H-town Teaching

Today I welcomed a group of incoming 6th graders to my school. I’m teaching a two week math and science camp and after a year of hormones from my middle schoolers who are high-school aged (I had a 17 year old in the 8th grade…), I find 5th graders cute and refreshing. These kids called me ma’am, and they raised their hand, and when I said “if you can hear the sound of my voice clap once!” EVERYONE clapped. I taught them my coordinate plane song and they totally sang it. No complaints. Poor things, they were so scared that when I cracked several of my lame jokes they were too afraid to laugh. And then I gave them permission. And then they sort of did. OK, maybe I’m just not that funny….

Now I don’t use the word precious lightly, but something extremely precious happened today during camp. We were discussing math vocabulary with the kids, and asking if anyone knew the definitions of certain words. We’d already reviewed data, analyze, vertical and horizontal, average, and a few others. It came time to discuss central tendency, and the first word up was “mean.” This kid, who’d been quite all morning, got a huge smile on his face and his hand shot up. “Yes A, what is the definition of the word mean?” He assertively responded with “It means unpleasant!” He’s totally right, mean is another word for unpleasant. Correcting him was kind of heartbreaking…”Actually, in math it’s another word for the average.” Poor thing, he looked so defeated!

Anywho…

Well, this post is two weeks after the fact but I finished my first year of teaching! I made it without strangling M or S, and my superstar G rocked the TAKS test for the first time in her life. Last year she failed by 18 questions, and this year she passed with flying colors. Sheltering benefits students like G–hard working but extremely shy. In the sheltered ESL environment she was engaged, she asked for help, and was surrounded by a community that celebrated her victories as opposed to ignoring them. It breaks my heart that I won’t be teaching ESL math and science next year because I could really be so much more effective with students like G next year, and even with my little crazies like M and S. But I admitted to my administration that I desperately didn’t want to teach science anymore, just math, and they said I would have to move to the general population instead. So I got what I wanted, sort of. Now I’ll have just 7th graders in each class, instead of of 6th-8th, and I’ll have just one subject. Of course I’ll have double the amount of students, and double the pressure during TAKS time. But I think I’m ready for it and I’m excited about next year!

I’m going to spend the summer relaxing and traveling, and mentally preparing for an amazing second year. It could be my last teaching, so I have to go out with a bang. And who knows, maybe it’s just the start of a very long career (oh my…). Either way, I won’t be posting till the Fall so have a wonderful summer.

Here’s a new memory for my imaginary first year of teaching treasure chest: a fellow teacher called me unpatriotic today! I was so wrong in assuming that the patriotic police ceased to exit when Bush left office. But I digress…

We were having a planning meeting for the school assembly, and a teacher suggested cutting out the pledge since the kids already say it in the morning.The Patriot, as I will call her, laughed and said “We’re not doing that! Not saying the pledge at an assembly is just unpatriotic.” I couldn’t help it…I laughed and shook my head. They mostly ignored me, as they usually do (which is why I’ve gotten away with dozing through the last two planning meetings), and the meeting continued. And as I listened to my colleagues try and figure out how to shorten the assembly, I brought up the cutting out the pledge idea again…and again The Patriot laughed and refused. I don’t know what came over me but I shared that I personally don’t say the pledge in my class, although I ask my students to stand and allow them to chose on their own if they would like to say the pledge.  I personally don’t believe in blindly pledging my allegiance to anything other than my family (and only on their non-crazy days), and I definitely don’t think the word “under god” has any place in a school building (separation of church and state anyone?).

The Patriot went crazy! She scrunched up her nose and nasally yelled “that sounds terrorist!” And then she went on a long-winded and unnecessarily loud tirade about people moving to Canada or back to South America if they didn’t want to follow our customs…no one invited them. It was unclear if she was referring to a specific them, an “everyone and their mom” them, or just me. And I couldn’t tell if she was joking. If it was a joke, it was lame.

Ridiculous.

Now that the test that shall no longer be named is over, my kids love me again. They were all really into drawing me pictures this week. And now I’m running out of room in my class to post their masterpieces. It’s adorable. And the project I have them working on, in which they’re planning their own international vacation, is going so well! They have no idea how much they’re working (comparing prices, creating pie charts, calculating percents and using proportions), because they’re having so much fun. The kids have really taken ownership of the cities they’re visiting, and they walk into class yelling “my plane ticket to Beijing is WAY MORE EXPENSIVE than your plane ticket to Paris!” And one will yell back “YEAH? Well my hotel is more expensive and I get to eat escargot!” It’s refreshing to hear them getting so excited about class, as opposed to who looks sexiest that morning (me, obviously, with my purple pants).

A happier girl you could not find right now, really.

The idea of going through another TAKS season is vomit-inducing. I went running for the first time in three months yesterday, and it was a nice way to celebrate the end of a very stressful and unhealthy period in my life (candy drawer, I am locking you!). And today I started my first long-term project with the kids–they’re planning their own international vacation and using their fancy math skills to budget and plan the trip. THEY LOVE IT. They had no idea what continent Barcelona was in, and asked if Tokyo was in North America. Oh, achievement gap, you rascal.

I only have two sleepless Sunday nights ahead of me, and I have an entire Summer just waiting around the corner. I’ll be teaching a Summer Bridge class to incoming sixth graders for two weeks, and in July I’m going to Israel on TFA’s tab (I’m travelling with 40 other corps members to study the education system!). And hopefully I’ll be able to finish the stack of books on my nightstand and catch up on current events (swine flu, anyone?).  I’m so exhausted, but at least I had a good school year. I don’t know if I have it in me to continue teaching after my two year committment, but I can imagine that life as a seasoned second year corps member is a lot more doable than this year has been. We’ll see.

Everything I’ve worked toward this year comes down to this upcoming week. All of my students are taking the TAKS test. I spent most of March and April in a frenzied panic, cramming information down my kids throat and drilling the hell out of them, but at this point I’m finally calm. I know I did everything in my power to help those kids do well. And now I’m lifting that responsibility off of my own shoulders and putting it on them. And they’re going to do well, I can feel it!

So seeing as March and April were intense, this past Friday I decided to change things up a bit. I had my classes drop everything and spend 45 minutes writing down one nice thing about everyone else in the ESL program. I called it a “community-building” activity. At first the kids seemed annoyed, but then they started taking it very seriously (which I know because it was dead-quiet in my room…a miracle!). They wrote the nicest things about eachother! Granted, there were a lot of “ur sexy” comments, but they also tried to find the best in one another. One student was obviously in a similie/metaphor phase on Friday because she wrote one for every person, including me: “MISS, you are like a flower. Beautiful” So sweet. Other students wrote that I was strict, but nice and “thanks for keeping me on track.” I’ll be compiling all these comments today and handing them out individually to each student tomorrow, so they have a great big confidence boost before their round of testing starts on Tuesday.

I received my 8th grade math TAKS scores this past week as well. Out of my 8 students who took it, 3 passed and 3 failed by two questions. There is a re-take for the non-passers in May, and I know those 3 will pass it next time giving me a total of 75% of my 8th graders passing which is big in ESL land. I wish those 3 would have come through on the first round of testing, but for some it was already a huge leap. E, for example, only got 16 questions on the TAKS test correct last year and he got 28 correct this time (you need 30 right to pass).  This is HUGE. M, my favorite student who’s only been in the country for one year and a half, failed by 4 questions which is AMAZING because…well…she can barely speak English. She had a raw score last year of about 11 questions correct and got and 26 right this time. I know she has a great shot at passing next month, she works sooooo hard to analyze those word problems.

Cross your fingers, guys. The fruits of our labors will be seen soon enough. And I’m finally calm and ready for them.

Let’s be honest, the real reason I like teaching is my ridiculous interactions with the kids. A few highlights from the last week:

-S having a conversation with the characters in the book “Muppetts Go to Manhattan” during Drop Everything and Read time: “No Miss Piggy, don’t eat that.” and “Kermit, what are you doing in Manhattan?” And the other students just sat and watched him, transfixed. This conversation with the book went on for about 10 minutes. I was seriously almost crying I was laughing so hard, partly because the dialogue was hilarious and partly because of the serious and somber mood from the rest of the class.

-I was anonymously nominated for “Most Inspirational Teacher”. I’m not bragging–only 4 students submitted my name, and one of those who did listed the reason as “because my boyfriend’s in her class.” Brilliant.

-The students told me they’d heard Third Ward, the neighborhood our school is in, would be swallowed up by Midtown (and renamed as such). I joked that the name change would bring all the white people (Midtown has become one of the most gentrified neighborhoods in town). The entire class screamed “NOOOOOOOOOO!” Being the resident white person in the room, I feigned shock and offense. G, representing the class, let me know “MISS, you’re not white. You’re an honorary Mexican!”

- And to keep going with the identity theme, Student Council told me I was hood. This is kind of a big deal.

-Lastly, I am officially the teacher that sings (poorly, but I sign nonetheless). And by default, my class is composed of the students that sing (math songs, duh). And every week I get new converts from students in other classes that I tutor, and to hear these once-reluctant kids singing my fractions song while quizzing is fabulous.

Oh yeah, and the kids took the TAKS today. Yuck.

My 8th graders are taking their math TAKS test next week. Gross. Yucky. I can’t wait till this is over and I’m on a cruise. I’ve never wanted to go on a cruise, it seems like a lame way to travel, but I bought a car this summer and it came with a free one. And I kind of want to drop everything, pretend I don’t have this intense job, and enjoy the buffet. But until then I’m going to suck it up, keep tutoring the kids until 6 every night (well, it sort of warms my heart that they show up), and hope that all the silly songs I’ve taught the kids about converting from fractions to decimals and percents stick!

A few weeks ago, my fellow CM and I decided to discuss sexual harassment and bullying with the kids. After our lecture, which I believed to be effective, R shouted out “I’m sorry girls for everything, the whole class is sexy! MISS, you’re sexy too!”

I don’t think he got it.

And this is not the only student calling me sexy (just so you know I’m in the running for the unofficial “teacher with the most cardigans” award…I made it up, but now everyone thinks it’s real because I keep talking about it). S has been trying really hard to get on my good side since his last dissapointing report card, and instead of improving his behavior or doing his homework he’s been saying “MISS, you are sexy today” (this must be a day I wear my purple pants and my great grandmother’s 60 year old cardigan…the most unsexy thing in my wardrobe). To be fair, they call everything and everyone sexy, including Abraham Lincoln. Oh yeah, and they refer to President Obama as “oooooh, my baby!”

Teaching middle school is extremely awkward. Ick.

April is upon us (not to mention a week of vacation next week), and I’m ready for my TAKS rant. Please ignore any praise I gave the test before, I’m taking it back. Maybe I’m a little wound up, with the test just around the corner, but how would you feel if your administration was telling you to stop doing your job and just teach the test?

Perhaps I’ve been living under a rock, somewhere in idealist lala land, but I really thought my principal and leadership team were different than the others in the district. I thought I could finish my first year of teaching confident that I’d stuck by my guns and taught only engaging, creative, and relevant lessons all year long. Instead, I’m strongly advised (as in “send me your lesson plans so we can ensure you’re doing this”) to spend more than half of each block going over TAKS problems with the class. Basically, they want me to just show the kids test questions and make them work them out while offering up test strategies if they just don’t get it.

So besides the obvious boredom of going over TAKS questions everyday for more than an hour each period, I’m frustrated about what this test is measuring. I do believe standardized testing is useful—it helps me hold my kids to a high mastery standard and it theoretically measures what my kids know at the end of the year—I don’t think the test was created so that teachers would stop what they were doing in February and teach nothing but test strategies until April. I keep hearing “X middle school, which has the same student population as our school, was recognized for the last three years…we can do it too!” When I asked a teacher from that school what his secret for 87% passing rates he just said “I dropped everything and drilled them on TAKS for 3 months. You’ll need to do that too.”

Based on this, I feel like the test is a poor indicator of student success. They could ace the TAKS test but they have no love of learning—they fail to grasp the relevance of the material they learn, it’s just a means to an end for them. So the horrible teachers, the ones who are really good at handing out worksheets and drilling kids all day long, are praised while other teachers who bust their ass creating a great classroom environment risk loosing their job because their test results may be weaker. Can you tell I’m stressed, and angry, and ready for April to be over? Who knows, maybe my kids will blow the test out of the water, I’m just frustrated that students at my school see learning as a way to pass the TAKS, not as a means to understand the world around them.

There must be a way to measure teacher effectiveness by more than just numbers. What if you could get rid of all test prep materials so students are forced to learn how to apply everything in an open-ended way, and be so ready for the test without having to swallow it down every day. What if you could measure how students’ attitude toward learning had changed, or measure self-confidence? What if you could measure student engagement, and how their study skills and organizational skills had improved immensely? But none of that will be measured. And I’m angry. And that concludes my official TAKS rant.

If you asked me to choose my favorite thing about teaching, it would definitely not be breaking up fights. But I do it. A lot.

Today it was another girl fight, my personal favorite. It happened across the hall, as the substitute teacher just stood there gawking. One of my kids was smart enough to run and alert me, but there’s no better way to get your students off-task then hearing another student yell “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!” I successfully separated the fighting girls, but struggled to re-direct my kids back to their coordinate planes. I’m sure they eventually got back to work, but I can’t remember since I spent the rest of a day in a post-fight haze.

I’m kind of a bad-ass. Just kidding, I’m actually just on the verge of a heart attack (OK, that’s a little much). I need a break. So I approached my AP today and said “I’m going to be sick tomorrow.” She just looked at me and said “Man, I wish I could be sick tomorrow too.” Believe it or not this will be the first “mental health” day I’ve ever taken. Most teachers at my school take them once a month, and by now I can understand why. This morning’s fight left me so shaken I had to sit at my desk for half an hour (which I never do, I’m always running/dancing/jumping around my class) until I could recover.

I’m counting on the fact that my “sick day” will be relaxing and refreshing.  Do I feel guilty about taking a Thursday off? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely.