why most people are incompetent

As a new ESL chairperson, you will probably attend many meetings about moving students to a lower level of ESL. This requires a great deal on everyone's part, including reassessment, multiple parent meetings, and the presence of the counselor, the school psychologist, the teacher, and the bilingual coordinator. You will realize, via your own experience and those of others, that students in too high a level are mostly a problem in levels 1 and 2, where students take their other classes in Spanish. The difference between a 1 and a 2 is huge; 1s often can't communicate in simple sentences, or sometimes even words. It is more a basic comprehension and naming class. Students at the other end of 2, however, can write full paragraphs, albeit fairly simple ones, and can ask questions and answer them in English. A 1 in a class full of 2s is doomed. The advanced levels, 3 and 4, are wholly different. They take all their classes in English, and they often speak fluently if not academically. They can read simple texts independently, and more complicated ones with support. My 3s, for example, are reading Holes as a class. This is not approved by The District- in fact, it is specifically discouraged - but it is teaching them how to handle literature that is not in tiny bite-size pieces, and it is a heck of a lot of fun. The problem we have in advanced, mostly, is mainstreamable kids being placed in ESL because they don't write well and they speak some Spanish at home. Realistically, that probably describes about 70% of our school's population, if not more. These students seem disproportionately to have behavior issues or chronic absences. Gee....wonder how they ended up in ESL?

I have four of these students in one class. Two are serious, costant disruptions - think old Tasmanian Devil cartoons, with all the whirling and grunting and howling, only without the recourse of burying them in the col', col' groun' - one is chronically absent, and one spent most of last year in juvy, and now emits periodic beeping sounds from the general vicinity of his ankle. These are really good, smart kids, and they perform just as highly as my mainstream classes have. They're just "issues," so they're here.

This is what happens when you place kids in classes they're way, way too advanced for: they start out great, because it's so easy. Then they shout out all these complicated answers that intimidate the less-proficient students, preventing them from speaking out in class participation or in protest over any kind of inappropriate antics. Then they get bored with that, and they either a) start ditching, or b) scream, throw things, pick fights, sing innapropriate song lyrics with your name inserted, steal sodas and boxes of pencils, throw each others' notebooks in the trash, and generally wreak havoc. If you're very lucky, as I am, you have them for two periods, so they can ditch one and then go aggro during the second.

This is what happens when you decide to get these kids moved to classes where they can actually learn something. You go to last year's department chair, now part of an entirely different department, and ask what needs to happen. She taught mostly 1s and 2s, so she defers to bilingual. Bilingual gives you a form for their parents to sign. You write a letter explaining the change and the form, which bilingual helpfully translates, also making calls home to inform parents that these documents are on the way. You give your idiot counselor the heads-up that these changes are coming his way and that they are priority one, then retire to your room, where you fill out the forms entirely and highlight where they need to be signed. You give them to your students, you explain them to your students, and you send them home.

Every day, you check in with your students, who, it should be noted, have been asking how they can be switched out of ESL since day one. Did you bring the form? They forgot the form. The form is at home. The form is in their locker. Yeah, they have the form right here - psych! Wait, which form again? Meanwhile, their behavior and truancy worsen.

Eventually one form comes back, and you put it in Idiot Counselor's box with an ugent note re-explaining the situation, as Idiot Counselor is never in his office and needs everything in writing in any case. A day passes. The student becomes belligerent, calling you a liar for saying he'd be moved, and accusing you of fabricating the entire thing. The other students, who have still not brought back their forms, vascillate between accusing you of trying to get rid of them because you hate them, and trying to keep them in ESL because you hate them. Eventually, three of four forms are back, with the fourth student no longer showing up to class. You take the remaining two forms to Idiot Counselor, who is IN HIS OFFICE! as Attractive Counselor is there flirting with him instead of working.

You: Hi, Mr. I.C. I have signed mainstreaming forms for students B and C here for you. Did you get that form about Student A?
Idiot Counselor: What? No. No, I lost that.
You: Hmm. Well, I left it in your box. I made a few extra copies, though; I can bring you one if you need it. They all need to get mainstreamed ASAP.
Idiot Counselor: Wait, mainstream? I can't do that. That's bilingual.
You: Hmmmmm. Well, the forms came from bilingual, so you're authorized. Did you want another copy for your records?
Idiot Counselor: No, you've got to take it to bilingual. They need to change the classes.

At bilingual:
You: Hi, Ms. B.C. I just came from Mr. I.C. with those mainstream forms. Here are the originals, except this one. He lost the original there. He says you need to make the change.
Bilingual Coordinator: What?
You: He says -
Bilingual Coordinator: He is the counselor.
You: Well, I -
Bilingual Coordinator: It is his job to help these students. His only job. He sends kids here, and I don't have the authorization to change classes. Go back and tell him that he needs to make those changes, or I will talk to his Assistant Principal. No, I'll have Title 1 speak to his Assistant Principal.
You: (thinking this is probably not going to get you what you want) Sure. I'll tell him as diplomatically as I can.

(Head back to the other buiding. Bearing in mind that you are trudging back and forth in 90+ degree heat, carrying 100 unstapled, single-sided copies of the "Why Drug Dealers Live With Their Moms" chapter of Freakonomics. Thanks, Title 1!)

You: (speaking slowly and overly sweetly) Hi again, Mr. I.C. So, Ms. B.C. says you're authorized to make the changes, and that she doesn't have clearance for that. Let me write the info down for you.
Idiot Counselor: Oh, okay. Just write down their names. That's all I need. I can figure out everything else.
You: (writing down every piece of semi-pertinent information you can think of) Hmm. You're probably not going to get to this tonight?
Idiot Counselor: (laughing)
You: Right. Well then. I'll come by in the morning with that copy of Student A's paperwork. If you should find it, though...
Idiot Counselor: I can't just make these changes, though. I need authorization from bilingual.
You: (wondering where he thinks the forms came from)

Back at bilingual:
Bilingual Coordinator: Where does he think the forms came from?

Tomorrow I will be in that office about every 10 minutes. I'm learning very quickly that the only way to make things happen is to make people sick of hearing about them. I put this theory to the test by having every single student repeat the question we were trying to answer in class today. That's right, twenty-eight times. You had better believe it worked, too.

In conclusion, if you ever become a teacher, try not to care about your students' education. It will cause you nothing but headaches and lost time.

i am lame

...because I have been meaning to post forever, but I'm just too exhausted at the end of the day. A few brief updates: I've been getting to work around 6:20 every morning and leaving around 8 at night, not least because it's just too hot to function at home at anything above a reptilian level. It does not look at all likely that I'll be running this half-marathon; again, I'll probably pull out and run one at a later date, and donate a bunch of guilt money to the cause. My reading challenge is going well; I'm beating the kids, but not by much. Better, though, is that I've read over eight hundred pages in the last two weeks. This, along with the now-traditional Saturday night beer n' swim in my friend Tiff's pool, is what is keeping me sane. I am spending way too money on iTunes and Dr. Pepper.

Other updates: I had my Round Zero Program Meeting tonight and I am already about done for the year. I had eight new freshmen added to my English class today. I have twelve female students in total, all day. I made my first parent phone call today. Riley and I are planning, and teaching, a tremendously ambitious unit on persuasion. Our kids are not really on board, themselves being not terribly ambitious on the whole. I made my first parent phone call this afternoon. I have been killing myself trying to get four ESL students reclassified as mainstream. I have just been killing myself, overall.
Witness! Room Five Thirty-One!

1. Aaron is reading more, too - all of my favorite books.
2.You wish you hung out in my library.
3. Yeah...how much CAN you read? Plus, postcards.
4. Up close.
5. That's a whole lot of felt.
6. The Throne of Power.

new, new, new.

The new year started. That's where I've been.

I kind of have some new jobs. For example, you may remember that I am the new department chair. I am also on some new committee that charts the course of our professional development to make it less useless. I am newly a 9th grade teacher. I am newly a decent teacher, I think. Not good, but at least approaching decent. For a second-year. By my school's standards, a veretan.

My new room is so, so great. It is, in the words of my ESL 3 students, "quiet, clean, smart, and big." I am especially proud of the library and the expectations wall. I will put up pictures ASAP.

My new students are phenomenal: sweet, dedicated, and gifted. I adore them. Unfortunately I also have some old thorn-in-my-side students who have failed the class three times and have no intention of trying to pass this time. These are not the ones who just don't get it yet, who I can work with. These are the mounds of flesh who sit there staring at the ceiling, pushing each other, etc. I also have a few true jerks. Fortunately, they are misplaced in ESL, and it's now well within my power to fight to get them moved out of ESL and into mainstream English. It's better for them, which is a great cover for the fact that it's way, way better for my other students and me.

I have some new strategies. A for instance: in my somewhat limited experience, requiring outside reading is not effective. This year, I decided to up the ante a bit and challenge my new freshman class to out-read me, page for page. There are fifteen of them, and only one (busy, exhausted) me. The idea is that they will buy in, and that I will then be forced to read, which makes me happier than almost anything else I could do with my "downtime" but almost never happens. The buy-in is initially overwhelming, and they read several hundred pages this week. I started off my campaign with a bang as well, reading Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days cover-to-cover this weekend. Highly recommended, both the book and the all-in-one-go plan of attack.

Ummm I don't sleep anymore. That is not new.

Also I still hate it down here. The heat makes me so sick every day that I feel like throwing up. Clearly I am not going to be able to run this half-marathon. I am still In Training though, in case the temperature plummets or something. Otherwise I will just donate a bunch of money to my hardier friends and lie in the bathtub crying. I am not even joking.