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a brief rant

This is my blog, so occasionally, I get to rant. And you can join me: If you feel like getting really angry, then you should read this article on the "rubber room" from The New Yorker. I listened to an episode of This American Life on the same subject a few years ago. Aside from the day in and day out aspects of teaching in an urban public high school that made me want to pursue teacher reform at a policy level, the level of outrage I felt after listening to that show played a significant part as well.

I was just assigned the article as reading for my teacher policy seminar and from what I remember from This American Life, you should listen to/read both- they offer rather different and together a more rounded perspective on the whole concept of rubber rooms. Both made me spitting mad at the ludicrous difficulty of getting rid of poor teachers.

The article does, however, do an excellent job of delineating the most basic of reasons I would like to take a sledgehammer to both tenure and teachers' unions. This crazy concept that some old men in white wigs put into play a few hundred years ago comes to mind: balance of power, anyone? The list of things related to teacher pay and tenure from this article that just don't make any rational sense are myriad and all go back to that union contract protecting incompetent teachers.

And if this sparks your interest at all, the Widget Effect study the article mentions can provide some good info. Meanwhile, I'm off to scream for a little while in an attempt to ease my ire.

Labels: education, teaching

posted by CP @ 10:32 PM 3 thoughts

they got me good

But I retaliated in kind:

Last period today, I walked into my classroom and all of my students were sitting in the wrong desks. Someone did something to make sure I was aware of this fact and I told them I did not care that they were not in their correct seats. One child responded something to the effect of "I can make you care," to which I responded, "You better not do anything to make me care."

So then, I call someone's name and someone else responded, which slightly confused me, until I called another student's name and the student sitting in that student's seat responded. Then I figured out what they were doing with the name-switching thing and they carried on for the remainder of the class period, with me playing along, calling on the person they were impersonating.

Then, I asked them to get their copies of As I Lay Dying out. And they all threw them in my general vicinity (not so much at me...). So I picked them up and distributed them to their impersonators-for-the-day. This elicited a great bit of angst as many of them had not annotated the assigned pages for the day and therefore were afraid of the grade they would get. Instead of checking their annotations, I gave them a quiz: 1. What's your birthday?  2. What's your address? 3. What are your parents' names? 4. What is your class schedule? 5. Where did you go to school in 4th grade?

And they eventually conceded defeat.

Labels: teaching

posted by CP @ 3:51 PM 4 thoughts

my child

When I first started teaching at North Atlanta, there was a student in my first period class that I just could not get through to. She was late to school every day, never did her homework, and appeared very sullen. On the other hand, she was never disruptive; she just slept through class most of the time.

Something changed in the course of that semester, though, and she adopted me. She just decided that I was going to be her mentor and her champion. I've tried, but it is hard. I love this child. She has a hard life. I have cried over her and her future many times. Many times over the last three years I have wondered if she will make it to college and if she does, whether she will have the necessary basic skills to survive there.

She's an amazing kid though- she knows that the cards are stacked against her and has created an amazing network of support at North Atlanta. Most administrators eat out of her hands- thankfully, since they are constantly bailing her out of trouble. She has a sweet spirit. She gets angry, very angry, but doesn't fight. She's learned to apologize after she calms down when she is disrespectful to adults. I hope that people will surround her and love her when she gets to college. She won't make it without that.

I say when because my confidence that she will make it is growing. One more year to go. Sure, I have to sit in as her parent at parent teacher conferences. And of course, I have to schedule one at the end of every semester in order to bail out her failing grades. She can do the work, but she has no resources. I dropped her off at the public library yesterday on my way home after she had called her mom to make sure there was enough gas in the car to come pick her up. I need to go buy her summer reading books. Her track coach bought her prom dress and she was beautiful in it.

She will make it to college because she is an amazing athlete. I have often wanted to blog about her, but have not. This time, I am so proud of her that I can't refrain. She won the 800 at the state track meet with a 2:17 with a stomach virus, second in the 300m hurdles and third in the 200. Her 4x400 relay team set a state record and her 4x100 relay won second. She beat a teammate who already has a scholarship to South Carolina in the 200m.

I doubt she has any idea how proud I am of her.

Labels: teaching

posted by CP @ 9:03 PM 2 thoughts

once upon a prom

MTV took over North Atlanta for a couple of weeks recently. Somehow, we were chosen as a location this year for "Once Upon a Prom." My yearbook editor was chosen as the student to focus on and she went to prom with Bobby Valentino, a North Atlanta alum. She said he was a jerk.

I had dinner with some other members of the yearbook staff tonight and we talked about it extensively. My girls are TERRIFIED of what it's going to portray. I can't wait to see it; it's going to be HILARIOUS.

The show is airing Saturday on MTV at 2pm and again at 8.

Labels: teaching

posted by CP @ 7:54 PM 0 thoughts

on teaching

Supposedly, Monday was the most depressing day of the year, statistically. Christmas bills are due, the weather sucks, its a Monday, and most people have broken their New Years Resolutions by then. It has, in general, been a rather sucky week, though there have been bright spots.

Today capped it all off. I've been thinking recently about the way I talk about my school and the view of it that I present. While I try not to be negative about it on this blog, I've concluded that I am often very negative about it otherwise, and that what I say does little to encourage those who already have a negative view of public education. I want people to support it, but at the same time to be aware of its ugly side. Rarely am I able to strike a good balance.

A co-worker shared this op-ed from the NYTimes with me earlier this week. I have a lot of thoughts on this, but, pretty much, I've fallen into the trap of the Myth of the Great Teacher. I cannot shake my desire to save the world. This is what has led to my utter frustration.

We had a number of fights yesterday that spilled in today. I could feel the unrest among the students when I headed to my hall duty half an hour before school started. Shortly before the bell rang to start the school day, a herd of 50+ students rushed down the stairs to the cafeteria, tipping me off that there was a fight. In the chaos that ensued over the next 15-20 minutes, I noticed that a number of my generally upstanding, responsible, clear-headed students were among those rushing to see the fight.

To say the least, I was very disappointed in them. I could sense the continued unrest as they entered my class and decided to forego the lesson for a time and talk some things out. I started with having them list the reasons someone runs to a fight: entertainment, excitement, to see who's fighting, to have something to gossip about, boredom. Next I asked them to list the consequences of a fight or running to it: jail, suspension, damage to the school's reputation, injury, death. I asked them what they thought I thought about students running toward a fight: stupid, immature, irresponsible, no moral fiber, lacking self-control. Yes, I said, I did think all those things. I challenged them to think through it and decide whether or not the consequences they had listed were worth the reasons they ran to the fight, plus their damaged reputation in my eyes.

We had some real honesty and sharing. I know that my students respect me, every last one of them, and they know that I love them and respect them as well, every last one of them. They were able to voice their frustration with the administration and suggest real, viable suggestions for improving safety at school. We also discussed what they, as the leaders of the school, could do to help change the culture of the school.

In two classes out of three, I think that some mental cogs started turning, thinking seriously about their individual responsibility outside of merely the school environment and the impact of their words on others. I was impressed with their thoughtful remarks and candid assessment of our culture. The third class, after a food-fight in the cafeteria, only saddened and frustrated me. A number of students expressed their gloomy thought that there was little point in trying to change anything in our society because things have always been bad and always will be.
Students from different cultural backgrounds expressed diametrically opposed views on a matter and no one could get past how they just didn't understand where the other was coming from, with no attempt to understand the other position. Not a good note to end an already bad day on.

It was altogether harrowing and I climbed into my car empty and on the verge of tears, which I quickly succumbed to. Driving home, I got caught at the light at the corner of Freedom Parkway and Boulevard, staring at the giant metal outline of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I was overwhelmed again by the contrast between his ideals and sacrificial death and my students' lack of understanding of any of those concepts. Very few of them could even begin to fathom that someone would not fight back if hit, that there was any reason related to the greater good of society for which someone would submit to personal injury, even to the point of death.

Labels: teaching

posted by CP @ 6:48 PM 2 thoughts

classroom managment 101

All you have to do is pretend like you've lost your voice. Then they have to be really, really quiet to hear anything you have to say. Of course, this creates a rather dour atmosphere in the classroom with no energy or enthusiasm for learning.

It does however make the "I'm so disappointed in you; when are you going to learn that you actually have to put some effort in to succeed" speech even more dramatic when spoken in soft, low tones, every ear straining to hear what you have to say.

But on the other hand, when you aren't just pretending, it kinda sucks.

Labels: teaching

posted by CP @ 5:50 PM 3 thoughts