Kontan.

Archive for the ‘Ramblings’ Category

Yeah right. I’m counting. Spring is springing and I’m looking forward to break. The mental energy that goes in to teaching is so much more than most understand. As the days get longer it becomes increasingly difficult to get students to focus…and to stay focused and motivated. We are all tired and ready for the semester to be over.

Many of my students are settling down and indicating that they want to learn. They see the correlation between negative behavior and a poor average. Tempers are short, and this includes mine. I shouldn’t have, but I asked a student today why he was here if he was only going to disrupt everyone. I really do wonder, but I really shouldn’t say it. Really, he’s 18 years old and repeating the 9th grade…again. Don’t you want something more for yourself?

The girl I referenced in this post realized that she has to have my class to graduate in May. She works hard and had apparently had a bad day when she blew up at me. She still hasn’t apologized. I would hate to know my future rested in the hands of a teacher that I cussed out. I would never deliberately fail her and I intend to help her pass, but I think she needs to realize that you have to treat people with respect even when you are having a bad day. If you throw a temper tantrum in the workplace you are looking at more than a day off for bad behavior.

I have a 20 year old student from Cambodia. Intelligent, quiet, and I would take a room full of him. I don’t know why he is 20 and in high school, but he tries hard and is striving for something better. He was scared to death the first day in my room, but he is opening up more. I just wish I could understand when he speaks. I don’t want to ask him to repeat things over and over, but his accent is so heavy and he is so shy. I have another student who has not spoken a word. I assume he speaks English since he understands everything I say, scores well on tests, and writes English. I have never heard his voice. He won’t answer if I ask a question that requires more than a nod or shake. Hey, there are too many other issues to worry about for me to pick this battle. He is doing everything he is supposed to and showing progress so I am not going to worry about whether or not he’s talking. One less voice in a difficult room.

Thanks for stopping by and hello to the lurker out toward Albemarle area. I have to say, you have me curious.

Blog-buddies, I am reading, just not commenting much. Have a happy…

Tomorrow is Monday. woo.

Jem had a friend FB this:
Don’t you find it Funny that after Monday[M] and Tuesday[T], the rest of the week says WTF?

Yeah, I can see it.

It’s been a LONG week. Monday was Monday all day, and Tuesday 10th graders had the writing test. I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to not have to administer so I got to babysit for three hours. The other teacher couldn’t get his video equipment to work so we combined our classes to have just under 40 students in a room. Only about 10 were actually ours. Let’s just say using Castaway for concepts of scarcity and opportunity cost was not the best idea ever…at least not with that many. It was a totally lost concept on most. Now, I must say. My students were not disruptive and I am so very proud of them. So Tuesday was wasted if a student did not have the writing exam.

Wednesday it was explained to me just how much of a B* I was. The student has grossly underestimated my capabilities. I let her rant and then asked if she was done. She wasn’t. When she finally finished I contacted security. I didn’t want to prematurely have her removed. Besides, I needed enough time to write down the full string of profanity she unleashed. They don’t do much to them, but at least I didn’t have to deal with her Thursday. She is a graduating senior and will ask for my help before the year is out. It will be at that point that I will remind her of what she thinks of me. I will help her, but it won’t be nearly as easy as it could be. I don’t want to see anyone fail, but I do believe there are lessons to be learned in school that are totally unrelated to the academic content. One is don’t hack off your superiors.

Thursday was a blur with a hilarious tornado drill and Teach For America visionaries who will one day change the world by joining inner city schools for two years. Yeah, it’s a great way to get your student loans paid. I’d do it. I’m doing it now and will still have my student loans when I’m done. It just doesn’t seem right.

Today we did group activities involving various planning and budgeting. For the most part it was a good day. Still glad that I do not have to rise at 5 AM tomorrow.

My Gran’s b’day. She would be 88. There isn’t a day that goes by that something in my life does not remind me of her. I would do anything for just one more moment, but that moment would be pain and struggle for her. She no longer suffers, and for that I am thankful.

1922-1997

Typical Monday, all day. Running late, out of gas and had to stop on the way, then when I got there the entrance was blocked and I had to go around where I then found the doors to be locked. Admin, if you are going to make a HUGE deal about us being there at 0′dark-thirty then would you PLEASE not make it more difficult for us to get into the little office and scan our fingerprint? Is that too much to ask? Guess admin was too busy sending out an email of important “infromation” (seriously, that was the title). I’m told it is not the first time that Dr. Admin has done this. I do not claim to be perfect. Shoot, if you have read here at all you have seen grammar and spelling errors, with terrible punctuation. This is my sanity purge, I’m not overly concerned about proofing before I post. However, I try to do better if I am sending to a professional audience. Ah well, it offered amusement.

As much as I rant and rave, readers should know that I do not hate my job. I am merely disheartened at the direction education is taking and the day to day frustrations the classroom brings. There are bright spots, I promise.

I’m sitting here enjoying my Saturday morning computer time and feeling really defeated. My students are failing. Did you notice that I didn’t say some of my students are failing? Let me break it down for you. Myast test analysis shows the class average is 30%. THIRTY FREAKIN PERCENT! How? I just keep telling myself, “you do not suck as a teacher.” Last year my pass rate was 100% for the state test and 97% for class. Yes, I taught a different group of kids, but those are darn good numbers no matter what you teach and I am NOT an easy teacher. At previous schools with similar demographics to my current my test scores would be around 72-85% and a greater than 70% pass rate. I think my worst failure rate ever was 29% and that was my first year teaching freshman. With the district seriously considering pay for performance I have to admit, there is GREAT fear. My salary is going to be dependent on a hormonal teen that cares not about me or school?

I’ve returned to traditional education and love the actual teaching and feel that I am making a difference. I get the test scores and just want to quit. I’m going to be judged by these scores? Evaluated. Ranked. Failed.

I’ve been browsing the net and ran across a blogger that gives me a little hope. Teachers At Risk is written by a blogger at an at-risk school. She shares great advice and strategies, clarifying that most she learned the hard way. Don’t we all? It is encouraging because so much that I am reading there is what I am doing. I don’t know why it isn’t working in my new school, but I am determined to find out.

I think part of my problem is that I came to this school and chose to conform. Educationally speaking I am a non-conformist. I integrate the non-traditional with the traditional and do my own thing in order to get the job done. This has worked for me. Now I am part of a team that expects a level of conformity. We have common planning, share information, and give the same tests on the same schedule. It is very new for me and I am going to say, not working. I have to stop trying to teach like they do and do it like I know…using my own materials. We just did a two week project that was supposed to serve as a review. My students were not ready for a review, they needed reteaching. (This is a year long class – think introduction semester 1 then depth semester 2.) They hadn’t had the material since the beginning of last semester and struggled with the project. There’s two weeks I will never get back, and their grades on the post-test were awful. I did not teach these students last semester, but will be held accountable for them this semester. It is very difficult for me to avoid focusing on that as an excuse.

I don’t know what to do, but I know it is not what I have been doing.

Today started out like any other, a rush to school and ready to start the day. I was well planned and ready, but still had one more thing to copy before students came in. At ten minutes before 7 AM we find out that our classes will not be in our rooms due to the icy walkway and we will meet all classes of my subject in the auditorium. Oh. Joy. Crap. I have a cut/paste foldable activity planned and we were on the second day. Mad dash to neighbor’s room and ask for whatever he had that would serve as a back up if my foldable attempt crashed and burned. Gather, copy for us both, grab 5 textbooks b/c we do not have enough to issue all students their own, and rush to my new destination. I really need to provide breakfast for my 1st period. They gathered in the same location that we used last time and every one of them was seated and waiting for instruction. This was a TOTALLY different class from Monday. Monday I could have throttled all of them and not felt bad about it. I asked them to make the best of a bad situation and accomplish as much as possible. I gave them their materials from yesterday and we managed to at least look like something was being accomplished. They spread into what would normally be the sound area and some stayed in their seats, all exchanging information and asking me when they couldn’t come up with anything from their peers. All this while six other classes were conducting class in the same auditorium. I’m really proud of them. Tomorrow we will see how much information they retained, but I am very happy that they were so cooperative and at least looked busy while me department chair was in and out. He even commented on it. I must say, of the six classes, his AP students were the worst and least busy, probably b/c he wasn’t in there much…just sayin’.

Fortunately we were able to return to our rooms for the rest of the day. I didn’t have anything that my last two classes could have done.

It seems to me that it would have made sense to prepare for the ice situation since we have known this winter storm was on its way and the prediction was for 4-5 inches of snow. Granted, we didn’t receive even a good dusting of snow, but the ice on the boardwalk was still slushy from the day before when snow did fall hard. All the snow on the ground melted, but the boardwalk is elevated enough that it was colder…I guess.

Whatever. I’ve learned to just go with it.

Where did the week go? On Tuesday I was distraught that it was ONLY Tuesday and it felt like Thursday. Next time I think about it we are facing Friday! My year long students started projects Wednesday. They work SO well with markers, colored pencils, and colored paper. It is a new method of teaching for me, and I almost like it. However, I fear that they are not absorbing the material. I hope so. The semester class is my own, and I use them to gauge my effectiveness. Their second test is tomorrow and I am hoping for good things. Progress report grades for all class were horrific. They can’t seem to understand the concept that incomplete work, absences, and a low test score is a recipe for failure. I must say, they are all about the group work and poster board.

It has been a really good week, but I am glad to see the weekend. Sometime within the next 90 days I will find out if I make the cut. Apparently schools are facing even great budget woes this year and the “best” way to save money is to cut teachers. Teacher’s do not make up even 50% of the work force in this district, so why should they be the one’s facing the largest cuts? There are admins making 6x more than I am. A recent news article stated that findings indicate a higher degree does not equate to a better classroom teacher. Yeah, a higher degree doesn’t equate to better school leadership either, but a higher degree in my field does give me a greater knowledge base in my subject and this can translate into the classroom. If I suck as a teacher before the higher degree I will likely not improve with it, but don’t use that degree classification as an excuse to add MA level teachers to the cut list. We all know it is b/c you have to pay them more and you want to cut out the MA grant money for teachers.

I understand that cuts have to be made. I also understand that I am low man on the totem. I certainly hope that I am actually evaluated before a decision is made and I also hope that it is an honest evaluation. As of right now I have never met the school principal, and my immediate supervisor speaks only in passing b/c it can’t be avoided. My colleagues are a different story. They have been extremely helpful and welcoming. They are also lobbying for me to stay.

It will be curious to see how this story plays out…

I just spent the last three hours grading papers. The correlation between work completed and passing students is amazing. Really, all you have to do is complete the assignment and I will give you classwork credit. I grade for accuracy on quizzes and tests, and you can usually use your notes on quizzes. People, it ain’t that hard. I am very proud of several. Their tests are awful, but they are making an effort. That is something I can work with.

Each day is a little better, and some days are better than others. I’m almost to a point where I am not playing catch up. Catch up…not a fun game.

There is a very narrow line that divides for teachers the allowable rantings that fall under freedom of speech.  Apparently one’s personal FB page is off limits. 

an eighth-grade teacher wrote on her Facebook page that it was a “hate crime” that students left a Bible on her desk and how she “was able to shame her kids” over the incident. Her Facebook page included comments from friends saying that the parents of Hussain’s students were “bigoted, stupid and uncaring.”

I’m not supporting blasting your students on FB, but it does irk me that teachers have to be so guarded with what they say.  I try to be careful here and not reveal where I teach, or anything that would give away personal information of students and other faculty.  Since I consider this my little sanity journal, that line is sometimes a little blurry.  Given that this teacher taught 8th grade she REALLY shouldn’t have said anything, but I have to wonder about the proper way to address the situation.  I don’t think shaming them is it.  Even if one uses this as a teachable moment, are they crossing a line?  Does a teacher have to put up with harassment from students?  I know of a teacher that has experienced similar situations in her high school classroom with students speaking to her, proselytizing, and emailing her.  Some went as far as condemning her for eternity.  That’s an invasion into the personal I think.  She handled it well, even though it was very upsetting for her to face this issue on a regular basis.

I find this article disturbing. My role as a teacher is understood, and I chose it. I struggle with the diminishing liberty that goes along with the job. Setting a good example is one thing, but not being able to express your thoughts outside the classroom is another.