Looking over my last few posts, I realized something: I haven't been talking about my kids much lately. It's easy to get bogged down in the paperwork and bureaucracy and in your own teaching. But in the end, all of that is in place not to drive you crazy, though it may, but to help your kids.
So, before I go outside and enjoy the Saturday sun, a few words about my students.
1. They're making progress. Those who have stayed, and who do their work every day instead of sleeping, are really showing improvement. Are they all going to get A's? No - because they aren't all doing all their work, and even those who are are not all mastering everything, and in the ends, that's what grades should reflect. Are they all ready for the next grade? It's harsh, but most of them, by state standards and by my own, are not even ready for the grade they just finished. But that's what we're here for, and that's what they're working on. They're getting closer, and most important of all, they know that. They don't know it as well as they should, and that's something I need to work on as a teacher. Teenagers are a funny group. In a lot of ways they're still kids, but they definitely think they're too cool for learning. Yet show them that they're making progress, and watch how hard they have to fight to keep a smile off their ultra-cool faces. Then, the next day, watch how much harder they are willing to work.
2. They crack me up. Seriously. And they're angels. On a behavioral scale of 1-10, with 1 being a pod-child genetically engineered for behavioral perfection and 10 being Damien, spawn of the dark underlord, the worst I've seen in my classroom is probably about a 3. Our main problems are with talking out of turn, a bit of inappropriate language, and sleeping. That's another thing I need to work on: while I'm getting pretty good at managing the first two, I'm not so great at making sure everyone's paying attention at all times. I've caught myself, more than once, waking up a student twice, and then, seeing their head down a third time, thinking, "Fine. I tried." It's a terrible feeling, and I need to make sure that even if I have that thought, my actions don't reflect it.
3. They're amazing students. Not just in the sense that they're making progress, but in the sense that by and large, they care about their education. Now that they're more comfortable with me, they're starting to do things like pull me aside and have me explain things over again until they understand them. They approach us when they have jobs that prevent them from doing their homework and ask us for modified deadlines. They check to make sure they're doing things right. This is maybe the most heartening thing of all for me as a teacher. While it is my job to check that they are understanding, I'm trying to teach them that it's their job, too. They are adults, and they should care about these things and be actively involved in their own education. While it would theoretically feel great if 100% of my students told me that they all understood something the first time, it would probably mean they were lying to me or overestimating their own understanding, and it feels even better when one or two raise their hands, wait to be called on, and ask me a clarifying question.
4. I do not want to leave them. I know, this one's about me. But it's true. A lot of us are feeling this way, realizing that we have just five days left with this group of amazing human beings, and things are just starting to happen. What if we had just one more week with them? What if we had a whole year? What could we accomplish then? Would Claudia and Alma perfect their verb tenses? Would Vashawn's grammar start to catch up with his amazing talent for descriptive detail and rhetoric? Could Terry start to believe that he's not stupid, and feel confident enough to write more than three sentences at a stretch? Would Pebbles ever be comfortable enough in the classroom to even say hello to me, like she does in the hallways? Might Anthony start believing that he could go to college after all? We all know that we'll have an amazing new group of students to work with very shortly, and that we will have them for an entire year, long enough to move beyond this beginning, getting-to-know-you stage. But that doesn't make it any easier to walk away, when they ask you with either a pleading voice or an accusing stare, why you have to leave. It doesn't make it easier to walk away from the rest, either, the ones who never started to warm up to you, who still don't care about or don't believe in the possibility of their education. In a year, you wonder, could you start to change their minds?
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Friday, July 29, 2005
meltdown.
Today was the hardest day I've had since I got here - but not the way you'd think. I was up late last night putting together a test that probably shouldn't have been my responsibility and a couple of lesson plans, including today's, but it all came together. Along with my teammate Heather, I co-led two great, productive review sessions. My class was bouncing off the walls by the time I got there to teach, as they had just finished the test and it was the last hour of a warm, sunny Friday, but I had changed my lesson plans to reflect their energy, and we got through a noisy but productive session on descriptive writing. I sighed my way through the irritating "week in review" quiz, and along with my working group heard yesterday's terrifying rumors of a weapon on campus confirmed. It was a lot to deal with in one day, but I got through it, and I was still smiling. And then I went to the campus meeting.
The campus meeting is how we end every Friday, all 150-odd of us in our high school's gym. We call it the pep rally, as it's usually intended to make sure we end our exhausting weeks on an inspirational note. We'd all rather just go home half an hour earlier, but it's been made pretty clear that this is not going to happen, so we deal with it. Today, though, is the last Friday before closing ceremonies, and our high school has a reputation to uphold. Last year we entered closing ceremonies with a choreographed step that blew all the other schools' little chants out of the water. This year, the other schools are kicking things up a notch, and in the grand tradition of escalation, so too must we. At today's meeting, then, we were all supposed to learn this very complicated, but unarguably cool-looking step, which one of the advisors had put together. She and the other advisors led, and we were to follow. What could be simpler?
Something you might not know about me: I get anxiety. Bad anxiety. It doesn't come out in the classroom, thank God, or when I'm giving a speech or meeting new people, though these things of course make me nervous. It comes out at odd times, like when I have to cold-call someone I've never spoken to before, or when I have to approach a store employee with a question, or when I have to learn something entirely new, like driving. But mostly, it comes out when I'm in front of a big group of people, and someone asks me to do something I don't know how to do. It doesn't matter if those other people can't do it either, or if it's normal to take awhile to learn. The feeling takes over, regardless of logic. I don't know if you've felt anxiety before, but for me, it's just blind, irrational terror, flooding my brain, seeping into all the cracks, filling up the places where logic should be.
I sometimes tell people stories about when I was five and taking swimming lessons, because in all honesty the stories can be pretty funny: how I used to refuse to even put my face in the water, how I couldn't jump in even when someone was standing there in the shallow end waiting to catch me, or how I would try to hide in the dressing rooms and refuse to come out. But today I remembered what it was like to be that little girl, terrified of something horrible that I couldn't even name, something that clearly was not going to happen yet left me petrified anyway, to feel that icy hand closing around my insides. As a five-year-old, you can't articulate that, and people think you're just trying to get out of what you're doing, and force you into the water anyway. Today, I tried to shove it down inside, and just try the stupid steps. I got about 30 seconds into it before the thoughts going through my head were, "I can't do this." "I'll just skip closing ceremonies." "They can just put me on probation if they need to." I honest to God had the thought that they could kick me out of The Program over this, and that I didn't care. It's scary to have these thoughts. They're so irrational, so overly dramatic for the situation, and you recognize that, but you can't control them. All you want to do is run away and never come back.
The scariest part of it, for me, was that my advisor came over to my group, and when I told her I couldn't do it, that I'd just skip closing, the look on her face was like the one my mom had when I begged her to let me stay home from the pool on my sixth birthday. It said, For God's sake, just try it. It won't kill you. Stop overreacting. And, as I loved my mom, I respect my advisor immensely. She's more or less responsible for every bit of growth I've had as a teacher. So I tried again. And again, about two moves in, it was all I could do to keep from vomiting or running out of the buliding.
In the end I sat it out. My working group politely ignored my nonparticipation, and after it was all over, I went to my advisor and explained my situation. As soon as I opened my mouth, the tears started. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I don't know why I feel like this. I don't know why I can't do this. It is so simple. I know I can learn. I just can't. I feel awful about it; my poor advisor didn't see it coming, and she was so gracious and apologetic and insisted that, no matter what, I would walk in with the team, because it's not the team without me. She understood, and she was so upset that she didn't know, or see it on my face. So I don't have to learn the step. But this does not make me feel any better.
There's irony to be had here, if you're looking. I've been such a rock through this whole experience, shaking off my worse days in the classroom, refusing to be upset about anything I can learn from instead, taking on more than my share of responsibility in my classroom, and having those late-night heart-to-hearts with really emotional people wondering if the Program is really for them. I don't think it's too boastful to say that I've been really strong through everything the last month has thrown at me. But today, faced with this stupid step, I just broke down. I feel horrible inside, like you do after a stomach flu, when everything aches. I'm intellectually over it, but still, I can't stop crying. I hate it that I can't just work through this.
The campus meeting is how we end every Friday, all 150-odd of us in our high school's gym. We call it the pep rally, as it's usually intended to make sure we end our exhausting weeks on an inspirational note. We'd all rather just go home half an hour earlier, but it's been made pretty clear that this is not going to happen, so we deal with it. Today, though, is the last Friday before closing ceremonies, and our high school has a reputation to uphold. Last year we entered closing ceremonies with a choreographed step that blew all the other schools' little chants out of the water. This year, the other schools are kicking things up a notch, and in the grand tradition of escalation, so too must we. At today's meeting, then, we were all supposed to learn this very complicated, but unarguably cool-looking step, which one of the advisors had put together. She and the other advisors led, and we were to follow. What could be simpler?
Something you might not know about me: I get anxiety. Bad anxiety. It doesn't come out in the classroom, thank God, or when I'm giving a speech or meeting new people, though these things of course make me nervous. It comes out at odd times, like when I have to cold-call someone I've never spoken to before, or when I have to approach a store employee with a question, or when I have to learn something entirely new, like driving. But mostly, it comes out when I'm in front of a big group of people, and someone asks me to do something I don't know how to do. It doesn't matter if those other people can't do it either, or if it's normal to take awhile to learn. The feeling takes over, regardless of logic. I don't know if you've felt anxiety before, but for me, it's just blind, irrational terror, flooding my brain, seeping into all the cracks, filling up the places where logic should be.
I sometimes tell people stories about when I was five and taking swimming lessons, because in all honesty the stories can be pretty funny: how I used to refuse to even put my face in the water, how I couldn't jump in even when someone was standing there in the shallow end waiting to catch me, or how I would try to hide in the dressing rooms and refuse to come out. But today I remembered what it was like to be that little girl, terrified of something horrible that I couldn't even name, something that clearly was not going to happen yet left me petrified anyway, to feel that icy hand closing around my insides. As a five-year-old, you can't articulate that, and people think you're just trying to get out of what you're doing, and force you into the water anyway. Today, I tried to shove it down inside, and just try the stupid steps. I got about 30 seconds into it before the thoughts going through my head were, "I can't do this." "I'll just skip closing ceremonies." "They can just put me on probation if they need to." I honest to God had the thought that they could kick me out of The Program over this, and that I didn't care. It's scary to have these thoughts. They're so irrational, so overly dramatic for the situation, and you recognize that, but you can't control them. All you want to do is run away and never come back.
The scariest part of it, for me, was that my advisor came over to my group, and when I told her I couldn't do it, that I'd just skip closing, the look on her face was like the one my mom had when I begged her to let me stay home from the pool on my sixth birthday. It said, For God's sake, just try it. It won't kill you. Stop overreacting. And, as I loved my mom, I respect my advisor immensely. She's more or less responsible for every bit of growth I've had as a teacher. So I tried again. And again, about two moves in, it was all I could do to keep from vomiting or running out of the buliding.
In the end I sat it out. My working group politely ignored my nonparticipation, and after it was all over, I went to my advisor and explained my situation. As soon as I opened my mouth, the tears started. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I don't know why I feel like this. I don't know why I can't do this. It is so simple. I know I can learn. I just can't. I feel awful about it; my poor advisor didn't see it coming, and she was so gracious and apologetic and insisted that, no matter what, I would walk in with the team, because it's not the team without me. She understood, and she was so upset that she didn't know, or see it on my face. So I don't have to learn the step. But this does not make me feel any better.
There's irony to be had here, if you're looking. I've been such a rock through this whole experience, shaking off my worse days in the classroom, refusing to be upset about anything I can learn from instead, taking on more than my share of responsibility in my classroom, and having those late-night heart-to-hearts with really emotional people wondering if the Program is really for them. I don't think it's too boastful to say that I've been really strong through everything the last month has thrown at me. But today, faced with this stupid step, I just broke down. I feel horrible inside, like you do after a stomach flu, when everything aches. I'm intellectually over it, but still, I can't stop crying. I hate it that I can't just work through this.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
you have got to be kidding me
Today: Frustration Post!
Normally, things at my high school are pretty smooth sailing. Things get done, you know where you're supposed to be, and you more or less know who to talk to if you have a problem. Today, though, I am pretty miffed at the relationship between my school and The Program. It's just a mess. Three lovely examples, all from the last eight hours, of incredibly poor communication between the two:
First off, last Friday we were all "offered the chance" to buy t-shirts from my high school, meaning that we pretty much had to. Fortunately, the t-shirts were awesome: a yellow/black on baby-blue vintage athletic design that I would have picked up off a store shelf in a heartbeat, and all for the low low price of $8. Great, I said, and all weekend I collected singles and a five so that I would have exact change, and first thing Monday morning I walked in and pre-paid for my shirt. I was about the eighth person on the list, and I ordered a small. The t-shirts got here today...but they were not the same t-shirts. They looked like boring, rejected $3 Old Navy t-shirts. No style whatsoever. The Program told us that there were no L or XL in the cool shirts, and only about half enough S and M, but that they made sure that everyone in our group got the same shirt! Wasn't that great of them? How they didn't check what they had in stock before they told 200 of us to buy shirts, and then didn't respect the time-honored process of first come, first served?
That is offense number one.
Now, I marched right back to the office and returned this t-shirt, as I did not give them $8 to give me something that I did not ask for and will never in a million years wear. As it turns out, it doesn't especially matter that I returned this t-shirt, because the intention was to have us all wear them this Friday when we did our big community service project. Last Friday (at the very same meeting where they promised us the awesome t-shirts,) when they told us about this project and had us brainstorm things we could do for the school and its surrounding community, we assumed that this had been run by the school. Not the case. So today - which is Wednesday, for those keeping score - we got this memo saying that Oh, we ran the whole "community service" thing by the principal, and he's dead-set against it. So, sorry that we went about the whole thing backwards and wasted everyone's Friday afternoon and will now be wasting another one. Except without the "sorry" part.
That is offense number two.
Then, midway through the afternoon, we found out that preliminary final grades are due first thing Monday morning. The Program says they only found out this morning. So now we are all scrambling to change our deadlines and make this work for the kids without undermining what we've been saying or killing ourselves with grading.
You would think that's the kind of thing The Program would have asked, now wouldn't you.
So, three strikes, and all in one day.
On another, slightly less bitter note: the lovely Miss Amelie, formerly of the BLing department and now of the prestigious South Dakota corps, has suggested that The Program has more or less pre-printed its feedback forms to say "Wow! So positive and assertive!" I hold that this is in no way the case. We have some effed-up teachers at my school. They're getting better, but they're also getting walked over. Please refer to yesterday's post for a running comment-debate.
Also, my feedback is awesome, and I do not completely suck at this. Just in case that was in some way unclear.
Normally, things at my high school are pretty smooth sailing. Things get done, you know where you're supposed to be, and you more or less know who to talk to if you have a problem. Today, though, I am pretty miffed at the relationship between my school and The Program. It's just a mess. Three lovely examples, all from the last eight hours, of incredibly poor communication between the two:
First off, last Friday we were all "offered the chance" to buy t-shirts from my high school, meaning that we pretty much had to. Fortunately, the t-shirts were awesome: a yellow/black on baby-blue vintage athletic design that I would have picked up off a store shelf in a heartbeat, and all for the low low price of $8. Great, I said, and all weekend I collected singles and a five so that I would have exact change, and first thing Monday morning I walked in and pre-paid for my shirt. I was about the eighth person on the list, and I ordered a small. The t-shirts got here today...but they were not the same t-shirts. They looked like boring, rejected $3 Old Navy t-shirts. No style whatsoever. The Program told us that there were no L or XL in the cool shirts, and only about half enough S and M, but that they made sure that everyone in our group got the same shirt! Wasn't that great of them? How they didn't check what they had in stock before they told 200 of us to buy shirts, and then didn't respect the time-honored process of first come, first served?
That is offense number one.
Now, I marched right back to the office and returned this t-shirt, as I did not give them $8 to give me something that I did not ask for and will never in a million years wear. As it turns out, it doesn't especially matter that I returned this t-shirt, because the intention was to have us all wear them this Friday when we did our big community service project. Last Friday (at the very same meeting where they promised us the awesome t-shirts,) when they told us about this project and had us brainstorm things we could do for the school and its surrounding community, we assumed that this had been run by the school. Not the case. So today - which is Wednesday, for those keeping score - we got this memo saying that Oh, we ran the whole "community service" thing by the principal, and he's dead-set against it. So, sorry that we went about the whole thing backwards and wasted everyone's Friday afternoon and will now be wasting another one. Except without the "sorry" part.
That is offense number two.
Then, midway through the afternoon, we found out that preliminary final grades are due first thing Monday morning. The Program says they only found out this morning. So now we are all scrambling to change our deadlines and make this work for the kids without undermining what we've been saying or killing ourselves with grading.
You would think that's the kind of thing The Program would have asked, now wouldn't you.
So, three strikes, and all in one day.
On another, slightly less bitter note: the lovely Miss Amelie, formerly of the BLing department and now of the prestigious South Dakota corps, has suggested that The Program has more or less pre-printed its feedback forms to say "Wow! So positive and assertive!" I hold that this is in no way the case. We have some effed-up teachers at my school. They're getting better, but they're also getting walked over. Please refer to yesterday's post for a running comment-debate.
Also, my feedback is awesome, and I do not completely suck at this. Just in case that was in some way unclear.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
let's talk feedback
I've been teaching for over 2 weeks now. It's high time I let you all know how it's going.
The first thing you should know is that the only reason I'm updating at all is that I'm not teaching tomorrow. Generally I teach one half-period per day - about one hour - on my own, plus co-teaching two half-hour literacy sessions. This week is scheduled differently. We still have the literacy responsibility, but each day M-Th is assigned to a different teacher. Today was my day - two full classes, a total of four hours. I'm pretty drained, especially after an intense 2.5-hour diversity session, an English teacher team meeting, and a pretty serious talk with one of my collab members, so I decided to skip workshops and come up here to blog a bit. The "detox" playlist is getting aired for the first time since I stayed up all night writing my credentialing essays. Thank God for Sleater-Kinney.
That being said: teaching today was a lot like teaching any other day, in the sense that every minute I spend with my kids, I feel like I learn more than I did in an entire semester at Berkeley. Today I learned: how not to approach a long and difficult text, how important during-reading activities like text coding are, and, excitingly, what it feels like to be stonewalled by your students. That sounds like all kinds of bad, but it really wasn't. We got through the lesson. We made some good connections and laid a solid foundation for the week's big essay. I made some real mental adjustments per how much talking and sleeping I'm going to deal with in the future, as in beginning tomorrow. I irritated the hell out of my kids by repeating the homework over and over, and I'm OK with that, if it means it gets done. And my kids still do not hate me. Not that it really matters, but it feels nice.
One big stress today was the sheer amount of observation going on. Probably because of my classroom's location, I often go a whole period with no observers. Today I had six, up to three of them at one time: my advisor, another (particularly hostile) advisor, and our literacy specialist, all of whom I respect deeply. Stressful as it was, I have to say that constant and varied feedback has been one of the best things about my institute experience. It's an immediate check, letting you know what's working and what you can change, starting the very next day.
A little about my feedback. The single comment I receive most frequently - and actually from every single person who's ever observed me - is that I have a really positive, assertive tone with my classes, and that there seems to be a culture of mutual respect in place (alternatively described as "a great/natural/confident classroom manner.") It's nice to know that that attitude of respect and positivity is coming through, because it's something I strive for, and that means my kids either see or feel it too. The negative (or "delta," meaning "growth area" in touchy-feely Programspeak) feedback I get varies from day to day, and person to person, which is a really good thing. It means that I'm not making the same mistakes every day, that I'm advancing enough to make fun new mistakes, and that there aren't errors so outrageous that everyone who walks into my classroom dives for a pen and a feedback form to correct my egregious oversights, ASAP. For one reason or another, my advisor in particular seems to believe deeply in my potential as an educator, and therefore gives me an overwhelming amount of constructive criticism. I implement as much of it as I can, but if there's one thing I can tell you about teaching, it's that no matter how many things you have ever thought about at one time, you need to multiply it by about 30, and then you're maybe getting close. It is the hardest thing I have ever done.
For illustrative purposes, please find here a partial list of things I am already working on implementing in my classroom: Giving explicit instructions, providing visuals, consistency in classroom management policies, whole-class checks for understanding, adjusting lessons based on diagnostics, lecturing less, having more dynamic introductions, emphasizing the importance of our lessons, neither overemphasizing nor ignoring higher-achieving students.
An even more partial list of things I need to work on this week: Consequences for persistently nonparticipating students, hearing more student voices, student-to-student communication, time management, effective grading, communicating student progress toward objectives to students, addressing different modalities and learning styles, acting decisively in response to disturbances, streamlining grouping strategies, making activities more student-centered, ensuring that students know what they should be doing at all times.
Oh yeah. I'm teaching content, too.
I hope.
The first thing you should know is that the only reason I'm updating at all is that I'm not teaching tomorrow. Generally I teach one half-period per day - about one hour - on my own, plus co-teaching two half-hour literacy sessions. This week is scheduled differently. We still have the literacy responsibility, but each day M-Th is assigned to a different teacher. Today was my day - two full classes, a total of four hours. I'm pretty drained, especially after an intense 2.5-hour diversity session, an English teacher team meeting, and a pretty serious talk with one of my collab members, so I decided to skip workshops and come up here to blog a bit. The "detox" playlist is getting aired for the first time since I stayed up all night writing my credentialing essays. Thank God for Sleater-Kinney.
That being said: teaching today was a lot like teaching any other day, in the sense that every minute I spend with my kids, I feel like I learn more than I did in an entire semester at Berkeley. Today I learned: how not to approach a long and difficult text, how important during-reading activities like text coding are, and, excitingly, what it feels like to be stonewalled by your students. That sounds like all kinds of bad, but it really wasn't. We got through the lesson. We made some good connections and laid a solid foundation for the week's big essay. I made some real mental adjustments per how much talking and sleeping I'm going to deal with in the future, as in beginning tomorrow. I irritated the hell out of my kids by repeating the homework over and over, and I'm OK with that, if it means it gets done. And my kids still do not hate me. Not that it really matters, but it feels nice.
One big stress today was the sheer amount of observation going on. Probably because of my classroom's location, I often go a whole period with no observers. Today I had six, up to three of them at one time: my advisor, another (particularly hostile) advisor, and our literacy specialist, all of whom I respect deeply. Stressful as it was, I have to say that constant and varied feedback has been one of the best things about my institute experience. It's an immediate check, letting you know what's working and what you can change, starting the very next day.
A little about my feedback. The single comment I receive most frequently - and actually from every single person who's ever observed me - is that I have a really positive, assertive tone with my classes, and that there seems to be a culture of mutual respect in place (alternatively described as "a great/natural/confident classroom manner.") It's nice to know that that attitude of respect and positivity is coming through, because it's something I strive for, and that means my kids either see or feel it too. The negative (or "delta," meaning "growth area" in touchy-feely Programspeak) feedback I get varies from day to day, and person to person, which is a really good thing. It means that I'm not making the same mistakes every day, that I'm advancing enough to make fun new mistakes, and that there aren't errors so outrageous that everyone who walks into my classroom dives for a pen and a feedback form to correct my egregious oversights, ASAP. For one reason or another, my advisor in particular seems to believe deeply in my potential as an educator, and therefore gives me an overwhelming amount of constructive criticism. I implement as much of it as I can, but if there's one thing I can tell you about teaching, it's that no matter how many things you have ever thought about at one time, you need to multiply it by about 30, and then you're maybe getting close. It is the hardest thing I have ever done.
For illustrative purposes, please find here a partial list of things I am already working on implementing in my classroom: Giving explicit instructions, providing visuals, consistency in classroom management policies, whole-class checks for understanding, adjusting lessons based on diagnostics, lecturing less, having more dynamic introductions, emphasizing the importance of our lessons, neither overemphasizing nor ignoring higher-achieving students.
An even more partial list of things I need to work on this week: Consequences for persistently nonparticipating students, hearing more student voices, student-to-student communication, time management, effective grading, communicating student progress toward objectives to students, addressing different modalities and learning styles, acting decisively in response to disturbances, streamlining grouping strategies, making activities more student-centered, ensuring that students know what they should be doing at all times.
Oh yeah. I'm teaching content, too.
I hope.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
can we really be getting through?
We gave our first test today, and I'm in mini-crisis mode I was handed what I was told was the Bad Stack to grade, and the kids are doing so well that one of three things is happening:
1. I was given the Good Stack by accident.
2. I am being way too easy a grader.
3. They are really getting it.
I would like to think that it's #3, but I'm thinking that realistically it's a combination of all three. I don't think this is the Bad Stack, because some names I expected to see were not there, and everyone attempted all the sections. This was not the case for the class as a whole, based on what I saw on the way out of our literacy hour. I am definitely being a bit too easy, but I just can't help but see the good things in their essays. Everything else is much more objective. It's kind of worked out so that my over-niceness can only skew their tests by one letter grade or less. So, even still, they can't be failing in massive numbers.
And for the record, "Doing Really Well" in this case means:
A - 1 (it's a 90.0%)
B - 7
C - 5
D - 6
F - 1
I am really hoping this is the Good Stack and I don't have to re-grade them all during my prep period tomorrow.
1. I was given the Good Stack by accident.
2. I am being way too easy a grader.
3. They are really getting it.
I would like to think that it's #3, but I'm thinking that realistically it's a combination of all three. I don't think this is the Bad Stack, because some names I expected to see were not there, and everyone attempted all the sections. This was not the case for the class as a whole, based on what I saw on the way out of our literacy hour. I am definitely being a bit too easy, but I just can't help but see the good things in their essays. Everything else is much more objective. It's kind of worked out so that my over-niceness can only skew their tests by one letter grade or less. So, even still, they can't be failing in massive numbers.
And for the record, "Doing Really Well" in this case means:
A - 1 (it's a 90.0%)
B - 7
C - 5
D - 6
F - 1
I am really hoping this is the Good Stack and I don't have to re-grade them all during my prep period tomorrow.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
day by day
Things are getting weird around here, between all the freshly minted acronyms (for example: IBFs/IGFs/IONs: Institute Boyfriends/Girlfriends/One Night Stands; SFGs: Significant Fucking Gains; etc.), episodes of Cafeteria Tummy, and 2am Kinko’s runs with people whose names you no longer bother to find out. I just walked out of the dining hall and ran into Mike, who was marching around wearing some type of WWII-style helmet for no apparent reason. I did not even blink.
I ended up getting just under 4 hours of sleep last night and I’m hoping for 5 tonight, but time will tell.
We wrote our first exam tonight. I don’t get to proctor it, though. Instead I get to teach a lesson on brainstorming, outlining, and drafting an essay - immediately after they are done taking that exam, and at the very end of the school day, no less. I expect it will be a real treat.
My bed is covered in stacks of papers. Some of them are mine, some not. Some are graded, others not. Some I have never seen before in my life.
I wish that I had lots of insightful things to say at this point, but really all I’m doing is going day by day, making sure my lessons work, trying to connect with my students, and doing my damndest to sleep, eat, and shower, in descending order of priority. I haven’t really had a bad day in the classroom yet. There have been lots of what I call “Learning Days,” days in which I walk out of the room knowing that if I had it all to do over again, not more than two words in a row would remain the same. This is not the same as a bad day. Bad days are when five students in the back of the class are sleeping face-down on their desks, and someone is making birdcalls in the back of the class, and one girl is giving you sass and two boys are hitting each other and that’s when your regional director walks in with the review sheet. Bad days are when teachers go into the hallway between periods and cry, and over dinner they talk about going home.
I ended up getting just under 4 hours of sleep last night and I’m hoping for 5 tonight, but time will tell.
We wrote our first exam tonight. I don’t get to proctor it, though. Instead I get to teach a lesson on brainstorming, outlining, and drafting an essay - immediately after they are done taking that exam, and at the very end of the school day, no less. I expect it will be a real treat.
My bed is covered in stacks of papers. Some of them are mine, some not. Some are graded, others not. Some I have never seen before in my life.
I wish that I had lots of insightful things to say at this point, but really all I’m doing is going day by day, making sure my lessons work, trying to connect with my students, and doing my damndest to sleep, eat, and shower, in descending order of priority. I haven’t really had a bad day in the classroom yet. There have been lots of what I call “Learning Days,” days in which I walk out of the room knowing that if I had it all to do over again, not more than two words in a row would remain the same. This is not the same as a bad day. Bad days are when five students in the back of the class are sleeping face-down on their desks, and someone is making birdcalls in the back of the class, and one girl is giving you sass and two boys are hitting each other and that’s when your regional director walks in with the review sheet. Bad days are when teachers go into the hallway between periods and cry, and over dinner they talk about going home.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
week one debrief (pt. 2)
Immediately after my post-teaching prep period yesterday, I met some other teachers down in the parking lot and drove to a local middle school for placement fair #2. It was light-years away from my last job fair experience. For one thing, I was more comfortable. I ditched my expensive black suit - too hot to teach in, apart from making me feel like an indestinguishable teaching drone - in favor of my favorite brown slacks and a jacket I got separately at Target, which somehow matches exactly, with a comfortable shirt and the funky silver necklace my mom bought me as a graduation gift. I felt like a real, practical teacher, and more importantly, like myself. I also walked in unconcerned about my job status: teaching this summer class is my chief concern, and everything else has been categorized "Will Work Itself Out Eventually." And even though it's only been a week, I've learned a lot about myself as a teacher, and I knew that I wouldn't have to make up what I thought I would do if a student cursed at me. Most importantly, I walked in knowing what (and where) I would and wouldn't be happy teaching. And that is how I ended up being hired at a high school three miles south of where I'm placed for the summer, teaching ESL.
I know. I was surprised too. But I really clicked with the two women who interviewed me, both assisitant principals, and I felt in them both a real love and faith in their school and its children. They were also incredibly straightforward about the neighborhood these kids live in, and the role of the school in their lives. This school, they say, is a safe haven, free from the "race riots" reported at other high schools throughout the city this spring. It is a quiet place, a green place, where the students feel comfortable, and where they spend as much time as they can before the place is closed up at night. At the same time, the neighborhood is not a nice place to live. Gangs are a serious problem, as the LA Weekly reports this week, and the police can be just as serious. There has been a tension in the air all week, since the much-publicized deaths of baby Susie and her father - whatever his role, no one feels safe where a 2-year-old dies at the hands of a police SWAT team. No one feels that reasonable attempts were made to go in after her. My high school has sports, but no other extracurriculars, mostly because parents don't feel safe unless their kids walk home in groups. Plans are being considered for an after-school homework help center with a shuttle to drop kids off at home.
That being said: I love Watts. I had been hoping, despite the drive, that my summer placement school might have a spot for me, and I'm thrilled to remain in the neighborhood (though my kids will be incensed when they hear I'll be teaching for their rivals down the street.) My kids are so sharp and perceptive. They have big dreams. They are generous and forgiving. And all of this comes, clearly, from their families and their communities. It's a really scary place to grow up, and these kids are so brave. I want to be there with them, saccharine as this sounds, and help them in any way I can to achieve those dreams.
And then there's the question of subject matter. The women who interviewed me seemed to really like me, and to be incredibly interested in my linguistics background. We had chatted for about twenty minutes when one of them looked at me with big doe eyes and said gently, "I'm sure you expected to teach English. But what we really need is an ESL teacher." She told me all about the department, its energetic young staff, and the school's fast-rising rate of promotion to standard English classrooms. She also told me that she's never known someone who started out teaching ESL to go back to a regular English class. It's the kids. They are the ones who really want to learn. My interviewers explained all of this, told me I should only go where I will be happy, and then asked me, what did I think?
The truth is I didn't need to think. My classroom this summer is integrated, even if it's not officially designated as such. I have kids whose reading and writing are so sophisticated that they really shouldn't be retaking this class, and I have kids who need their friends to translate for them when I ask a question. And the assistant principal was right - they are the ones who show up every single day. They call me over and ask me to check their work, to explain things again and again. They call me "Miss" and smile at me on the courtyard between classes. Some of them are rowdy, sure, just like all kids that age. But they desperately want the knowledge I have. Their student surveys reveal it: I am not very well at writing but I like read about sports. I like English because I learn some thing new everyday. I am not good at write esays but I will try harder.
So here I sit: an ESL teacher. I'll have two periods a day of ESL2. The school has 3 levels of ESL, the third being very similar to standard English 9. Every kid I teach will have passed at least one full year of ESL, and my job will be to build on the skills they have learned in that first year, and progress them as readers and writers. And in case the cake needed some icing: my third period will be standard English 12, which focuses on modern lit. That means that unlike my othe classes, or even standard 9th grade English, grammar will be present but will take a backseat to critical thinking, writing, and reading the short stories and novels that make me happiest. I'm hoping that I can pass some of that joy off onto my kids.
There are still a few details to be ironed out. For one, I may have to switch back to stanky LMU credentialing, depending on if I can get the required bilingual certification through TeachLA. For another, my school is year-round, and I'm on B track. This means that when I go in to work on the 22nd of August, I see my kids for 3 days before they go on 2 months' vacation. Probably I will be teaching intercession or doing subbing for the other tracks in those months, so I can continue to grow as a teacher and keep a roof over my head. I'm not worried about these things, though. I have a placement. And really, I couldn't be happier.
I know. I was surprised too. But I really clicked with the two women who interviewed me, both assisitant principals, and I felt in them both a real love and faith in their school and its children. They were also incredibly straightforward about the neighborhood these kids live in, and the role of the school in their lives. This school, they say, is a safe haven, free from the "race riots" reported at other high schools throughout the city this spring. It is a quiet place, a green place, where the students feel comfortable, and where they spend as much time as they can before the place is closed up at night. At the same time, the neighborhood is not a nice place to live. Gangs are a serious problem, as the LA Weekly reports this week, and the police can be just as serious. There has been a tension in the air all week, since the much-publicized deaths of baby Susie and her father - whatever his role, no one feels safe where a 2-year-old dies at the hands of a police SWAT team. No one feels that reasonable attempts were made to go in after her. My high school has sports, but no other extracurriculars, mostly because parents don't feel safe unless their kids walk home in groups. Plans are being considered for an after-school homework help center with a shuttle to drop kids off at home.
That being said: I love Watts. I had been hoping, despite the drive, that my summer placement school might have a spot for me, and I'm thrilled to remain in the neighborhood (though my kids will be incensed when they hear I'll be teaching for their rivals down the street.) My kids are so sharp and perceptive. They have big dreams. They are generous and forgiving. And all of this comes, clearly, from their families and their communities. It's a really scary place to grow up, and these kids are so brave. I want to be there with them, saccharine as this sounds, and help them in any way I can to achieve those dreams.
And then there's the question of subject matter. The women who interviewed me seemed to really like me, and to be incredibly interested in my linguistics background. We had chatted for about twenty minutes when one of them looked at me with big doe eyes and said gently, "I'm sure you expected to teach English. But what we really need is an ESL teacher." She told me all about the department, its energetic young staff, and the school's fast-rising rate of promotion to standard English classrooms. She also told me that she's never known someone who started out teaching ESL to go back to a regular English class. It's the kids. They are the ones who really want to learn. My interviewers explained all of this, told me I should only go where I will be happy, and then asked me, what did I think?
The truth is I didn't need to think. My classroom this summer is integrated, even if it's not officially designated as such. I have kids whose reading and writing are so sophisticated that they really shouldn't be retaking this class, and I have kids who need their friends to translate for them when I ask a question. And the assistant principal was right - they are the ones who show up every single day. They call me over and ask me to check their work, to explain things again and again. They call me "Miss" and smile at me on the courtyard between classes. Some of them are rowdy, sure, just like all kids that age. But they desperately want the knowledge I have. Their student surveys reveal it: I am not very well at writing but I like read about sports. I like English because I learn some thing new everyday. I am not good at write esays but I will try harder.
So here I sit: an ESL teacher. I'll have two periods a day of ESL2. The school has 3 levels of ESL, the third being very similar to standard English 9. Every kid I teach will have passed at least one full year of ESL, and my job will be to build on the skills they have learned in that first year, and progress them as readers and writers. And in case the cake needed some icing: my third period will be standard English 12, which focuses on modern lit. That means that unlike my othe classes, or even standard 9th grade English, grammar will be present but will take a backseat to critical thinking, writing, and reading the short stories and novels that make me happiest. I'm hoping that I can pass some of that joy off onto my kids.
There are still a few details to be ironed out. For one, I may have to switch back to stanky LMU credentialing, depending on if I can get the required bilingual certification through TeachLA. For another, my school is year-round, and I'm on B track. This means that when I go in to work on the 22nd of August, I see my kids for 3 days before they go on 2 months' vacation. Probably I will be teaching intercession or doing subbing for the other tracks in those months, so I can continue to grow as a teacher and keep a roof over my head. I'm not worried about these things, though. I have a placement. And really, I couldn't be happier.
week one debrief (pt. 1)
Yesterday I finished my first full week of teaching. It was a good day.
In a style true to The Program, we each begin our lessons with a "Do Now" exercise on the board. These are usually academic, either testing retention of the previous day's objective or asking the students to begin thinking about what we will learn that day. Since it was Friday, and they'd been great all week, and we were curious, we gave them a non-academic Do Now at the beginning of each of the two periods: On a sheet of binder paper, write down any questions you have about your teachers. Do not write your name on the paper, and be sure they are not personal questions.
They grumbled for a minute - what can they ask that's not personal? - but after about 30 seconds and a reminder that they only had two minutes, all of them fell to writing. Some of the questions they wrote were for all four of us: What schools did we all go to? Do we like teaching at our high school? Aren't we just practicing on them and we'll go be real teachers elsewhere? Why are we so strict/boring/into assigning homework? Others were for individual teachers, and I was really happy with the ones I got. From an incredibly bright boy who I don't allow to talk out of turn regardless: You're cool - so why do you try and act mean? From another student: How many years have you been teaching? On Thursday, I walked past as our class cut-up quickly tore out a sheet of paper and said, in Spanish, "The teacher's coming! Take out some paper!" I tried to hide it, but it cracked me up. He gave me the shrewd eye, and come Friday, tons of questions asked, Did one of the teachers speak Spanish? Which one? Do I speak Spanish? Did I just take it in school, or am I Hispanic? Another asked, Ms. L, what is your favorite sport? (They will be thrilled when I tell them it's soccer- which I'm hesitant to do because of all the high-level Soccer Talk sure to follow. How do you explain that you're only a lay soccer fan?) And maybe my favorite question, the one that validates my disdain for the unofficial but much-repeated first rule of teaching, Do Not Smile Before Winter Break: Does Ms. L always have such a nice smile?
We discussed one of these questions in my second-period class - why we chose to teach at our high school. I told the kids that honestly, we were assigned to that school, but that we did all choose to teach high school, because even though it might not seem that way, we all genuinely love high schoolers, and that we all chose to teach at schools very much like this one: mostly urban, mostly without some of the resources and advantages that schools in rich areas have. They asked me, rightly so, what I knew about it, and I told them that I was pretty familiar with schools like this one, from where I grew up and from the work I did in college. S, the kid who asked me why I try to act mean, asked what college I went to, and seemed surprised that I was from California. I told the class that I grew up in Salinas, California, and they started buzzing immediately. Salinas? She's from Salinas! "You from Salinas?" asked S. "Then you do know."
Now they are trying to pull stuff on me. I bust them for talking instead of working, and they say, "C'mon, Ms. L, you know how it is. You from the ghetto."
Yeah, I tell them, and I know how hard you have to work to get out. That shuts them up pretty well.
My lesson went pretty well, I think. It was about identifying structures and content of different types of informational text, and it let them get up out of their seats a little bit and stop listening to me talk so much. We're all very aware of how easy it is to just stand and lecture, and also that we have about 5-7 minutes of lecture time before they glaze over and shut down, so Goal #1 is for week 2 is to Shut Up and Let Them Learn.
In a style true to The Program, we each begin our lessons with a "Do Now" exercise on the board. These are usually academic, either testing retention of the previous day's objective or asking the students to begin thinking about what we will learn that day. Since it was Friday, and they'd been great all week, and we were curious, we gave them a non-academic Do Now at the beginning of each of the two periods: On a sheet of binder paper, write down any questions you have about your teachers. Do not write your name on the paper, and be sure they are not personal questions.
They grumbled for a minute - what can they ask that's not personal? - but after about 30 seconds and a reminder that they only had two minutes, all of them fell to writing. Some of the questions they wrote were for all four of us: What schools did we all go to? Do we like teaching at our high school? Aren't we just practicing on them and we'll go be real teachers elsewhere? Why are we so strict/boring/into assigning homework? Others were for individual teachers, and I was really happy with the ones I got. From an incredibly bright boy who I don't allow to talk out of turn regardless: You're cool - so why do you try and act mean? From another student: How many years have you been teaching? On Thursday, I walked past as our class cut-up quickly tore out a sheet of paper and said, in Spanish, "The teacher's coming! Take out some paper!" I tried to hide it, but it cracked me up. He gave me the shrewd eye, and come Friday, tons of questions asked, Did one of the teachers speak Spanish? Which one? Do I speak Spanish? Did I just take it in school, or am I Hispanic? Another asked, Ms. L, what is your favorite sport? (They will be thrilled when I tell them it's soccer- which I'm hesitant to do because of all the high-level Soccer Talk sure to follow. How do you explain that you're only a lay soccer fan?) And maybe my favorite question, the one that validates my disdain for the unofficial but much-repeated first rule of teaching, Do Not Smile Before Winter Break: Does Ms. L always have such a nice smile?
We discussed one of these questions in my second-period class - why we chose to teach at our high school. I told the kids that honestly, we were assigned to that school, but that we did all choose to teach high school, because even though it might not seem that way, we all genuinely love high schoolers, and that we all chose to teach at schools very much like this one: mostly urban, mostly without some of the resources and advantages that schools in rich areas have. They asked me, rightly so, what I knew about it, and I told them that I was pretty familiar with schools like this one, from where I grew up and from the work I did in college. S, the kid who asked me why I try to act mean, asked what college I went to, and seemed surprised that I was from California. I told the class that I grew up in Salinas, California, and they started buzzing immediately. Salinas? She's from Salinas! "You from Salinas?" asked S. "Then you do know."
Now they are trying to pull stuff on me. I bust them for talking instead of working, and they say, "C'mon, Ms. L, you know how it is. You from the ghetto."
Yeah, I tell them, and I know how hard you have to work to get out. That shuts them up pretty well.
My lesson went pretty well, I think. It was about identifying structures and content of different types of informational text, and it let them get up out of their seats a little bit and stop listening to me talk so much. We're all very aware of how easy it is to just stand and lecture, and also that we have about 5-7 minutes of lecture time before they glaze over and shut down, so Goal #1 is for week 2 is to Shut Up and Let Them Learn.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
thoughts / delerium.
I feel that an update is needed.
It's been three days in the classroom so far. Our first group has a regular attendance of about 45. They are wonderful. The biggest problem we have is that four or five students tend to dominate the discussion, shouting out answers before others have a chance to think or volunteer (which they are disinclined to do in either case.) Our second group has a regular attendance of about 24, and they make you work for it. It doesn't matter what "it" is; you will be working. Today I had the great pleasure of teaching the last quarter of the day, when the kids are amped up on soda and candy from breaktime, tired of sitting in a classroom for five hours, and antsy for the final bell. It was what The Program likes to call a "Learning Experience." Lesson: have different strategies in place for the post-lunch, pre-bell hour. With fall students, have frequent and frank talks about proper nutrition. Get some sleep, because by 3pm, you will feel like you ran a marathon, regardless.
Had a bit of disappointment today. We have a kid who's clearly bright but shockingly far behind. His diagnostic was very poor on the reading comprehension, and he did not even fill out the grammar section, let alone the essay. His "Do Now" activities reveal sentences dotted with random periods; he uses "do" in place of "the." He is the textbook case of the frustrated kid who acts out. Our FA warned me about him, telling me "he's a troublemaker." In fact, he's the one who found my Teacher Voice for me the other day, for which I will probably always remember him. This kid has had a rough few days. I cracked down on him on Monday, because I kept catching his misbehavior and no one else's. He was sullen and resentful the rest of the day. Since then, he has been moved to the front of the room and has of course not been allowed to sleep in class. We have been trying to reach him, if only to have a conversation, but it has not been working. This morning I saw him in the halls and said hello; he greeted me more politely than I would have guessed. And then, this afternoon, he did not come to class.
It is, of course, possible that he decided to skip out with some friends during nutrition, or... Well, there is no "or," really. He's checked out. Gone. Is he coming back tomorrow? It's possible. But it is not likely. We are all hurting over this. What could we have done to make him stay? And if he comes back, what can we do to help him, if he's hostile to showing that he needs help?
Today's good news is that Mike got transferred to my school; his had low enrollment in Special Ed so he and a few others were shipped over to fill spots left by our deserters. Mike says that the CMs at his old school were, on the whole, much more attractive than the ones at my school. I am willing to believe this; we seem to have all the quirky people, which I vastly prefer.
Mike jokes a lot - we all do, really - but he had a hard first day. One of his kids, who he suspects was born with FAS, came up to him today and said, with his slow, heavy stutter, "Mr. [Mike], I won't be in school tomorrow." Mike asked why not - did he have an appointment? The kid said, "Because I'm going to go home today and kill myself." It is your first hour of teaching in your entire life. What do you do? Mike goes to his FA who goes to the school counsellor who goes God-knows-where. Does that kid come back to school tomorrow? For how long?
Many of us in my CM group are concerned about whether we're really doing our students a service by being here this summer. We're doubtful that we'll make any kind of gains, and we wonder if they may not just be the guinea pigs through whose suffering we, as humanity, benefit. I am definitely not OK with this thought. As one of the other English teachers pointed out tonight, though: they are high school juniors and seniors, and many of them cannot tell the past from the present tense, coordinate subject and verb number, or write a coherant paragraph. Clearly someone down the line has given up on them - maybe a long list of someones. As long as we are not on that list, and as long as we are working hard to improve every day for them, we are doing more good than harm.
I have another placement fair on Friday. I'm stressed about it because realistically I will have slept six-ish hours between now and then. I am going to show up looking haggard and thinking about my lesson plans for Monday. I need to do laundry tomorrow night or I will show up in some kind of clashing-floral ensemble. It is difficult to think about these practical things with my lesson plans looming over me and my kids to think about.
It's been three days in the classroom so far. Our first group has a regular attendance of about 45. They are wonderful. The biggest problem we have is that four or five students tend to dominate the discussion, shouting out answers before others have a chance to think or volunteer (which they are disinclined to do in either case.) Our second group has a regular attendance of about 24, and they make you work for it. It doesn't matter what "it" is; you will be working. Today I had the great pleasure of teaching the last quarter of the day, when the kids are amped up on soda and candy from breaktime, tired of sitting in a classroom for five hours, and antsy for the final bell. It was what The Program likes to call a "Learning Experience." Lesson: have different strategies in place for the post-lunch, pre-bell hour. With fall students, have frequent and frank talks about proper nutrition. Get some sleep, because by 3pm, you will feel like you ran a marathon, regardless.
Had a bit of disappointment today. We have a kid who's clearly bright but shockingly far behind. His diagnostic was very poor on the reading comprehension, and he did not even fill out the grammar section, let alone the essay. His "Do Now" activities reveal sentences dotted with random periods; he uses "do" in place of "the." He is the textbook case of the frustrated kid who acts out. Our FA warned me about him, telling me "he's a troublemaker." In fact, he's the one who found my Teacher Voice for me the other day, for which I will probably always remember him. This kid has had a rough few days. I cracked down on him on Monday, because I kept catching his misbehavior and no one else's. He was sullen and resentful the rest of the day. Since then, he has been moved to the front of the room and has of course not been allowed to sleep in class. We have been trying to reach him, if only to have a conversation, but it has not been working. This morning I saw him in the halls and said hello; he greeted me more politely than I would have guessed. And then, this afternoon, he did not come to class.
It is, of course, possible that he decided to skip out with some friends during nutrition, or... Well, there is no "or," really. He's checked out. Gone. Is he coming back tomorrow? It's possible. But it is not likely. We are all hurting over this. What could we have done to make him stay? And if he comes back, what can we do to help him, if he's hostile to showing that he needs help?
Today's good news is that Mike got transferred to my school; his had low enrollment in Special Ed so he and a few others were shipped over to fill spots left by our deserters. Mike says that the CMs at his old school were, on the whole, much more attractive than the ones at my school. I am willing to believe this; we seem to have all the quirky people, which I vastly prefer.
Mike jokes a lot - we all do, really - but he had a hard first day. One of his kids, who he suspects was born with FAS, came up to him today and said, with his slow, heavy stutter, "Mr. [Mike], I won't be in school tomorrow." Mike asked why not - did he have an appointment? The kid said, "Because I'm going to go home today and kill myself." It is your first hour of teaching in your entire life. What do you do? Mike goes to his FA who goes to the school counsellor who goes God-knows-where. Does that kid come back to school tomorrow? For how long?
Many of us in my CM group are concerned about whether we're really doing our students a service by being here this summer. We're doubtful that we'll make any kind of gains, and we wonder if they may not just be the guinea pigs through whose suffering we, as humanity, benefit. I am definitely not OK with this thought. As one of the other English teachers pointed out tonight, though: they are high school juniors and seniors, and many of them cannot tell the past from the present tense, coordinate subject and verb number, or write a coherant paragraph. Clearly someone down the line has given up on them - maybe a long list of someones. As long as we are not on that list, and as long as we are working hard to improve every day for them, we are doing more good than harm.
I have another placement fair on Friday. I'm stressed about it because realistically I will have slept six-ish hours between now and then. I am going to show up looking haggard and thinking about my lesson plans for Monday. I need to do laundry tomorrow night or I will show up in some kind of clashing-floral ensemble. It is difficult to think about these practical things with my lesson plans looming over me and my kids to think about.
Monday, July 11, 2005
it kind of reminds me of the bene gesserit voice
I'm just putting the final touches on tomorrow's rewritten LP - the goals have been expanded to include finding the main idea of a passage as well as paraphrasing - and I'm thinking how exhausted I am and how I wonder if I can get in bed before 2 tonight after this morning's fiasco, when I missed my alarm and woke up an hour late, unprepared, with the printer in my dorm both broken and out of paper, and I look at the clock and realize - it is only 11 pm. And I am already this tired.
Today was more of a challenge than I thought. I was thinking that because I'd only be administering a diagnostic, not actually teaching a lesson, that it would be kind of a wasted day for me, in terms of lessons in being a teacher. I was not, of course, anticipating a variety of challenges ranging from a lack of motivation to honest belief in the inevitability of failure to general goofballness. I was also not expecting to have to stand my ground so firmly on Day One, nor to find my Teacher Voice, as though not a part of me, somehow delivering effortlessly the words "That kind of language is unacceptable in this classroom and I do not expect to hear it again. Now you need to work on your diagnostic. Thank you," in such a way that "Thank you" are the most forceful words. I especially did not expect this to work.
So there you have it. I am really, honestly a teacher now. I will be grading essays on the bus in the morning, all I have to talk about is my classes and my kids, and I have been exhausted since three this afternoon. This will be my life for the next three to five years, with only summer breaks between.
I hope to post more these next couple of days, but if things keep on keepin' on, I'm not sure I can promise anything. In the meantime, please do note that my sister has established a little bloggin' action of her own, to add to the international flavor of this neighborhood.
Today was more of a challenge than I thought. I was thinking that because I'd only be administering a diagnostic, not actually teaching a lesson, that it would be kind of a wasted day for me, in terms of lessons in being a teacher. I was not, of course, anticipating a variety of challenges ranging from a lack of motivation to honest belief in the inevitability of failure to general goofballness. I was also not expecting to have to stand my ground so firmly on Day One, nor to find my Teacher Voice, as though not a part of me, somehow delivering effortlessly the words "That kind of language is unacceptable in this classroom and I do not expect to hear it again. Now you need to work on your diagnostic. Thank you," in such a way that "Thank you" are the most forceful words. I especially did not expect this to work.
So there you have it. I am really, honestly a teacher now. I will be grading essays on the bus in the morning, all I have to talk about is my classes and my kids, and I have been exhausted since three this afternoon. This will be my life for the next three to five years, with only summer breaks between.
I hope to post more these next couple of days, but if things keep on keepin' on, I'm not sure I can promise anything. In the meantime, please do note that my sister has established a little bloggin' action of her own, to add to the international flavor of this neighborhood.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
one night in bangkok
I've been working nonstop for the last 12 hours. Written today: a student survey, a behavior contract, a parent letter, and three lesson plans, none of which are finished. It's a lot more than it sounds like, once you factor in all the sorting, stapling, signing, and negotiating personalities. I've been made the official secretary of my group on the grounds that I'm "the most organized person in the group," according to the Problem Girl. This in itself worries me.
I've discovered that that best music for my concentration is the Chess soundtrack. Why?
My goal is to be in bed by 1:30. I'm skipping breakfast in the morning, no doubt.
As of tomorrow, I'm a classroom teacher.
Wow.
I've discovered that that best music for my concentration is the Chess soundtrack. Why?
My goal is to be in bed by 1:30. I'm skipping breakfast in the morning, no doubt.
As of tomorrow, I'm a classroom teacher.
Wow.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
this photo has not been retouched.
It's been a really long couple of days. Lesson plans need revising, we completely rewrote our entire summer curriculum tonight, I'm deeply concerned about the motivations and potential of a member of my cohort, I've slept a combined total of five hours the past two nights, and on top of all of this, my teaching career starts first thing Monday morning.
In case you're wondering if it's really that hard or if I'm blowing things out of proportion, I give you the following task: look at my social photo from last week. And then consider the implications when I tell you that this is what I look like as of right now.
Harrowing.
In case you're wondering if it's really that hard or if I'm blowing things out of proportion, I give you the following task: look at my social photo from last week. And then consider the implications when I tell you that this is what I look like as of right now.
Harrowing.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
what we're facing
Today we met our FAs, the experienced teachers who are teaching the first three days for us and then acting for the remainder of the summer as the legally required Credentialed Presence in our classrooms. Our FA is not an English teacher, and she's not asking or expecting much on these first few days. She seems very friendly and helpful in terms of materials, but also very hands-off, which is probably a good thing. She told us that we will be teaching tenth grade English, not ninth, and that every single one of our students has failed or gotten a D in the class before. Our first period has an enrollment of 68 students, 43 of whom showed up today, and our second has 35-odd enrolled, with a turnout of about 24. None of us understands the logic behind this, but it’s not something we can change. Our classroom is dreary, a long, narrow converted lab with brown water stains on the ceiling tiles and fewer than 30 desks, plus some mismatched tables and chairs in the back. I asked what we could conceivably do if all of our students showed up. “Don’t worry,” the teacher said. “Most will leave.” But what if they keep coming, I asked? “There’s not enough room. You’d have to turn some away.”
There is some good news. While we’re to administer an official diagnostic on Monday, our FA had the students spend today doing a creative writing assignment. As it was administered, it had very little academic merit, but it did provide for us a neat stack of writing samples. When I found out we had these samples, I was like a kid at Christmas, asking if we could go up to the room now, were we going up to the room soon, could we look at the writing samples now?
The assignment was structured with three sentence starters, one each for a beginning, middle, and end of a story. The students were to flesh this out. The prompts involved finding a bag filled with something, a man whispering something in your ear, and an “all of the sudden” ending. It’s a great prompt in terms of roughly assessing the performance level and, to some extent, the psychology of the kids. Reading through the stories, I found that there were a lot of specific, easy-to-address ELL issues like dropped past tense markers. There were larger syntactic problems that needed to be worked on. There was a lack of vocabulary. Students had difficulty sustaining and expanding on a thought past a certain point. Some were far, far below grade level.
But I also found some other things. For one, they’re no worse off, on average, than my Oakland group. The class represents a huge range of levels, from clear English Learners to students who must have failed because they didn’t show up, or didn’t turn in the work. We found one assignment folded up and dropped on the floor, not turned in. I read it; it was brief, but well-structured, grammatical, and engaging. It made me laugh, and it made me wonder: why is this student here – and why is he throwing his work away ungraded?
Their subject matter intrigued me. They chose a lot of common themes: money, and violence, though not in the way you’d expect if you listened to what the news says about kids in Watts. Many of them said they found money, but no one knew what to spend it on – one said, in order, “a PSP, some pizza, and a car.” One said he found a bag of cell phones, nice ones, and he sold them on the street, but he gave the best ones to his friends. Over and over, they said they found money, but men came after them and took it away, or hurt them, or said it didn’t belong to them. One boy said his father wouldn’t let him keep it, so to make his dad happy, he put it back.
One story in particular had an effect on me: the student said he found a bag full of gold, but a man came and said it was his gold, and he tried to take it back. So the student knocked him down, and kicked him in the face, and the stomach, and the legs. Then he got in the car and drove away, but he didn’t have anywhere to go, and he didn’t know what to do. So he just drove and drove. Violent, yes, but sorrowful. It read like he didn’t know how to escape, not from the law, but from his own actions. And why gold? Why not dollars? Why not cell phones? What makes this mythology for this boy?
But it wasn’t all touching or sad. I saw a lot of irony and humor. One boy said he found a bag of money, but before he could spend it, he met a beautiful girl. She said she liked him, but then he head a voice whispering in his ear, “wake up.” It was his brother, and the student yelled at him for ruining his perfect dream.
I read these stories, and I felt energized. It’s clear that if we can reach them, each and every one of these students can improve tremendously. They have so much knowledge for us to build on.
One of my cohort, though – and five points for guessing which one – didn’t feel the same. She was shocked. Horrified, really. She kept asking how this happened, and how they were so far below grade level, and focusing on what the work lacked, where it was flawed. I found myself really taken aback. First of all, the work was better, on average, than I expected, especially considering the lack of explicit instruction they were given on the task. Second, this isn’t something we don’t already know. These kids are behind. They are getting screwed. Every year that goes by it gets worse. This is the whole reason we are here. But she kept saying how disheartened she was, and asking why they kept being passed on to the next grade, and talking about how in fifth grade she was writing short stories, and here these kids couldn’t even write one single sentence correctly. Not even one.
I know we’re coming from different perspectives here, but this struck me as so negative, and insidiously so. Can’t even manage a single sentence? Well, maybe not a flawless, sophisticated grade-level one. But they can do simple sentences. They can do complex sentences with some tense-marking difficulty (which, for Spanish ELL students, is often a phonetic issue – they’re not hearing the –ed, and they’ve never been explicitly taught it’s there, so why would they write it?) or other unrelated errors. They can move me, and surprise me, and make me laugh. Those are sophisticated skills, and they shouldn’t be undervalued. The rest is just the details. And we can teach the details.
There is some good news. While we’re to administer an official diagnostic on Monday, our FA had the students spend today doing a creative writing assignment. As it was administered, it had very little academic merit, but it did provide for us a neat stack of writing samples. When I found out we had these samples, I was like a kid at Christmas, asking if we could go up to the room now, were we going up to the room soon, could we look at the writing samples now?
The assignment was structured with three sentence starters, one each for a beginning, middle, and end of a story. The students were to flesh this out. The prompts involved finding a bag filled with something, a man whispering something in your ear, and an “all of the sudden” ending. It’s a great prompt in terms of roughly assessing the performance level and, to some extent, the psychology of the kids. Reading through the stories, I found that there were a lot of specific, easy-to-address ELL issues like dropped past tense markers. There were larger syntactic problems that needed to be worked on. There was a lack of vocabulary. Students had difficulty sustaining and expanding on a thought past a certain point. Some were far, far below grade level.
But I also found some other things. For one, they’re no worse off, on average, than my Oakland group. The class represents a huge range of levels, from clear English Learners to students who must have failed because they didn’t show up, or didn’t turn in the work. We found one assignment folded up and dropped on the floor, not turned in. I read it; it was brief, but well-structured, grammatical, and engaging. It made me laugh, and it made me wonder: why is this student here – and why is he throwing his work away ungraded?
Their subject matter intrigued me. They chose a lot of common themes: money, and violence, though not in the way you’d expect if you listened to what the news says about kids in Watts. Many of them said they found money, but no one knew what to spend it on – one said, in order, “a PSP, some pizza, and a car.” One said he found a bag of cell phones, nice ones, and he sold them on the street, but he gave the best ones to his friends. Over and over, they said they found money, but men came after them and took it away, or hurt them, or said it didn’t belong to them. One boy said his father wouldn’t let him keep it, so to make his dad happy, he put it back.
One story in particular had an effect on me: the student said he found a bag full of gold, but a man came and said it was his gold, and he tried to take it back. So the student knocked him down, and kicked him in the face, and the stomach, and the legs. Then he got in the car and drove away, but he didn’t have anywhere to go, and he didn’t know what to do. So he just drove and drove. Violent, yes, but sorrowful. It read like he didn’t know how to escape, not from the law, but from his own actions. And why gold? Why not dollars? Why not cell phones? What makes this mythology for this boy?
But it wasn’t all touching or sad. I saw a lot of irony and humor. One boy said he found a bag of money, but before he could spend it, he met a beautiful girl. She said she liked him, but then he head a voice whispering in his ear, “wake up.” It was his brother, and the student yelled at him for ruining his perfect dream.
I read these stories, and I felt energized. It’s clear that if we can reach them, each and every one of these students can improve tremendously. They have so much knowledge for us to build on.
One of my cohort, though – and five points for guessing which one – didn’t feel the same. She was shocked. Horrified, really. She kept asking how this happened, and how they were so far below grade level, and focusing on what the work lacked, where it was flawed. I found myself really taken aback. First of all, the work was better, on average, than I expected, especially considering the lack of explicit instruction they were given on the task. Second, this isn’t something we don’t already know. These kids are behind. They are getting screwed. Every year that goes by it gets worse. This is the whole reason we are here. But she kept saying how disheartened she was, and asking why they kept being passed on to the next grade, and talking about how in fifth grade she was writing short stories, and here these kids couldn’t even write one single sentence correctly. Not even one.
I know we’re coming from different perspectives here, but this struck me as so negative, and insidiously so. Can’t even manage a single sentence? Well, maybe not a flawless, sophisticated grade-level one. But they can do simple sentences. They can do complex sentences with some tense-marking difficulty (which, for Spanish ELL students, is often a phonetic issue – they’re not hearing the –ed, and they’ve never been explicitly taught it’s there, so why would they write it?) or other unrelated errors. They can move me, and surprise me, and make me laugh. Those are sophisticated skills, and they shouldn’t be undervalued. The rest is just the details. And we can teach the details.
kiddies & cohorts
I alluded earlier (if you can call it an allusion) to the fact that I’ve been butting heads a bit with one of the other girls in my cohort. We worked together pretty intensively today, and it seems like our problems are getting ironed out as we all get used to each others’ working styles; three of us are very big-picture, freeform thinkers, and this last girl is very methodical, organizing as she goes along and mentally blocking out time slots. I think we need to work in more explicit clarification and reassurance that we’re all on the same page, plus more frequent check-ins in general, but it seems like we’re all dedicated to making this work, so I’m optimistic. Everyone who’s team-taught in this way tells us the same think: it’s really a lot like a marriage. You’ll bond, bicker, learn to read their signals and predict their needs, and grow to loathe each other – but no matter what happens, you’ll just have to make it work. For the next five weeks, anyway.
Today was the first day that kids have been at school, though we don’t enter the classroom until Monday. There are a couple thousand of them. I had the good luck to leave for my interview while they were out on nutrition break, and I have to say, it boosted my energy and confidence more than anything all week up until that point. I kind of remembered – oh, yeah! Kids! Really, teenagers are teenagers, and I’m so much more comfortable around these teens than I was around all the richie Caucasian kids at LMU computer camp. They remind me of my kids up in Oakland: extra-tall t-shirts, meticulous hair, too much jewelry, and big fake attitudes to mask their curiosity and insecurity. A couple of kids yelled out at me, “Hi, teacher!” It felt so good to say “hi” back, to not have to correct them. Very weird.
Today was the first day that kids have been at school, though we don’t enter the classroom until Monday. There are a couple thousand of them. I had the good luck to leave for my interview while they were out on nutrition break, and I have to say, it boosted my energy and confidence more than anything all week up until that point. I kind of remembered – oh, yeah! Kids! Really, teenagers are teenagers, and I’m so much more comfortable around these teens than I was around all the richie Caucasian kids at LMU computer camp. They remind me of my kids up in Oakland: extra-tall t-shirts, meticulous hair, too much jewelry, and big fake attitudes to mask their curiosity and insecurity. A couple of kids yelled out at me, “Hi, teacher!” It felt so good to say “hi” back, to not have to correct them. Very weird.
how i suck and will never be placed
In ten minutes I've got to run off to an evening session which I expect will be the death of me, so I thought I'd better dash off one last note, just in case.
I need not have worried about the interview today, because I still do not have a placement. It was kind of strange. They had two of us interview together, and I generally went first, gave the Wrong Answer, and then the next girl chimed in with the Right One. She is really amazing and I think it will be a good fit for her, so I'm not too bothered by the whole thing. A sample exchange, though, for your enrichment:
Interviewer: So, why do you want to teach middle school?
Me: [insert yesterday's spiel about how I used to envision myself with high schoolers, because I love working with them, but I am open to loving working with middle schoolers, and find myself tremendously inspired by their openness, energy, and thirst for knowledge]
Interviewer: Oh. Well, in my experience there are High School People and Middle School People. No one is both. How about you? Why do you want to teach middle school?
Other Girl: Oh, I just think the kids are at the greatest age. [insert similar spiel, only without the high school part]
Then when I got back to school, my yummy veggie sandwich (cucumbers, avocado, tomato, lettuce) was actually a narsty mayo sandwich with avo, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, and an additional packet of mayo. You know. Just in case.
Also I twisted my ankle. It's starting to hurt.
There's a huge post coming tonight or tomorrow, covering today's actual content: hashing out lesson plans, the arrival on campus of thousands of students, my staggering class size, and my first glimpse of the skill level of my own students. Right now I have to go write behavioral guidelines and parent letters with my group. It may come to blows between two of the group members, one of whom may or may not be myself. Then I get to drag myself, bruised, broken, and sprained, back here, to finish my lesson plans and my two application essays.
It's been awhile since my last all-nighter.
I need not have worried about the interview today, because I still do not have a placement. It was kind of strange. They had two of us interview together, and I generally went first, gave the Wrong Answer, and then the next girl chimed in with the Right One. She is really amazing and I think it will be a good fit for her, so I'm not too bothered by the whole thing. A sample exchange, though, for your enrichment:
Interviewer: So, why do you want to teach middle school?
Me: [insert yesterday's spiel about how I used to envision myself with high schoolers, because I love working with them, but I am open to loving working with middle schoolers, and find myself tremendously inspired by their openness, energy, and thirst for knowledge]
Interviewer: Oh. Well, in my experience there are High School People and Middle School People. No one is both. How about you? Why do you want to teach middle school?
Other Girl: Oh, I just think the kids are at the greatest age. [insert similar spiel, only without the high school part]
Then when I got back to school, my yummy veggie sandwich (cucumbers, avocado, tomato, lettuce) was actually a narsty mayo sandwich with avo, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, and an additional packet of mayo. You know. Just in case.
Also I twisted my ankle. It's starting to hurt.
There's a huge post coming tonight or tomorrow, covering today's actual content: hashing out lesson plans, the arrival on campus of thousands of students, my staggering class size, and my first glimpse of the skill level of my own students. Right now I have to go write behavioral guidelines and parent letters with my group. It may come to blows between two of the group members, one of whom may or may not be myself. Then I get to drag myself, bruised, broken, and sprained, back here, to finish my lesson plans and my two application essays.
It's been awhile since my last all-nighter.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
life choice alert
The ceremony tonight was great, or at least it would have been had it come three days ago. As it is, we’re all exhausted and thinking about lesson plans and mentally drafting application essays. So, I was a bit distracted - and of course I'm no better off than I was this evening.
After the ceremonies, I was chatting with some friends about our collabs and managed to miss getting on the first set of buses back to the ranch, and as we were waiting for a last bus to pick up the stragglers, I got word that the woman in charge of LA placements was looking for me. Just as the bus pulled up, we found each other, and she told me that a placement just opened up at a school downtown, that the principal is absolutely amazing, and that she’s scheduled an interview for me tomorrow morning.
It is a middle school.
The placement woman says that she pulled me for this interview because no one unplaced has a clear middle school preference, so she moved on to people who have no preference. Fine, but I marked a clear high school preference. So whatever, the paperwork is screwy. Point is, I have an interview tomorrow and it’s 50/50 that within the week I’ll have a placement in 7th/8th English/Social Studies. First of all...Social Studies? How does my English CSET qualify me to teach about manifest destiny? And second of all...7th and 8th grade? With the possible exception of 6th grade, those were the worst years of my life. Even doing my 8th grade observations exhausted me, and all I had to do was sit on a barstool for 4 hours and take notes.
Here it is, though. I have a high school preference because I love working with high schoolers. But before I got my last job, I had no idea that I would love working with high schoolers. So, I’m cognizant of the fact that I may fall in love all over again. I'm even finding that I'm open to the possibility. And while I thought the 9th grade classes I observed would be loads of fun to teach, I was really inspired by the 8th graders. Despite requiring an amazing amount of maintenance, I could see that they were incredibly bright and hungry for knowledge. They wanted to know everything, and they wanted to know it all now. Their teacher, who is here working at institute, had set the ambitious goal of having all of her students write well enough to pass the writing portion of the California State High School Exit Exam, affectionately abbreviated as the CAHSEE. Her kids were clearly so proud of that goal. They knew that high school was going to be no problem for them, and that if high school was no problem, then certainly life wouldn’t get any harder than that. Anyone who’s been around me this last month can tell you that I talk about that classroom all the time. In fact, I was just talking about it today in Literacy. I don’t think I’ve ever specifically mentioned the 9th graders.
There are two of us interviewing tomorrow, and I really do have the option of throwing this one. I’d still get placed, and the worst case scenario is me ending up at a different middle school. But I don’t think I want to do that. I think I want to walk in there, best foot forward, and see if this thing is meant to be.
After the ceremonies, I was chatting with some friends about our collabs and managed to miss getting on the first set of buses back to the ranch, and as we were waiting for a last bus to pick up the stragglers, I got word that the woman in charge of LA placements was looking for me. Just as the bus pulled up, we found each other, and she told me that a placement just opened up at a school downtown, that the principal is absolutely amazing, and that she’s scheduled an interview for me tomorrow morning.
It is a middle school.
The placement woman says that she pulled me for this interview because no one unplaced has a clear middle school preference, so she moved on to people who have no preference. Fine, but I marked a clear high school preference. So whatever, the paperwork is screwy. Point is, I have an interview tomorrow and it’s 50/50 that within the week I’ll have a placement in 7th/8th English/Social Studies. First of all...Social Studies? How does my English CSET qualify me to teach about manifest destiny? And second of all...7th and 8th grade? With the possible exception of 6th grade, those were the worst years of my life. Even doing my 8th grade observations exhausted me, and all I had to do was sit on a barstool for 4 hours and take notes.
Here it is, though. I have a high school preference because I love working with high schoolers. But before I got my last job, I had no idea that I would love working with high schoolers. So, I’m cognizant of the fact that I may fall in love all over again. I'm even finding that I'm open to the possibility. And while I thought the 9th grade classes I observed would be loads of fun to teach, I was really inspired by the 8th graders. Despite requiring an amazing amount of maintenance, I could see that they were incredibly bright and hungry for knowledge. They wanted to know everything, and they wanted to know it all now. Their teacher, who is here working at institute, had set the ambitious goal of having all of her students write well enough to pass the writing portion of the California State High School Exit Exam, affectionately abbreviated as the CAHSEE. Her kids were clearly so proud of that goal. They knew that high school was going to be no problem for them, and that if high school was no problem, then certainly life wouldn’t get any harder than that. Anyone who’s been around me this last month can tell you that I talk about that classroom all the time. In fact, I was just talking about it today in Literacy. I don’t think I’ve ever specifically mentioned the 9th graders.
There are two of us interviewing tomorrow, and I really do have the option of throwing this one. I’d still get placed, and the worst case scenario is me ending up at a different middle school. But I don’t think I want to do that. I think I want to walk in there, best foot forward, and see if this thing is meant to be.
how is it only tuesday?
Today: exhaustion.
I just got back from dinner. The tables were all full and my corps can be amazingly cliquey, but eventually I found myself a seat with some girls from Las Vegas. They were hilarious and up in everyone’s business and I really, really liked them. The LA corps is a lot of things, and I suppose friendly is in there somewhere, but it’s not high up on the list.
I’m trying not to fall asleep. We have welcoming ceremonies tonight, and I have to go and represent for my high school in the big cheer-off that’s apparently become a big deal since we initiated and dominated it last year. I told my dining companions what school I’m at, and almost in unison, they told me “Ohhh, we’ve heard about you.” So apparently we’re notorious. Woot.
I’m a little stressed because I’m so incredibly tired and I still have to write those application essays. Between classes, lesson planning, district processing, and this ceremony, I just don’t know when that is going to happen.
I just got back from dinner. The tables were all full and my corps can be amazingly cliquey, but eventually I found myself a seat with some girls from Las Vegas. They were hilarious and up in everyone’s business and I really, really liked them. The LA corps is a lot of things, and I suppose friendly is in there somewhere, but it’s not high up on the list.
I’m trying not to fall asleep. We have welcoming ceremonies tonight, and I have to go and represent for my high school in the big cheer-off that’s apparently become a big deal since we initiated and dominated it last year. I told my dining companions what school I’m at, and almost in unison, they told me “Ohhh, we’ve heard about you.” So apparently we’re notorious. Woot.
I’m a little stressed because I’m so incredibly tired and I still have to write those application essays. Between classes, lesson planning, district processing, and this ceremony, I just don’t know when that is going to happen.
Monday, July 04, 2005
overwhelmed much?
It's day one of Institute, and things are happening.
My official summer placement is indeed at the high school, where I will be teaching ninth grade English alongside three other corps members: a guy from Chicago corps, a girl from Baltimore, and another girl from Los Angeles. We started classes today with two sessions of IPD (Instructional Planning and Delivery – our crash course in navigating standards and writing objectives, lesson plans, and assessments), and then broke off into our smaller groups of sixteen (four cohorts like mine – three English, one Algebra) to get a crash course in Institute scheduling and to familiarize ourselves with our SAPs, essentially binders of our teaching objectives for the summer. We have goals and objectives laid out for us, and the assessments are set in stone, but we’re responsible for all the actual lesson planning and all of the teaching. It’s really daunting to realize that this isn’t some guinea pig class; we are expected to teach these kids to master these objectives in the next month. It’s a massive responsibility. It’s also happening very fast; our first lesson plans are due Thursday. We get an hourlong lesson in writing them tomorrow in IPD, and then we are more or less on our own.
I should mention that The Program is acronym-crazy. On a weekly, if not daily basis, I am in contact with my FA, my PD, my CMA, and my other CMs. We look at documents like SAPs and IEPs. We take classes like IPD, CMC, and DCA. Today I caught myself writing my very first "SWBAT." This particular acronym means “Student Will Be Able To,” and is used to begin most lesson and unit objectives. I felt like a really-and-truly teacher.
We were only in session until 2 today, being as it’s a national holiday or whatnot. Already exhausted, I seized the opportunity to take a super-patriotic two-hour nap, then hooked up my internets. I plan to draft my application essays and then be in bed by a reasonable hour. My plan is to be in the shower at 5 every morning. So far, so good.
In more pedestrian concerns: I am in food heaven here. LMU was a really valuable experience, in terms of providing contrast. This morning I had strawberries, three kinds of melon, half a grapefruit, really good eggs, and mediocre potatoes. Dinner was pasta, steamed vegetables, salad, more melon, garlic bread, and a creamsicle. It sounds like a lot, but you have to remember: there are twelve hours between breakfast and dinner, interrupted only by an apple and a pb & j.
My official summer placement is indeed at the high school, where I will be teaching ninth grade English alongside three other corps members: a guy from Chicago corps, a girl from Baltimore, and another girl from Los Angeles. We started classes today with two sessions of IPD (Instructional Planning and Delivery – our crash course in navigating standards and writing objectives, lesson plans, and assessments), and then broke off into our smaller groups of sixteen (four cohorts like mine – three English, one Algebra) to get a crash course in Institute scheduling and to familiarize ourselves with our SAPs, essentially binders of our teaching objectives for the summer. We have goals and objectives laid out for us, and the assessments are set in stone, but we’re responsible for all the actual lesson planning and all of the teaching. It’s really daunting to realize that this isn’t some guinea pig class; we are expected to teach these kids to master these objectives in the next month. It’s a massive responsibility. It’s also happening very fast; our first lesson plans are due Thursday. We get an hourlong lesson in writing them tomorrow in IPD, and then we are more or less on our own.
I should mention that The Program is acronym-crazy. On a weekly, if not daily basis, I am in contact with my FA, my PD, my CMA, and my other CMs. We look at documents like SAPs and IEPs. We take classes like IPD, CMC, and DCA. Today I caught myself writing my very first "SWBAT." This particular acronym means “Student Will Be Able To,” and is used to begin most lesson and unit objectives. I felt like a really-and-truly teacher.
We were only in session until 2 today, being as it’s a national holiday or whatnot. Already exhausted, I seized the opportunity to take a super-patriotic two-hour nap, then hooked up my internets. I plan to draft my application essays and then be in bed by a reasonable hour. My plan is to be in the shower at 5 every morning. So far, so good.
In more pedestrian concerns: I am in food heaven here. LMU was a really valuable experience, in terms of providing contrast. This morning I had strawberries, three kinds of melon, half a grapefruit, really good eggs, and mediocre potatoes. Dinner was pasta, steamed vegetables, salad, more melon, garlic bread, and a creamsicle. It sounds like a lot, but you have to remember: there are twelve hours between breakfast and dinner, interrupted only by an apple and a pb & j.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
hello, breakdown. hello, CSULB.
I spent the last two days up in Ktown with Aaron/roommates/mice. I spent most of the time crying, trying not to vomit, and harassing Aaron. Eventually we got into a fight, and I realized how intolerable I’ve been, and moreover, how terrified I am. For the first time in a long time, I don’t know how to live my life. I don’t know how to teach, or navigate life in this city, or drive, or even live with Aaron – none of these being things I’ve done before, nor even things that, a year or two ago, I would have told you I’d ever even considered doing. I am incredibly fucking scared all the time. I’ve realized that all I know is how to be myself, and at least these past few days, I haven’t been doing it. I’ve just given in to the terror. Many people have given me the same advice about teaching: never forget who you are, and when you’re at a loss, turn to that sense of self, because often there’ll be nothing and no one else to turn to. So, I’m trying now to remember who I am, and why I’m here. It helps to steady me, when problems look insurmountable, and tasks look too huge to even approach, and every time I feel the tears welling up. It’s not about not being scared; it’s about not giving in to it.
Today Aaron shuttled me to Long Beach, where the evening’s activities consisted of check-in, financial aid session, and a big ole’ barbeque. Instead of being social and picking up the smell of charred flesh, I was bad and went on a Target/CompUSA run with Rebecca, one of my suitemates from LMU. We bought ethernet cables and snackables and stopped off at Quizno’s, for lack of any other option. It was definitely preferable to mingling and explaining the vegetarian issue yet again, but apparently we got our summer teaching placements at dinner, and now I’ve got to find another time and place where I can check on mine. For tomorrow, I’m at the high school. Note the definite article: there’s only one among the summer placement schools, and I’m really hoping that this means I’ll be there the whole time. There is no guarantee – one girl who already has a high school placement was placed at an elementary for the summer. As of this post, I still lack a placement.
Lots to do this week. I have to write up a bunch of reflections on my curriculum tonight, and by Thursday I’ve got to have two essays written for my TeachLA application. Thursday is also my processing appointment with The District, which will be smooth or nightmarish depending on how much the fingerprinting staff decides it likes me. Then we’re in workshops upon workshops. The unexpected good news is that we’re only in session until 2 tomorrow, it being a holiday and all. I wish I wasn’t being such a lame-o about the license; in my mind, I’m driving my imaginary car back up to Ktown and spending the evening with Aaron. It’s probably better this way; he has writing to do, and I should take the opportunity to get to know some more people. There are tons of us here – Bay Area, Baltimore, St. Louis, Las Vegas, Chicago, and DC, in addition to my massive LA corps.
I started on a down note, so let’s end on a positive. As I mentioned earlier: today was Financial Aid Day! Between depositing a grant, a loan, and my old apartment deposit, I’m shockingly flush. Assuming I don’t have any large expenditures this summer (and really, I’m not going to have time to spend money, even if I wanted to), I have first month’s rent, deposit, and a pretty decent down payment for that eventual car.
Today Aaron shuttled me to Long Beach, where the evening’s activities consisted of check-in, financial aid session, and a big ole’ barbeque. Instead of being social and picking up the smell of charred flesh, I was bad and went on a Target/CompUSA run with Rebecca, one of my suitemates from LMU. We bought ethernet cables and snackables and stopped off at Quizno’s, for lack of any other option. It was definitely preferable to mingling and explaining the vegetarian issue yet again, but apparently we got our summer teaching placements at dinner, and now I’ve got to find another time and place where I can check on mine. For tomorrow, I’m at the high school. Note the definite article: there’s only one among the summer placement schools, and I’m really hoping that this means I’ll be there the whole time. There is no guarantee – one girl who already has a high school placement was placed at an elementary for the summer. As of this post, I still lack a placement.
Lots to do this week. I have to write up a bunch of reflections on my curriculum tonight, and by Thursday I’ve got to have two essays written for my TeachLA application. Thursday is also my processing appointment with The District, which will be smooth or nightmarish depending on how much the fingerprinting staff decides it likes me. Then we’re in workshops upon workshops. The unexpected good news is that we’re only in session until 2 tomorrow, it being a holiday and all. I wish I wasn’t being such a lame-o about the license; in my mind, I’m driving my imaginary car back up to Ktown and spending the evening with Aaron. It’s probably better this way; he has writing to do, and I should take the opportunity to get to know some more people. There are tons of us here – Bay Area, Baltimore, St. Louis, Las Vegas, Chicago, and DC, in addition to my massive LA corps.
I started on a down note, so let’s end on a positive. As I mentioned earlier: today was Financial Aid Day! Between depositing a grant, a loan, and my old apartment deposit, I’m shockingly flush. Assuming I don’t have any large expenditures this summer (and really, I’m not going to have time to spend money, even if I wanted to), I have first month’s rent, deposit, and a pretty decent down payment for that eventual car.
Friday, July 01, 2005
a plague of children
We are sharing the campus with about 10 groups of kids, ranging in age from about eight to about sixteen. Soccer, basketball, and computer camps are all represented. Pretty much everywhere you look they are cropping up like toadstool rings.
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