

*******

Mentoring is going well, my mentor teacher is very good but I feel like I am not helping her as effectively as I should. I hope I am giving her good advice and encouraging her to grow as a teacher, but I just am not sure about what I am doing.

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I haven't been able to go to tutoring since November. Sigh.

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I am taking over more responsibilities as the co-ASB coordinator, since the girl who does it now will be out on maternity leave starting in May. This means meetings every two weeks starting now, and an additional meeting every Monday starting at the end of March, as well as assisting with elections, and attempting to fill the shoes of an extremely talented leadership teacher who is totally beloved by the kids, all while not messing up things like the ASB budget and her system of doing things.

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I constantly feel like I am forgetting something really important and I hate that feeling.

Year 10

I can't believe I am about to start my tenth year of teaching. I started teaching when I was 22, barely 4 years older than the scattering of seniors in my sophomore classes. This feels like a big milestone, but on the other hand, I don't feel that my life has progressed any further along than it was 9 years ago.

It might be for this reason, or possibly the stress of last year, or possibly the stress of family stuff, but for the first time, I am really struggling to be ready to start school. School starts in 2 days and the words that come closest to describing the way I am feeling are "apathetic," "burned out" and "tired." But I don't know why.

I am discouraged by this feeling. I want to be excited. I am hoping that the kids will change my mind once they hit my classroom. But I am worried that if I am struggling this much in September, I am really going to crash in January. I am choosing to be positive because I know that will help, but while it is normally something that comes naturally to me, I have been having a hard time with it recently.

I hope something amazingly positive happens soon...

Tiled.

School starts in 9 days.

This is hard to believe for many reasons. First, we are starting in August for the first time ever. Second, and more importantly, I haven't been in my classroom in over a week.

That last detail is not my choice.

Several years ago, probably twelve or fifteen years or more at this point, my high school was completely remodeled. It looks fantastic on the outside, the building is about 100 years old, so it looks kind of like a red brick castle, complete with turrets (one of which is where our printer lives). But the inside is not so great. The overall picture of the inside is pretty good, but a combination of 1200 kids tramping around for 181 days every year and not the highest quality of materials used in the remodel means that on the third floor (where I dwell), the tile floors keep falling apart and the kickplates on the stairs keep falling off.

So this summer, the plan was to re-tile the third floor of my building. I am not totally sure how this works, but I know that there is glue and tile involved and that it takes a while for the glue to set.

Just as a reminder, we got out of school on June 22. Officially, teachers do not have contracted work time between June 22 and August 25. Realistically, you can find. someone there most days, but the lowest chance of finding teachers there is during July. In August, teachers start coming back, with more and more there every day as the month progresses, so that by the second and third week of August, you have a good chance of finding most teachers at school for at least part of the day every day. During the last two weeks of August, everyone is there all day getting ready for school to start.

So then logically, the best time to retile the entire third floor, cutting off access to all social studies and language arts classrooms is clearly the last two weeks of August.

Making it worse, the original plan was to retile the floor last Monday, giving us access Wednesday, maybe thursday at the latest. But then, SOMEONE WALKED ON THE FLOOR before the glue was dry, messing up most of the hallway, and requiring a major repair. Which consequently bumped our access back to today.

But on facebook this morning, teachers who went up to school posted that the third floor is STILL closed off and will probably be that way until THURSDAY. I may or may not have torn my hair and gnashed my teeth at this.

While I understand that officially, we are not contracted to be at school until August 25, meaning that the contractors have access anytime between June 22 and August 25, I wish that the district officials who plan these things would use a little logic. After all, a lot of them used to BE teachers.

The Limitations of Language

One of the things that I get frustrated with in my classroom are the future plans of my kids. It is not unusual for an elementary school kid to want to be a doctor or a lawyer or a basketball player when they grow up, but by the time they are 16, two years from being launched into the adult world, they should have a more reasonable expectation for their future, or at least have a more specific plan for how to get what they want. The majority of my kids are still planning on being a professional sports player or a professional entertainer (singer, model, and actor, in that order), but there are generally between 20-25% of my kids that fail my class, with another 20-25% that end the class with Ds or low Cs.

Last year, towards the end of the year, I overheard one of my lower-level special education students talking about her future plans to another student. She said, "Well, I haven't decided what I am going to do yet, but I will either be a doctor or a lawyer." This student had a 12% in my class and at the end of her sophomore year in high school, only had 2 credits...meaning that she had passed only two classes in two years of high school. So how is it that she is still planning to be a doctor or a lawyer, two careers that are completely out of the realm of possibility for her?

I have thought about this question a lot and while the answer is complex, I think it starts with the limitations of the English language. American kids are told, from day one, that they "can do anything you want to do." What we mean by that is that they have the RIGHT to do anything they want to do. What they interpret that as is that they have the ABILITY to do anything they want to do, and that is where the delusion begins.

Then comes reality tv. Using the premise on every reality show, the only thing you need to do in order to be famous (and therefore rich and successful) is to be obnoxious. There is no real (or perceived) work or skill that goes into these shows, and kids are once again getting the message that you don't need any foresight or plan in order to be successful in life.

Add to that the political incorrectness associated with "tracking" in a high school, and the sheer idiocy of NCLB, and suddenly all kids are being forced to the lowest possible level, instead of being in an environment that reflects the real world, where some people work hard and are successful, some people work hard and struggle, and a tiny fraction of a percentage are lucky and win the lottery. Over the last 20 years, we have created a situation where everything in their environment has told our kids that hard work is not part of the equation of their lives and success comes to those who wish for it. I recognize the validity of the argument that some kids don't find their feet right away and tracking can be harmful for those late-bloomers. But I also think that the fact that we don't have any kind of job training or vocational skills traning for kids who don't have the aptitude for college is a gaping chasm in our educational system.

Do you know that the only vocational or job training available to most high school students comes from joining the military after high school (or being in self-contained special needs classes)? And that manual, or "unskilled" labor has the highest amount of demand for jobs in the US today? But that is another issue altogether....

I think that the first step in changing how kids plan for their future is changing our language. Having the RIGHT to do what they want to do is so very different than having the ABILITY to do what they want to do, but the word "CAN" is confusing because it means both. We have stopped clarifying this difference, and it has been detrimental to our kids.

Finding that thin line between encouraging kids to work hard to get what they want and breaking the news to them that they need to consider other options is a hard line to walk, but I think it is necessary for our kids sake that we suck it up and just do it.

American Education...53 Years Later

Today I was at the Seattle Museum of Flight (more on that later) and was flipping through an exhibit on the space race that took place between the US and the Soviet Union. This particular part of the exhibit was a series of space-related articles and pictures from Life Magazine during the 1950s. In the middle of the articles was one from 1958 that compared two boys of the same age; one in Moscow and one in Chicago, specifically their comparative educations. Only parts of the article were there, but there was enough to see some very familiar complaints (all emphasis is mine).

I could swear I've heard some of this same stuff recently, but wait.....wasn't education better in "the good old days?"

Interesting how things have, and yet haven't, changed.

19 Days and Counting

I have to confess something....this has been a really tough year for me.

I haven't connected to the kids the way that I did last year, and am very frustrated with my 4th period. That class has not matured to the same level that normally occurs with sophomores by this time....in fact, I'm pretty sure they've actually regressed. Today, I had to kick two kids out of that class within 5 minutes, because one was threatening the other and the other kid refused to stop running his mouth (which was inspiring the threats). I can't deal with them anymore, so I called security and had them removed. I saw them both wandering the halls later in the day, so I'm sure they'll be back in class tomorrow.

Working on my national board certification was incredibly stressful for me. It took me a long time to figure out how to write the way I needed to, and I am still very unsure about the quality of my work. In addition, I am actually not done with the process, as there is a content based test to take in less than 3 weeks, and I have not yet had time to study for it. Since it covers world history, US history, economics, geography, government and current world issues, I need to study, but feel really overwhelmed about the entire process.

I am frustrated with the lack of skills acquisition with my kids. We have been working on thesis writing for the entire year, and on the last paper the kids turned in, I still have kids not writing thesis statements, not following instructions, not doing this thing that we have worked on for so long. It makes me really discouraged, makes me question my ability as a teacher, and makes me wonder if I am in the wrong profession entirely.

I am the senior advisor, and last weekend was prom, which was stressful, and in about 2 weeks is graduation. I had nightmares about prom for several days beforehand, and although it seems really petty, none of the kids really said thank you.

An opportunity has presented itself to assist the ASB (student council) advisor next year, which both of us would really like. She is too busy and is doing her national boards next year, and while I do love the social aspect of being an advisor, I do not want to take charge of another class for a few years. The problem is that we are running into obstacles with the VP. It's too long and complicated to go into here, but it is frustrating and I don't know what to do that will annoy the fewest people.

The same VP observed me a few weeks ago, and in my evaluation stated her belief that I need to do more direct instruction and not put the kids into groups (they currently sit in groups of two). On the one hand I am trying to recognize that she has an alternative point of view and sees my classroom with different eyes than I do. But on the other hand, I think that she's wrong. She told me that there were several students off task while she observed me, and that they were distracting to everyone else in class. What I saw was a class of 17 boys, who for once didn't talk about basketball for longer than 10 seconds, who got back on task as soon as I gave them the stinkeye, and did a difficult assignment in small groups while talking quietly about the assignment. I am frustrated with a less than stellar evaluation (although she didn't mark me down in any category, she did spend 2 paragraphs talking about how I could improve by using more direct instruction) and a feeling that for the first time I have fallen short of some set of expectations that I don't want to measure up to, but feel the compelling urge to conform with.

I am tired of the incessant rain that we have had this winter. I love Seattle and most winters I think that we get a bad rap about the weather. Normally I think the weather is beautiful here. But for some reason this winter I have really struggled. I don't know if it is a combination of the issues mentioned above as well as the unseasonably long winter, or simply the weather, but I am done with rain. This year, more than any other, I am ready to see some sun.

On top of everything else, I haven't been sleeping very well. I am so tired that I sit down and fall asleep....(including for about a minute during class yesterday - embarrassing!) but when I go to bed, my mind races and I toss and turn for hours without sleep. I got only 3 hours on Sunday night, and not much more than that the last two nights.

There are only 19 more days of school, so I think I will make it, but at this point it's a bit of a toss-up. I could use some good news.

A Letter

I don't normally email congressmen but the state senate published their proposed budget for the upcoming session and I simply couldn't say nothing. Here is a short version of how the budget proposal would affect just MY district (summarized by the district):

• The Senate budget cuts the district by $3.2 million
• The Senate budget will force the district to choose to cut either:
• 6 days out of the school year
• Eliminate sports (football, baseball, swim/diving, track, etc.); eliminate music, Discovery, transportation, other extra-curricular activities
• The Senate budget cuts teacher and staff pay by 3% by directing districts to furlough staff using layoffs or unpaid leave of absence days
• Districts—just like the county and city governments—must make cut to salaries by reducing the amount of time employees are at work (Federal employment laws prohibit employers from demanding employees work for no pay)
• Counties and cities close libraries, offices, parks and other services to cut pay for staff
• Closing schools for 6 days equal a 3% pay cut for all school district staff
• The Senate budget will also change how funding is provided to school districts:
• We would use a California-model called Average Daily Attendance
• No funding is provided to districts for students who are absent
• District very likely will have to hire additional staff specifically to track student daily attendance to comply with new state model
• Senate will work with state education office to define how average daily attendance is calculated
• The California model has been proven not to work—California’s dropout rate is 21.5%; Washington’s dropout rate is 5.1%

So it seems, basically, that some teachers would be laid off and those remaining in place would have a fairly serious cut in pay, and we would have to hire more people to keep track of attendance. As an alternative, the House budget proposal would cut $1million from the district.

My email went like this:
Senator Keiser;

I am a high school history teacher and I am begging you not to support the Senate budget proposal introduced earlier this week. This is my 9th year in public education, and my 4th year in Washington. I work at a high needs school with a 48% mobility rate, and 54% of students on free/reduced lunch. School provides a safe haven for many of my kids. Many of my kids get their only solid meal of the day in my school. Many of my kids stay after school because it is dry, warm, and safe, and they would rather be at school than at home. My students trust me, learn from me, and teach me to be a better person. The last thing they need is fewer days in school with fewer teachers that are even more overworked. I spend every school day working to get my kids to understand the basic democratic principles we believe they need in order to be good citizens of this country, followed by going to meetings to fill in the gaps left by overworked parents who can't or won't participate in their child's education. I spend every weekend grading, planning instruction, and modifying curriculum for all my students - even those with 1st grade reading skills who are expected to pass my 10th grade class. I spend every summer reworking curriculum, developing better lesson plans and going to classes to learn to be a better teacher. These activities are interspersed with reading the latest attacks on public education and its "failures" and reading about how my profession, this thing that I pour my heart and soul into on a daily basis year-round, is allegedly full of lazy slackabouts who do nothing but sit around and wait for retirement in between 3 month summer vacations. I am tired of hearing that someone lucky and/or rich enough to attend an Ivy League school can do what I do with minimal effort, despite the shockingly vast amount of evidence to the contrary. I am tired of hearing that our free public educational system, which was founded on the belief that all citizens in a democracy should have the right and responsibility to be educated participants in an electoral system, should be converted into a system founded on a belief that rich people are the smartest people, and should therefore be respected because they are rich. My students can tell you that that belief is called Social Darwinism, and is what led to things like racism and the Holocaust. I am tired of testing companies and their lobbyists convincing my government to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on more and more tests that accomplish nothing except unnecessarily stressing out students, angering parents, spreading false rumors about education, and driving an even deeper wedge between schools and the communities we are part of. If you want to save millions of dollars for the state of Washington, get rid of all standardized tests for one year. It would be far more effective than the Senate’s proposed budget, which retains all standardized tests but cuts both teacher positions AND teacher pay. Thank you for your time and consideration of this important issue.

I know it's long, but it could easily have been longer, and it's my first time. I don't know if politicians or their interns read these or if they simply go into a pile marked "support" or "don't support" but it is sent, nonetheless. Here's hoping it makes a difference.

Socialism Island

I've been thinking a lot about why education has come under such heavy fire lately, and this week, while teaching elemental socialism and capitalism to my sophomores, it finally clicked. I know this isn't a new thought, but it just suddenly made sense to me.

Pure capitalism advocates a system where each individual person is responsible for himself, and the harder you work the more rewards you gain. In a pure capitalist system, there are clear winners and clear losers, and there are endless opportunities to make money as  long as you create a product that people desire.

Social service providers - like teachers, police, firemen, foster care workers, etc - form the core of a socialist island in the middle of a capitalist sea. We don't really produce a product (especially one that people desire), and we provide services that people would rather not have.

While I can't speak for all the people in this group, I can speak from my own experience as a teacher. Teachers believe that all kids can learn. We treat kids with equality, but individualism ("from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" you might say...). We believe that the impact of the community is more important (or at the very least EQUALLY important) than the impact of the individual teacher. We believe that all people should be given access to quality education, and that the people who are best able to deliver that quality education are trained professional educators. We don't create a product that has any intrinsic value to others, but instead benefits society as a whole.

These overtly socialist beliefs present a challenge to the capitalist system we are a part of. Hence, the capitalist system doesn't know how to deal with them. A system that values winning doesn't know how to deal with a system that values equality. So winners and losers must be determined using some kind of measurement (hello standardized tests) and some kind of product must be created that others will want to buy (hello graduation rates and charter schools).

Now as my kids pointed out, under a truly socialist system, education would disappear. After all, the purpose of a modern education is to get a good job and make money (capitalism). In fact, our educational system was originally designed to support capitalism. In the beginning (mid to late 1800s), education and society was all about capitalism. Students were not treated equally (no such thing as special ed, and very low-functioning students were sent to asylums), and no secret was made of the fact that the purpose of education was to get a better job and make more money.

As the Cold War began to dissipate in the 1970s and the hippie generation of the 1960s grew up, education became increasingly socialist, while our society became increasingly capitalist. In the last 40 years, we have seen a dramatic shift in educational policy to emphasize equity and access in public education, while at the same time we have shifted as a society to pay ever greater homage to the wealthy and most elite among us. Students today are raised in an educational system that places a high value on equity, but they live in a society that places a high value on winning.

I don't really know if there is an solution to this dilemna, other than to say that I firmly believe that Newton's Third Law of Motion (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) applies to history as well as physics. I have to believe the pendulum will swing back and we will become less of something.

Until then, I guess I'll just do my best as an inhabitant under siege on Socialism Island.

Fight Club

A couple of weeks ago, I got a new student in my 4th period class. This, in and of itself, is not an unusual occurrence. With a 48% mobility rate, it is a rare couple of weeks when I don't have students either withdrawing or enrolling. But my 4th period is a very high maintenance class. Not in the same way as my 3rd period, but in a highly dysfunctional and moody kind of way. If 3rd period is a diva, 4th period is goth and emo. It is my second smallest class (20 kids) but one of the hardest to manage.

This new student immediately - as in, within one day - clashed with my most annoying kid. This kid, I'll call him Aaron, is immature, loud-mouthed and generally obnoxious, although deep down I kind of like him. I will freely admit that he is seriously annoying, though. His biggest issue is that he was born in Somalia, but tries to act like he grew up in E. Compton. His personality is actually like a big, slobbery puppy, but he thinks he is Wesley Snipes and Usher all rolled up into one. He is so annoying that he has to sit completely separated from every other person in class.

The new kid - I'll call him Tamomo (Momo for short) - is a large Samoan who has had attendance issues and just moved in with his aunt in an attempt to make a fresh start.

The second day that Momo was in class, Aaron and he got into a verbal sparring match over something that I can't even remember and I had to move Momo when I noticed that his fists were balled up tight and he was about to lose it. I moved him to another part of the classroom, and left Aaron where he was. Last week I had a sub, who called me after school (NEVER a good sign...) to tell me that Aaron and Momo were arguing over a DOLLAR bet that one had apparently made with the other. They wouldn't shut up, so he moved Momo even farther away. The two of them then glared at each other from across the room and refused to work until the sub actually stood between them to disrupt their vision.

At this point, I emailed both guardians, then forwarded the emails to my vice-principal with a note that said basically 'look, something is going to go down between these two kids, please be aware of it...' I also pulled both Aaron and Momo out of class on the following day (separately) and told them in no uncertain terms that whatever was going on was going to stop Right Now and they were to ignore each other in my class from this point forward.

Today, the kids were working on kind of a cool project in random groups when tension started escalating on the far side of the room where Momo and Aaron were working in separate but relatively close groups. Momo is still getting used to the rules in my classroom - including no cursing in class - and had already been talked to about that once today. A girl in Momo's group was asking him about his name, and from what I could gather in the approximately 17 nanoseconds it took this to escalate, Aaron told the girl Momo's name was actually Hoho, and then laughed about it.

Momo, who had brought a ukelele to class, picked it up by the neck and got up, cursing at Aaron. By this point I was already on my way over, telling Momo to get out in the hallway and telling Aaron, who of course was still running his mouth, to sit down and shut up. Momo continued to advance on Aaron, who got up and retreated around to the other side of the group of kids working. I ended up having to push my hands against Momo's arms to get him to stop advancing on Aaron. I sent Momo to the hallway and pinned Aaron to his chair with my death glare, then called security and went outside to get Momo's side of the story. By this point he was actually crying, which shocked me, although I think he was doing it because he was so pissed off.

Security pulled him, Aaron, and the girl down to the office, and I RE-sent the original email I had sent to the VP last week, along with a short description of what I had seen in class today. She emailed me back after school to say that Momo was assigned to In School Suspension for Friday, but that Aaron told her that he didn't do anything, and DID do exactly what I told him to do, so she just gave him a detention. She also said that Aaron was coming by to talk to me after school, which mysteriously, didn't happen (Shocking, I know).

A pretty large chunk of me is annoyed by this, while the other part is a little befuddled. I warned the kids, the parents, AND the principal last week that this was escalating into a problem. It blew up into a problem, as I had predicted (almost like I am good at my job or something!) so I removed the participants and sent them to administration, as I was supposed to do. One of those participants were able to convince my principal that I was wrong and he was right, and on Monday I will again have to be on high alert because this WILL blow up again.

Fan - freakin' - tastic.

Connecting the Dots

First of all let me say that in the last month of the National Boards process, one of the last things I want to do is teach. I am stressed out, having nightmares, frustrated and extremely cranky. This process is driving me crazy and I can't wait until it's over. But I'll save that for another post.

My chief non-National Boards frustration over the last few days has been an increasing irritation with my students' refusal to THINK. Yesterday they worked on a map of the world in 1920 (post World War I). I pulled 4 different source maps from the internet for them to use. One was a map of the Eastern Hemisphere, one of Europe, one of the Middle East, and one of Africa. They whined for 15 minutes because they were in different colors, and refused to think logically about a solution to that problem. Today they were in the computer lab working on a WWI webquest. One of the pages they looked at was a chart that laid out WWI deaths. In one column it showed the percentage of casualties for each country. I asked students to tell me the percentage that were NOT casualties. Most students asked for help or skipped that question entirely.

In addition, the kids will not read anything, from directions to textbooks. In the computer lab today, the directions asked them to find and analyze certain propaganda posters on a World War I website. In every class, various students claimed they couldn't find the posters, so I made them read the directions to me. In every case, students had not finished reading the directions. In some cases, they quit mid-sentence. I asked one kid to read the directions to me today and he read 4 words and stopped. So I said, "no, read the ENTIRE thing." He read 10 words and stopped (about halfway through), and then tried to do the wrong thing on the computer. I made him stop and finish reading the entire sentence and he got mad at me. So...I walked away.

The kids will not read to find information and they will not connect the dots between related ideas. I am so frustrated. Clark and I talked about this after school today and I feel better that his kids are doing the same thing, but it still is so unbelievably frustrating. I strongly feel that at the (more than) halfway point of their eleventh year of school, they should be able to do these relatively simple tasks. What is the most frustrating to me is that I know that they HAVE the skills to do it, but they WON'T do it, and I can't figure out how to motivate them.

I want this year to be over.

Straws that Break Teacher's Backs

The week of mid-winter break should be a glorious interlude in the school year...the halfway point between September and late (very late...stupid snow days) June. Instead, late February turns into the low point of the year. Teacher despair hits an all-time low and this year there is more despair than usual.

There is, of course, all the problems in Wisconsin. And the proposal in Detroit. And teacher cuts in Texas.

In addition, I have been working on my national board certification, which involves approximately 57 billion words written in a specific format proving that I am, in fact, a good teacher and haven't irreparably harmed generations of teenagers, whom everyone is counting on to Save America, because the Kids Are Our Future. It's been a rough week, and while I am not exactly where I want to be, I am close.

I was talking to a teacher friend last night, a fantastic, committed, professional who has been at our school for quite a while. She told me that she is considering putting in a request to move to to a different school in our district. I asked why, and she said that she felt like she needed to take a break from the kids. The kids at my school are needy. They require a complex formula of hand-holding, coaxing, pushing, punishing, manipulating, and love that should be the job of their parents, but is in fact often up to us, their teachers. This formula is even more demanding for us. As an example, while compiling evidence for my national boards, I realized that in my 6th period, a class with 22 kids, I have 4 kids who read at the 2nd grade level, and 4 kids that read at the college level, and the class average is a low 7th grade level. How do I give them 10th grade instruction when their reading skills are so low? It's hard.

I've often wondered what would happen to my teaching if I wasn't a spinster, if I had a husband and kids...or even just a boyfriend. Teaching where I do is unbelievably demanding. It requires constant focus and effort and doesn't leave much room for a personal life. It's why teachers in low-income schools burn out so fast. Teachers in my situation don't leave because they get better offers from other districts. They leave because they're mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. My co-teacher Clark arrives at school by 6:15 am and doesn't usually leave until 5:00 or 5:30 pm. I often spend my weekends grading papers instead of going out with friends and I spend my summers in classes and rewriting curriculum.

For now, I'm committed. But it's hard to stay so sometimes.

Today

I hate Valentine's Day for lots of reasons, but being a teacher, Valentine's Day is first on my list of Worst Holidays Ever In the History of Time. Hormonal teenagers, mylar balloons, chocolate, and Mondays make for a lethal combination...and it very nearly was for many of my kids today. For some reason they were just endlessly annoying today, so much so that I left school as soon as I was legally allowed to do so today, instead of staying as late as I normally do.

However.

The kids are working on the last week of a project that we do every year on the Congo. It is based on the Choices program from Brown University, although we have tweaked it slightly every year and added several things. The kids start by reading a pretty substantial packet of information about King Leopold II of Belgium, who had control of the Congo for about 20 years from 1885 to about 1905ish. He was cruel and greedy, and horrible things happened, which you can easily google. The kids then hold a debate in which they try to decide what Great Britain should have done in response. This is based on a real debate that was held in the British Parliament in June of 1904.

The debate is one of my favorite activities each year because the kids get really involved in it. This year I had two girls almost come to blows over something that happened 107 years ago. The debates are great. But Clark and I have added a few other things as well. For example, the kids also research what is happening in the Congo today and make a decision about what they think the biggest problem facing the Congo is today. They use websites like change.org, globalissues.org, and cia.gov to do their own research.

The research is what we did today, and while I was unreasonably annoyed with life today, I was also very impressed with several of my classes who I heard saying things like "why don't we hear about this in the news?" and "wait....the CIA site doesn't mention these rapes as being an issue in the Congo. Why not?"

This point of the year is when my sophomores start growing up. They finally get over that immaturity bubble that has plagued them since they were born, and start becoming adults, and it is on projects like this that I can finally see that happening.

Not in third period of course, they spent their time talking about basketball.

Dear Deb

I got this comment on a previous post and I wanted to respond to Deb here.
Here is her original comment:
***************************************
I think you might be an answer to my prayer!

I am a Canadian Grade 3 teacher and it sounds like our educational systems have similar ideals and similar budget problems. I have an unmedicated (diagnosed) ADHD student in my classroom of 18. Most days I feel that I have had little sucess in meeting his educational needs and those of the rest of the class and that he has had great success (though unpremeditated) in causing me to question my abilities as a teacher.

Recently I attended a meeting held at the end of a long and challenging day with no breaks either at recess or lunch and was presented with a list of 13 suggestions as to how I might ensure my ADHD student's success at school. This list had been drawn up by my Administration and a Board "expert" who did not speak to me or my student and did not do a classroom observation.

My response after listening to the others' comments on the list was a respectful and despairing "I can't". What I have done to date is implement an Individual Program Plan, set up and carry out a system of one-on-one (positive) time with the Principal and spend countless moments throughout the day explaining, reasoning, reinforcing and praising my student to the best of my ability.

Can I trust your graph? Will I move into a rejuvenation phase shortly?

My next step is attending a follow-up meeting with my Union Rep included (standard procedure, not my idea) with a view to establishing where we go from here.

I would appreciate any further wisdom you might have - even that you understand has lifted my spirits.

Deb
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And my response:
 
Dear Deb;
I don't know who you are but it sounds as if you might be a first year teacher? I am approaching this as if you are, or at least have not been teaching long. First of all, I do firmly believe that graph is true. I found it several years ago, and I think I have posted it more than once on this blog. It holds as true for me now as it did when I was a newbie myself. Every year I hit those depths of despair in November, every year I debate doing something else with my life, even though I KNOW this is my gift, and every year I climb back out and by the end of the year things look so much brighter.
 
Secondly, in nine years of teaching I have always had that One Kid, and that One Class that drive me up a wall and make me count the days until the end of the school year. Some years I have had Those Twelve Kids, but those years are few and far between, thank God. Each year you will have kids that will challenge you and make you grow in ways you never knew that you could and do things that they never taught you to do in college. I can almost guarantee that you will not appreciate that fact until that kid is out of your classroom, however, but the next time you get a kid sort of like that, it will go better, you will recognize those danger signs faster, you will intervene sooner, and while the problem may not improve, you will never be as frustrated by this particular issue as you are right now.
 
Thirdly, dealing with administration is a bit of a crapshoot. You never know quite what you are going to get. I have been extremely blessed in that I have an administrative team that have their feet firmly grounded in reality, but I know that is not the case in many schools and districts. As a new teacher, you can expect to be closely scrutinized and monitored, and in some cases this is a good thing. In your case, it sounds like you are being told what to do by an outside "expert." I think that the best thing you can do is the equivalent of nod and smile. Do try any reasonable suggestion, but oftentimes you know your students better than an adminstrator does. Try what they say if you can, and if it doesn't work, you can say that you tried. I would also suggest asking your adminstrator to observe your classroom for a set amount of time. Give them things to look for, or simply ask them to watch that one kid and give you suggestions. Ask for them to observe you for at least half an hour, and try to get them to come in the afternoon, or whenever your student hits the worst part of their day.
 
Which brings me to the next issue - the actual behavior that is driving you up a wall. Without knowing a lot of the particulars, it seems like you are doing what you can. I have never taught elementary school, and I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to have that child in your classroom all day. I can get rid of my problem child after 55 minutes. The only suggestions I can make without knowing the situation would be:

• Make friends with the Special Education department (I am assuming the kid is sped?). Ask for help. Set up a meeting with just you and someone from that department that you respect or like or you have heard good things about. Set the meeting for a few days from now and keep paper with you to write down questions that you have. Be specific. Describe a situation that happened in your room that got out of hand and ask how to address it.
• If you don't have a mentor teacher, find one. If there is more than one 3rd grade teacher at your school, find one that can help you...preferably one with several years of experience (like more than 5-6). If there is no one else that teaches 3rd grade, go find the 2nd grade teacher that had this student last year. Ask that teacher what they did, did it work, and what they would suggest.
• I am assuming you have talked, or tried to talk, to the parents already. If not, try to talk to them, face to face if you can. Keep detailed notes of what is happening and ask them for help and suggestions that you could use. If you can, email weekly or even daily reports of both positive and negative things that happened. You might have to look for the positive, but even saying "Bobby stayed focused for 5 minutes today during social studies" can be a positive thing if he's never done it before.
• Again, I am not an elementary teacher, but you could put together some kind of behavior plan for the kid? Like a behavior chart or something that he could earn, or lose, privileges or rewards based on very specific goals.

I don't really know how to help, other than to say it DOES get better, and no matter what it seems like, time does not ever stop, slow down, or go backwards. Assuming you are on roughly the same schedule as we are, you are halfway through this year. Every day that kid is in your classroom, you are one step closer to him not being in your classroom. =) If you want some encouragement, read some of the posts from this blog during the 2008-2009 school year---a year that you could not pay me enough money to repeat.

Malaise and Apathy
Major Malfunction
Class Clowns - the Scary Kind
This is Going to be a Whiny Post
Tappity Tappity Tap Snap
Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Bloodshed
Raisin Hell

And finally, good luck. You can do this!
Sincerely, Miss Dark Side

Excruciating Doesn't Begin to Describe It

We spent three weeks working on a paper, the kids had everything scaffolded, wrote the paragraphs ahead of time, organized and laid things out in an outline, and spent a week writing a rough draft, editing, and typing a 2 page paper. These are some samples of what I am reading - typed exacty as I got them, and the picture on the left is a pretty good example of what their papers look like when I am done with them.

"There are many negative results of the protestant reformation for Africa (what? I have no idea what she is talking about...we did not mention the PR in relation to Africa even once.). The increase in the global trade was bad for the Africa. One reason it was bad was because their population went down. If their was disease and hard labnor Europe put them thru then their population is likely to decreases."

"Also there were many more results and a conclusion that you can conclude but this is what I thought was most important."

"Throughout parts of the global trade mark there were many good things they benefited from and also a whole other half that was not so beneficial in other words they were bad." (this was an OPENING sentence, one of 5 sentences that she typed in a 55 minute period)

"A positive result of Islamic reformation was Arabia Somali is created (second time I have gotten that term so far...they are corrupting Saudi Arabia). This was a positive outcome for Muslims because if samalic Arabia was created. Then Islam's can establish homes for them self's." (It makes me want to claw my own eyes out, seriously.)

"When I was In preschool I went to toddler tech and had to leave because my two cousins got kicked out for two much bad behaving." (students were taught - by both myself AND their language arts teachers this year AND last year - how to write an introductory hook. This one A) had nothing to do with change, and B) was the 4th sentence into the essay, falling smack dab into the middle of a paragraph about global trade. I cried.)
I'm not even done with one class. It gives me a headache to read these papers. I keep debating with myself if I should just let some things go,  but seriously, how are they going to get better if I don't tell them how to improve? But it takes FOREVER to grade these.

Despair and Frustration

There is a cycle of teaching that happens every year. You start out excited, motivated and enthusiastic. Then the kids come in and you remember that where you left off last year is NOT where you are starting this year and things go downhill from there. According to the chart above, I am right on track. I usually follow this chart pretty closely, despite the fact that while I have a dark sense of humor, I do tend to stay pretty positive about most things. But this year I am lower than usual.

While most of my angst is tied to the usual suspects - too much grading, not enough time, endless re-teaching, lazy students, paperwork, issues with special education and so on - this year it is a bit worse. This year I am working towards my National Board Certification. It is a long and difficult process, but an amazing reflective tool. I've been working hard, but one of the things motivating me was the incentive program in Washington state. Here, becoming a National Board Certified Teacher results in a yearly stipend that while not large, is quite helpful living here in one of the most expensive cities in the US. Especially since on the other side of the scale is the fact that Washington teachers rank at #42 on the pay scale. There are only 8 states where teachers make less than I do, and I teach in one of the most educated cities in the United States.

But all that changed in November, when voters here refused to pass any new taxes, and repealed several existing taxes. On the one hand, I totally understand. The government (and not just here in Washington) is far too used to spending what they think they MIGHT get rather than what they actually have, and the only way to stop that is to take away what they have. But on the other hand, those taxes pay for social services - and not just education. Taxes pay for health care for kids who can't afford it, social services for the elderly and mentally and physically challenged, drug intervention programs, parks, public transportation, and hundreds of other services that help everyone. Today, Governor Gregoire proposed a budget that makes $3.31 billion in cuts, and almost 1/3 of those cuts are from education. Here is an excerpt from the article:

The biggest reductions are seen in K-12 education, through both the suspension of teacher pay and class size Initiatives 728 and 732, as well as a 10 percent reduction to a state scholarship and student outreach program. Combined, they save the state $2.2 billion over the next two years. Also missing is $600 million that would have gone into additional spending on public education, the first phase of a multiyear plan that was dictated under a bill passed during the legislative session earlier this year. Gregoire also suggests a 6.2 percent reduction in levy equalization payments, which help K-12 school districts that have lower levels of property-tax support.

I'm not really angry so much as frustrated. I'm frustrated that people who have never been part of the public education system, or who haven't been part of it since they graduated from high school, are presuming to tell me that they know better than I do how to do my job. I'm frustrated by politicians who can't get along and who are so divided along party lines that they make decisions that go contrary to everything they truly believe in, simply because they vote with their party instead of the people they were elected to represent. I am frustrated that money has become such a driving motivation in our society that the most valued and respected individuals are people like Bill Gates; a man who is probably perfectly nice but is respected and valued for his money, not his beliefs or even his actions. I'm frustrated that no one talks about the elephant in the educational room; the fact that kids whose parents do not care about or support their education have a much more difficult time in school - no matter WHO their teacher is. I'm frustrated that no one recognizes that the charter schools that do work tend to require parent involvement and can both admit and expel students based on rules that no public school could get away with. I'm frustrated that the myth that teachers are overpaid and underworked STILL floats around today....I saw it this morning in the comments on the article linked above.

Yesterday I had an IEP meeting for a student in my 2nd period. IEPs, for those of you reading the blog who aren't teachers and are still reading (Hi dad!), is short for Individual Education Plans and are put in place for Special Education students. They are supposed to set individual learning goals for students dealing with issues like ADHD, dyslexia and other learning disabilities, or physical issues that prevent them from being able to do what is expected from other students. It's one of the beauties of the American public education system....our firm belief that all students can learn, that all students can be successful, and that all kids should be allowed to come to school for free. We do what it takes to make that happen.

The meeting yesterday was for a student I'll call Levi, who is unmedicated ADHD, and has ADHD so severely that he is almost unable to function. Having ADHD is like being on that old game show where you tried to catch money flying around a plastic box you were standing in. It was almost impossible to catch any of the money, and what you did catch was almost as impossible to hang on to. That is what an ADHD kid's brain is like. The money is the thoughts. They try desperately to catch those thoughts flying around their brain and it's really hard. If they do catch a thought, they can't hang on to it. The higher the fan is turned up, the harder it is to catch those thoughts. Medication turns the fan down, makes the thoughts slower and easier to  catch, and easier to hang on to. Levi's dad doesn't believe he has ADHD and refuses to medicate him. In his words, "well, I was a little hyper when I was a freshman, and I grew out of it."

Levi's condition is so severe that he literally cannot do work unless a teacher is standing next to him pointing at the question. If someone does that, he can read and answer the question, but then has no capability to move on to the next step. He does not have the capability to work independently. Levi is in one of my smaller classes, but there are 24 kids in that class.The only way I can give him the one on one attention that he needs is to devote all my time and attention to just him and completely ignore the other 23 kids, including another high needs special ed kid. One solution is to put Levi in a different special education history class. But so much money has been cut from education, specifically from programs for struggling learners like special education and English Language Learners, that there is no money to do that.

I do not believe that money is the solution to the problems in education. However, I do believe that this is one case where more money would directly benefit my students. I want Levi to succeed. But it is not going to happen in my classroom. I hate myself for accepting that, but have no idea what to do, since the fact of the matter is that Levi does not have supportive parents, does not have access to a doctor that would deal with his medical issues, and does not live in an area where money is spent on special education services. And those points bring us back to the cuts that were made in the budget. Every cut will directly affect Levi.

All of this is the reason for my frustration, despair, and general malaise. I know things will get better, but it would be nice if something good happened soon.

Direct Quotes from 3rd Period

The assignment? Working as a group of 4, read a paragraph of information about the Islamic Empire in one of four different areas (Spain, Turkey, West Africa or India) and fill in a chart. The twist? The answers didn't leap off the page and slap them across the face.

This is what I heard:

Kid - "I don't understand this reading"
Me - "It has literally been 30 seconds since you got the assignment, so I know you haven't actually read it."
Kid - "Well, I don't get it."
Me - "What exactly do you not understand?"
Kid - "All of it"
Me - "I don't know how to address that issue. I explained the assignment, the questions, and the instructions, so I don't know how to help you until you tell me what you don't understand."
Kid - "Where do I find the answers?"
Me - "In the reading."
Kid - "Where?"
Me - "In the reading"
Kid - "But where in the reading?"
Me - silence, then after a moment in which I have been counting to ten and praying for patience....."In. The. Reading. Go talk to your group and figure it out."
Kid goes back to her group and says, "She won't help me! I guess I'm just going to fail!"

A few minutes later.....

A different kid:
Kid - "This doesn't make sense because you cut the paragraphs apart. Can we have one that isn't cut apart?"
Me - "no, you can figure it out if you talk to the other people in your group."
Kid - "Can we have one that isn't cut apart?"
Me - looking at him slightly askance, wondering if he has a previously unnoticed hearing problem..."No."
Kid - "Can we have one that isn't cut apart?"
Me - seriously annoyed at this point...."No"
Kid - "Can we have one that isn't cut apart?" (you think I am making this up, sadly, I'm not)
Me - "No. Go back to your seat."

Ten minutes later....
(Different) kid, after the third day in a row of behaving like a 3rd grader (complaining, whining, hitting another student (flirting), tripping the same other student, talking constantly, trying to use her phone during class, etc), said "shut up" to another student on the other side of the classroom, who said "shut up" back to her louder. I lost it, told them both to knock it off, and they were both dangerously close to being referred for bullying. Female kid pouted for a couple of minutes, then asked to use the bathroom.
I asked if she had a pass (they get two per quarter)
she said no, so I said no.
She then asked to blow her nose.
Um, I'm not as dumb as I look, so NO.
She asked to get a drink.
I looked at her, shook my head, and said, "seriously?"
She asked to go to the office.
I said no.
She asked again, so I called the principal and asked if it was ok to send her down.
Principal said yes, so I wrote her a pass and she left, still pouting.

2 minutes later, the OTHER kid involved in the above incident comes up to my desk. Talking on top of the other kid standing there asking me a legitimate question about the assignment, he said
"Why did you talk to my coach yesterday? You know I am not the only one that talks in class and you told him that I was the only one talking!"
(side bar here....I talked to the basketball coach about two of the kids in that class yesterday. One of them cleaned up his act today and did great, this one of course denied that anything was his fault and thought I was picking on him...)
I looked at him with the you-are-approaching-the-precipice look and said
"that is not what I told your coach."
He continued to rant, I continued to restate the same phrase, until he finally went away.

5 minutes later, he gets called down to the office by the same principal, and I am left frazzled, annoyed, and on the verge of tears from sheer frustration. Of course, none of those parents have emails, so I have to actually call them, which in my case is not a good thing. I am much better on email than in person, as I have time to think about what I am saying and reword things repeatedly to get them right.

This third period class is obnoxious, rude, disrespectful, and annoying and on top of all that, they act like bullies sometimes. Sigh. Thank God, my afternoon classes are wonderful, so I end the day on a positive note every day. Otherwise, this year would be close to unbearable.

Oh and PS...we got new phones two days ago that are run through the computers (Why? I have no idea...I guess if the system crashes they want us all to be completely marooned). When I got to school yesterday, the right button on my mouse no longer worked. The only thing that had changed was the phone. Isn't it great when technology makes your life easier?

Trouble in Paradise

If you are a teacher, you know how this works. Every year, you have that One Kid. Or that One Class. That kid or that class that drives you crazy. The class that no matter what you do, makes you want to cry in frustration or punch your fist in the wall. And usually, it isn't so much the class itself as a whole as it is 2 or 3 (or 4 or 5) kids in that class that make your life completely miserable.

I thought that I still deserved a pretty good year after the hell of 2 years ago, but apparently not. This year my third period makes me absolutely insane. I exert a huge amount of mental focus attempting to control that class and keep them in line and at the end of class I am completely exhausted. There are about 5 kids in there that make life miserable for the rest of the kids and for me and I don't really know what to do about it. Of the five, there are two that are by far the worst and of those two, I think I could control one of them if I didn't have the other one.

For the most part, the kids in that class are pretty good, and overall I really like my classes, but in third period, the one that gives me the most problems is a girl I'll call Daisy. Daisy is completely self-centered, to the point that she is totally unaware of the existence of any other person except herself. In addition, she feels the need to talk incessantly and loudly about topics that she knows little to nothing about. Here's an example:

We were talking about India, and one of the students said, "I heard that in India people don't take showers, is that true?" Before I could say anything, Daisy says (loudly), "Ew! That is so disgusting! Those people are weird!" (My poor little Indian girl in the back looks completely mortified...) I said, "No, not weird, just different. Remember that half the people in that country have no running water, so it is hard for them to take showers." Daisy looks at me with the little attitude-y head bob and says, "You can say whatever you want, but it is still gross and weird, and I can say it if I want to."

Seriously? What do I do with that? She is disrespectful and obnoxious, and today went so badly that I asked my third period for their exit slip to tell me what I could do to make third period go better, and 26 of the thirty kids put down that class would go better if I made the other 4 shut up. The other four? Put down that I should "let them talk more."

This is me....praying for patience.

Year 8

Today was the last day of year 8 of my teaching career. This has been a good year overall (professionally, anyway). The kids I had this year were fantastic and I had very few discipline problems. They actively participated in class for the most part, and were generally friendly and polite.

However, as I contemplated grades, things started looking less rosy. I have a higher failure rate at this school than I did in Texas - and my belief is that it is at least partly due to the extremely high transient rate at my school here in Washington. I had a new student transfer in at the beginning of June. I have had 2-3 drops and 2-3 additions per period PER QUARTER, and that has been the norm for all three years I have taught at this school. It is extremely hard to pick up your classes when you are constantly moving around and I know that is part of the reason for the increase in the failure rate.

The final number of kids failing my class this year was 6 or 7 per class period, with the exception of my 6th period, with 15 failing. This is frustrating to me, especially as "failing" is 59% or lower. In Texas, it was 69% or lower. And of course, the 15 in my 6th period........sheesh. I have no words for that. Well, actually, I have quite a lot of words. None of them are appropriate, so I shall refrain.

Of course, as a teacher, I worry about why. Why did so many fail in 6th period? Why are so many failing overall? I feel that my class is structured to be really quite easy. Everything is done in class. Homework is only assigned once a week. There is little to no reading done outside of class (due to a shortage of books). So WHY is my failure rate so high?

I do know that part of it is attendance. The district I am in changed their attendance policy this year, due to a fear of possibly being sued (there was no ACTUAL lawsuit, they were just afraid that they might, at some point, possibly be sued...so they changed the policy...just in case). Previously, a student could accumulate up to 11 absences (including tardies, which counted as 1/3 of an absence) before losing credit for a particular class in a semester. If they accumulated more than 11, they had to appear before a committee and appeal to get credit. If they had a really good reason, and had worked to make up the work, and were passing their class despite the high number of absences, they might be able to get credit anyway. This year, there is no attendance policy in place, and it shows.

3-4 of the failures in each of my classes are kids that had more than 12 absences in my class (not including tardies), so I know that is part of the reason they are failing. But it still can't be the ENTIRE reason. After all, that only accounts for half of my failures, except for that pesky 6th period, where it only accounted for 1/5 of the failures.

So I went back over my grades. With the exception of 1 or 2 kids who have other issues, the biggest reason for my failures is that my kids are not doing their homework. I am certainly not going to cut back on assigning homework, since I feel that we really assign so little as it is, and we work really hard to make sure that homework is targeted towards a very specific skill or concept. We are going to be doing more reading at home next year, but how do I get them to DO their homework? Grades don't seem to be a working motivator.

So....I'll be starting my summer with this problem rolling around in my head. And of course, I would welcome any suggestions from teachers that have had this problem and have managed to improve your passing rate.

The Business of Schools

I am privileged to eat lunch daily with an amazing group of people consisting of the majority of the language arts and social studies departments at my school. There are about 10 of us that consistently eat lunch together and while lunchtime topics vary (the Bachelor is a weekly discussion - although not from me - and we've been known to have heated discussions regarding proper grammer or what was on NPR on the way to school that morning) the discussion today naturally focused on the Rhode Island Central Falls High School, where most of the teachers and administration (88 total staff) were fired quite publicly by the school board.

This topic has been discussed enough in other places online, so I will not go into it here, except to say that there is probably quite a lot that is not being reported and that this move was part of a federal program that I think has extremely negative possibilities, called the Race to the Top.

However, as part of that lunchtime discussion, one of the other lunch people mentioned an article written by a Seattle teacher named Kathy Saxon. I don't know Ms. Saxon, but after reading the article, which I've linked to below, I'd certainly like to. She seems to know what she's talking about and says it articulately and exactly the way I'd like to say it. Let me state first that I am not opposed to changing the way I teach. I want to grow as a teacher and I want to be better at my job. I am very much aware of the fact that there are bad teachers, just as there are bad employees in ANY field and I fully support getting rid of those teachers, especially in high-need districts.

However, one of the things that seems to have been a target of the federal government lately is the idea that if a student is not successful, it is totally the fault of the teachers. Let's do some math, shall we? I only see my kids for 50 minutes a day, for 181 days TOTAL, if they are at school every day. That means I directly influence them for 9,050 minutes at the most. By the time they reach me (around age 16), they have been alive for approximately 8.5 million minutes - and shockingly, most of those minutes do not take place in a school environment. It's almost as if things like hunger, poverty, abuse and dysfunction have negatively impacted them.

I know that there are many people that have managed to bring themselves out of horrendous homelives, and become successful, but there's a reason that those people make the news when they do so. It is rare. Just like out of the millions of aspiring athletes and artists, it's rare to be an professional athlete or musician. There is a reason that low-performing schools are located in low-income areas. It's not the schools creating the low income, it's the low income areas creating the schools.

I know from personal experience that working in a low-income area is hard. It's much more difficult than working in a higher income area. The easy way out is to quit. To go to a school where the kids don't cuss you out for bumping into them in the hallway, where there aren't metal detectors at the door, and where most of the kids speak English. Teachers that stay in those low-income areas are generally speaking extremely dedicated, and incredibly invested in the success of their students. The stories I hear break my heart on a regular basis. I have multiple students that have spent time in jail, and I only teach sophomores. When there is a news story about a drive-by shooting or a gang murder, I know that the chances are better than good that one of my kids knows the people involved or was personally involved themselves. These are my kids. I teach here because I want to, and not because I'm lazy.

In her article, Kathy Saxon is talking specifically about merit pay, but I feel that it applies to so many topics in education. I can't directly quote her since I don't have her permission, but I would strongly encourage you to read the article. It is short but extremely well written and perfectly sums up why so many teachers are resistant to the programs being proposed at the federal level.

Go here to read the article

The Unwelcome and Unloved

I have been struggling to write lately...the Thing that has been happening in our family consumes my thoughts a lot and is providing a fairly solid writer's block that is proving difficult to get past. In addition, compared to last year's class, this year's sophomores are fantastic. I don't really have the caliber of stories that I did last year. And I am NOT complaining about that, just saying that I don't have as much blog fodder or angst to get rid of as I did last year.

Speaking of last year's sophomores, I have some returners...(insert very tiny and completely fake cheer here), including one of my 5 Annoyances from last year's Infamous 6th period. When I saw his name on my roll, I have to admit I got a knot in my stomach. He is enrolled in my 6th period again, and while I do like this 6th period about 87% better than last year's 6th period, it is still my most challenging class of the day. I had high hopes, since the word from his US history teacher was that he had grown up a little bit. But within 30 minutes of being in my class, he was already one warning away from being kicked out.

When I have a kid like this, I doubt my abilities as a teacher. I have a tenuous hold on that class as it is and while he deserves as good an education as the next kid, at what point does his disrupton become unfair to the rest of the class? At what point am I "justified" in having him removed? Does that point ever arrive? And why is it that some kids have the ability to make me doubt my abilities?

I will freely admit that I am carrying some baggage from last year with this particular kid, but I am trying to give him a fair chance, while still cutting him off at the pass. I want him to know that I am not going to put up with what he did in my class last year. So....we'll see.

We're halfway through the school year!