mikegalla13’s Neighborhood

I decided to stop teaching Geometry on April 4th.  Starting April 5th, my students did review worksheets, watched movies, worked on projects (supposed to be learning experiences), or took meaningless, repetitive notes.  The first question in my mind while planning for periods 5-7 became “How am I going to keep them quiet and away from me?” instead of “What should they learn?” or “How can I most effectively teach this?”  I became the babysitter teacher.

Here’s a journal entry (copied, pasted, and bleeped) from April 4th about my Geometry students.  FYI, my district policy is a mandatory 80% pass rate on tests, and my Geometry classes had 28+ students in each:

They don’t work.  They don’t care.  They copy other people’s work.  They don’t study.  If I force them to do their own work, they don’t think on their own so I get driven completely f**king nuts doing and explaining everything.  If I let them work in groups, no one works; no one does anything except the really motivated people, and everyone else just copies.  They don’t learn anything, then the test scores are bad.  If tests are too bad, I have to retest.  They’ll all fail on Monday because they won’t study the study guide. Or maybe they will.

F**k this.  I’m tired.  I’m mad at myself for not teaching them today.  For saying f**k you to them.  I’m just too tired to teach Geometry anymore. I explain it on the notes and then have to explain it again and again and again.  I hate it.  There are too many kids.  There are too many kids.  There are too many.  Too many.  If my classes were half this size, I might enjoy it, but I’m just burnt out now.  I’m so f**king tired of teaching them.  I’m not going to teach them anymore.  I don’t like doing it.

I needed a vacation.  My students needed an invested teacher. I didn’t quit the position, but I did quit caring about their learning.  That is certainly failing as a teacher, and I consider it my biggest classroom failure.  But is disinvestment a sign of failing/failure under the conditions at HSHS?

I don’t think so. Even though I stopped designing stellar lessons, I still gave the students who cared the opportunity to learn.  Even though I reached my breaking point, I didn’t break.  If I had pushed myself any harder, I would’ve left HSHS altogether by April 9th.  Giving up class lessons was the only way for me to remain in the classroom and keep trying to teach someone something.  It was definitely not an ideal solution, but HSHS has never had an ideal solution for anything.

Despite everything, I’m sorry.

On August 6, 2007, the principal of S.V. Marshall High School stood in the middle of the gymnasium and introduced the new teachers -- as usual, about 1/3 of the faculty -- to the assembled students.  Four new math teachers were introduced, and the school year started with the following line-up:
    7th grade - Ms. Gordon
    8th grade - Mr. Arandt
    9th grade - Mr. Ray
    10th grade - Mr. Nastrom
    11th grade - Mr. Naklicke

When the year ended the staffing pattern of those positions looked like this:
    7th grade - Ms. Gordon / Long-term Sub / Ms. Clark
    8th grade - Mr. Arandt / Long-term Sub / Mr. Collins / Long-term Sub / Ms. Walker
    9th grade - Mr. Ray
    10th grade - Mr. Nastrom
    11th grade - Mr. Naklicke / Long-term Sub / Mr. Chisholm / Long-term Sub

Those are facts.  It's also a fact that in August 2007, 26 MTC members started as 1st-year teachers and 24 were still there on the last day of school.  To us in MTC, those numbers (92%) suck; anyone who quits in the middle of the school year is a tremendous disappointment.  But in comparison to my department last year, which had only 40% of its original teachers at the end of the year and had lost 2 mid-year hires on top of that, 24 out of 26 isn't so bad.

In light of these numbers, I marvel at the internal worry in MTC over whether we're qualified to be there or whether we have good motives or whether we do any good at all.  Now, after a year of teaching, the answers are so obvious the questions are barely worth asking.  And a year ago, when I agreed to join MTC, I really checked at the door all reason to gaze at my own navel about these things.  I signed up to do a job and that was that.

But that's just me, and I've been wrong before.  Maybe I still should be looking deeper.  Or maybe -- probably -- almost certainly, I really believe that I can do some good in a critical needs school, and self-doubt has no place in this theater of operations.

If the history books are right, Mississippi has always been a place for people willing to make big decisions in a big hurry and back them up with whatever it takes.  I suppose that's still true.

     It's strange to write a blog evaluating my teaching.   It's kind of like writing a blog analyzing my walking or my speaking, I can't be purely objective.  Plus I have too much information about it to summarize neatly-- trends, exceptions, reactions under a variety of circumstances, etc.  But, I'll give it a go.

    My most successful lesson/objective was what I called "Really Really Long Equations."  Basically it was just equations in one variable, no powers, that involved combining like terms and then solving a two-step equation: 3x +5 -29x +56 +2+2x -100=54, solve for x.  It's not exactly in the frameworks, but I wanted my students to be comfortable solving intimidating equations.  I figured these would help build my students' confidence.  My students responded pretty well!  They were proud when they solved the equations, they actually tried a lot harder than during my other lessons, and they voluntarily tutored each other!  I think this was met with success because it is a very routine procedure.  I think the intimidation factor helped a lot because getting the right answer to a mega-equation feels like more of an accomplishment than solving something with two pieces.  So, it was an easy procedure with a big payoff.  Nothing like rote processes!

    My least successful lesson/objective was proofs in geometry. Definitely.  Hands down, say it again.  Proofs.  It was so bad I just quit and moved on.  I know, the only useful thing that comes out of geometry is the ability to do proofs, but it had to go.  I made the biiiig mistake of trying that in October, when I still had 30-36 kids in every geometry class.  That was mistake #1: trying to teach critical thinking to big classes.  And, it was before I had my classroom management tightened down, so my kids were giving me "feedback" about the lessons in disrespectful and draining ways.  And I had no materials (not enough texts and no supplemental materials) or administrative support, and my class basically went into revolt if I ever tried to teach them to think.  If I had to do it again, I would've held off until the spring and then taught it veeeerry slooooowly.  I think it could've been taught to my classes, but only after my classroom was managed and I had the common sense to introduce critical thinking very slowly.  I'm still not convinced it would've worked. The top 40% would've gotten it just fine, but at least 50% of my students have been programmed to respond with hostility, anger, or disinterest whenever they are required to think.  I'm not exaggerating-- half of my students purposely disengaging the minute they sense that a task will not be strictly procedural.  I've tried to combat this all year, but I stand by my mantra: students in our schools will not learn when they are sharing the teacher with 28 other (unruly) students.

    Overall, I think I did the best I could given my inexperience and lack of administrative support.  I explained things carefully and tailored my worksheets, activities, and tests to each lesson. Next year, I want to teach the critical thinking processes.  I stuck to procedural stuff this year because of the reasons above, but I want to try that next year.  I want to have the courage to force my students to think, and the control to make them.  I will have that for next year, so I'm excited for the changes in my teaching.

Um..

So, if I had done all of the statistics that my district wanted me to do, I could just look in my files and spit out some numbers for you.  I didn't.  I'm really kind of pulling at straws for this one. 

most successful learning goal:

Grammar and mechanics, maybe?  My Do Now nearly every day was a DOL exercise, and I feel like this was pretty much the most effective method I used teaching grammar.  I could really see progress from the beginning of the year to the end.  Perhaps it was because these were fairly simple concepts to understand, unlike many of the skills I attempted to teach.  Perhaps it was because I used tickets most consistently with my DOL to encourage participation.  Maybe it was just because we did it so very often.  I'm not sure. 

least successful learning goal:

I think this was parallel structure.  Of course, it's possible that this was just the most recent failure of mine.  Who knows..  Why did it fail?  That's a very good question.  I taught it in a way that seemed to make sense, but apparently did not.  I have yet to find a successful method of teaching it..  Of course, one of my wonderful first-years is teaching it soon, so maybe she will have the key.  I'm crossing my fingers.  Ok.  Why... My students don't know enough grammar.  I didn't realize soon enough that I really needed to emphasize the basics, so I didn't get a chance to cover as much basic grammar as I would've liked.  Because they didn't have a horribly firm grasp of sentence structure at the beginning, the concept of parallel sentence structure was a real stretch. Also,  I had run low on motivation to come up with creative, exciting lessons by this time, so they weren't really that into it to begin with. 

My performance this year was lacking.  As we've said over and over, the first year is about surviving.  I survived.  Barely.  I let my students bad behaviors get under my skin and got frustrated.  I associated school with misery and frustration, so I avoided anything that had to do with it.  I dreaded lesson planning, so all of my lessons were boring, so the students hated my class, so they acted up, so I got angry, so I hated school, and so on and so forth.  It was fun! 

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.  This year, I will do better.  That's my resolution.  I will try my hardest to keep a positive attitude no matter what happens.  I will look at my long-term goals for my students.  I will work slowly, incrementally, and patiently with my students.  I will plan ahead.  I will bring creativity into my lessons.  I will not feel sorry for myself, attempting instead to focus on my students.  Lofty goals, eh?

The children of Humphreys County Junior and Senior High Schools always get an extra smile the day after Mr. Amutah takes time to partake of fried catfish at The Varsity.

080520 - Varsity

Although almost every day at Six Apart is Take Your Dog to Work Day, Friday was extra special because it was the official Take Your Dog to Work Day! Plus, as lovers of blogs and animals, we think it's great that active blogger and Human Society's President and CEO, Wayne Pacelle, thinks having dogs around the office is a good reminder of "who we're working for."

We realize some people have it ruff and aren't lucky enough to be able to bring their dog to work, but hopefully these pictures taken at Six Apart last Friday will get your tails wagging... And let me tell you, it's harder than it looks to get all the doggies and their fetching owners in one picture.

6adogs

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And Penelope Trott took Rudy for a quick spin in her wagon while Mom and Dad were hard at work

Penelope and Rudy

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There was an interesting editorial in the New York Times a few days ago about ACT test preparation in Chicago. A study came to the conclusion that test prep was taking away from class time, and NYTimes editors concluded that this was disasterous. This is a topic of great interest to me as I was given a course last year described by the counselors as "just an ACT class".

An even more interesting read is the reader response to the issue. Personally, I am in favor of test prep to a certain extent, particularly in underprivileged communities. You cannot "test prep" someone to a perfect score. I think that intelligence is still the major factor when it comes to testing well. Some might worry that too much time is spent on test prep, but if it means the difference between college or no college, graduation or no graduation, I think there should be no question. I understand the fear, but it's worth it to give everyone a (more) even playing field....

One of the reasons I find this blog hard to write is that I didn't do a very good job setting 'learning goals' for my students. I was so preoccupied with keeping my head above water all year, that I had a hard time trying to think ahead  - and create those big goals. This year I've got big aspirations; not only am I going to spend July unit planning, but I am going to create units with tangible goals -- and measure them. I'll have my freshmen take a practice SATP the first week, and then work the four competencies as rotating units in my curriculum. I plan to see some improvement in their post-test, and I'll have the data to show me what learning goals were met, and which weren't, come December.

But I didn't do that this year,  and as a result, I am a little less sure of what kinds of tangible progress my students really made. But I will take my best shot:

Most Successful
I think the learning goal where my students were the most successful, in all my classes, was definitely in the general area of reading skills. They were more comfortable readers, faster readers, and closer readers when they left my classroom. The number one reason, I believe, is that I am passionate about reading. My grammar lessons are about as fun as cement, but when I teach reading, I am bounding, cheering, pulling the students along in my excitement of the story. The days where they all laugh at me and look at one another shaking their heads, "She crazy. You crazy Ms. M". They roll their eyes, but they are enjoying it. I can't make grammar fun, I rarely make writing fun, and I often don't even make reading fun -- but I do show them how much it means to me, and how important I believe it is for them to read -- and that passion really makes a difference.
 
That passion also influences me to work harder at reading skills in general - I think about worksheet formatting, variety and pacing of worksheet questions, individual silent reading vs. reading groups, lessons on close reading and inferences, what types of texts, how much reflection, etc and so forth all the time- an amount of analyzation I would never engage in for a subject I dislike or even feel ambivalent about.

The other major reason my students' reading skills improved was the sheer volume of reading done in my class. We read a sizeable amount almost every single day. In addition to poems and short stories in all classes, my learning strategies classes read 2.5 books and a play (the .5 was their own book at the end of the year- to be finished on their own time in the summer), my English 4 kids read a long epic poem, a play and a longish novel, and my English 3 kids read a looong novel (250ish pages), and a play. It may not seem like much, but three months is not a very long time for all this, in addition to the other English skills. And I think, at a certain threshold, pure time invested makes a big difference.

Least Successful
The least successful learning goal in my room this year was probably my students' writing style. My students could spit out a 5-paragraph essay with good topic sentences and supporting details and the whole drill. No problem. But the actual sentences they were writing were, at best, bland, and at worst, horrible. Even though most of my seniors had subject-verb agreement down fairly well, and their spelling/mechanics were decent -- their sentences were canned, short, and boring. And the worst part is, I know exactly why. Without a state test looming over my head, I barely touched grammar and sentence structure except for the necessary basics. Also, I was just overwhelmed by the sheer logistics of improving so many different levels of ability for such an individualized skill. I have trouble differentiating among three big basic divisions (the talented, the mediocre, and the struggling) in my room, let alone 20 different kids with 20 different writing abilities/styles/issues. So I took the easy way out and let it slide.

This year I am going to spend more time on sentence construction - especially since I have ninth graders. We are going to practice all different "types" of sentence, making the kids construct lots and lots of them until they feel comfortable, perhaps, using a sentence that flows with multiple clauses in a paper, without prompting.

I am also going to work on that grammar thing.

I'm a repetitive coach.  I give the same piece of advice four or five times within the same 15 minute coaching session.  It might be a habit I developed from teaching 9th graders; it's probably just the way I give advice.  Honestly, I try not to repeat myself, but I'm convinced I'm coming at my advice from a more exciting angle each time it comes out.  I'm not.

I'm also a very positive and excitable coach.  I like to give my first years a lot of props, and I celebrate with them when they make significant progress.  I try to be an adaptable coach-- to work with them to find their own styles-- but I'm not as good at that.

I'm especially not good at waiting to hear what my first-years think of their own lessons.  It's been difficult for me to hold back my "your set was awesome!!" long enough to ask what parts of the lesson they felt were particularly strong or weak.  I've been trying to catch myself in this, but I've only had about 50% success. 

My coaching started as me just talking talking talking-- bestowing a whole year's worth of wisdom-- and is finally developing into (I hope) talking listening.  It should probably be listening talking listening, but I'll get there.  I've tried to focus on two or three main things each coaching session (silence is okay, you are in control, etc etc), and I think that helps to give my first years just a few things to think about for their next lessons.  I don't really have any techniques.  I try to be open, positive, and relaxed.  I try to give them opportunities to ask questions and process the lesson, but I have to take my own advice and be okay with initial silence in the coaching session for my first years to process.

I think coaching has made me more confident as a teacher.  Ms Dole 07 was exactly like her first years and had the same exact questions and insecurities.  I see now how much I've grown and that I actually did learn something this year.  Coaching has also reminded me to put the work on the students!!  I did way way too much talking and helping in the classroom this year, and advising other teachers to make the students work reminds me of how much better I could be doing.  I understand better how the temptation arises to do everything in the classroom, whether it comes to a first or second year teacher.

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, today is the summer solstice. For ancient civilizations, this day was akin to our modern day New Year's Eve and was viewed as a time to reflect and renew. So why not kick off your summer celebration with a new theme?

See all of our themes in the Design Area.

Or choose from one of  these brand-new themes. (Available under "New.")

Vox Themes June 08

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