My first year of teaching, I would call homes every night, begging parents to discipline their children. I would call with a laundry list of offenses that their child had committed, and complain that their student was disrespectful, lazy, rude, distractive, etc. Nothing every changed. The parents would sigh, and agree, and say that they didn’t know what to do either. “They are the same way at home, I don’t know what to do,” the parent would sigh, sounding resigned to the inevitability of their child’s failure.
Next door, Wendy, my current partner, was having much more success. Her children had a history of bad behavior, and had IEPs that required them to be in a severely restrictive setting. And yet, parents were rushing to help her in any way that they could. When she suggested that the child be punished, they gave her high fives her in agreement.
What was different?
Listening to Wendy make calls home taught me one of the biggest lessons that I had learned, and I will be forever grateful to her for what she showed me about interacting with parents.
“Hi, this is Mrs. Santana, I’m Jose’s teacher…I was just calling to express some of my concerns about Jose. Jose is very bright, very energetic, but Jose is not showing us the best parts of him. I am very concerned, because I want nothing more than for him to have success, and he is not allowing himself to achieve it. His behavior is preventing him from achieving.” She would go on and on, making the parent truly believe that you she was calling to strategize the best ways for their son to succeed, and one day be president. My calls were less optimistic.
“Hi, this is Ms. Klein, I’m Jose’s teacher. I wanted to let you know some problems that I am having with Jose. Jose’s behavior is a huge problem in class, he is very distractive, I have to speak with him many times, he gets upset if I ask him to please be quiet, and he often prevents me from teaching my lessons, and prevents the other kids from learning.”
Looking back, it seems so obvious. When I called, I talked about myself. I let the parent know how worried I was about how the child was impacting ME. When Wendy called, she was talking about how the child impacted themselves! The parent has no reason to worry about me – and every reason in the world to worry about themselves!
I have practiced following Wendy’s example every time I have ever called home in the last 2 years, and have noticed excellent results. It is most evident on Parent-Teacher Conference nights.
Last night, parents waited in a long line outside of our room. They came in, they sat, disappointed in their children’s grades, claiming, as usual, that their student had never ever received such low marks. As usual, there were excuses made, and sighs of defeat. But when the parents left, they were always on our side – agreeing that we were a team, working to support the success of the child.
There are always the very good, and very bad moments at Parent Conferences. There are the sounds of a parents screaming at their child, slapping them, cursing at them. There are tears running down children’s faces. Always the parents seem to feel the need to demonstrate to the teachers that they are strong disciplinarians. They will berate their child without mercy for the benefit of our ears, raging about how ‘things are gonna change’. There is nothing I hate more than listening to a parent discipline their child. I have no time for it – always wanting to walk away.
My first year, hearing the child get scolded represented a victory for me – I really believed that things were going to change. Now, I know the futility of it, and it annoys me. A parent waltzes in and acts surprised to hear that their child is failing, is disruptive, is crazy. They then respond with outrage, as though they can’t even believe that this is THEIR child.
I am outraged. I am outraged that the parent can say that they have no idea about their child, and expect me to believe it. I am outraged that they can say it and actually mean it sometimes. I am outraged that when they hear that they have a child on the 3rd or 4th grade reading level, they are shocked and disappointed.
“They act as if they are reading with the kids at home every night,” Wendy says, laughing after a parent seemed to disagree with the assigned reading level. No. They aren’t reading with their kids. If you read with your kids, your kids can read. If you spend time with them, it’s no surprise that they are failing. If you know your son or daughter, than you know that they can be a big pain in the butt sometimes.
I know that these parents have a difficult job, raising a family in poverty, often without the support of a spouse. But if you are going to discipline your child and teach them right from wrong – teach them every day – not just on parent teacher conference night.
The parents who are effective just nod and frown, and when they go home they deal with the problems. These are the kids who come back reformed, reminded of the values that they already knew. The ones whose parents rage in public are the ones who roll their eyes even as their mother curses at them.
There are the good moments too, of course. The parents whose eyes fill with pride when we tell them about how wonderful their kid is. These parents know that their kids are great – and are pleased to have someone else recognize it.
Saddest always, are the parents who don’t know that their kids are great. Who look at us with disbelief, as though we must be talking about a different child.
“He’s really great, we like having him in our class, he’s a great addition.” We rave.
“Yea, well there’s an awful lot I’d change about him. I just want to kill him sometimes,” sighs a frustrated, exhausted mother.
The best experience that I had last night was when a step father came into the room. He was the last parent of the night, and he was the stepfather of a boy who I have known for 3 years. I have always had a soft spot for this kid – he’s quiet and contained, with a bad temper. He’s popular and athletic, and he glows when he receives praise, but shuts down entirely if he is ever reprimanded or corrected.
I explained to the man that his stepson had had a rocky start, but had turned things around entirely, and was really impressing us. I showed him the improved work, and described moments when he had really made us proud.
“We’re really proud of how he’s turned things around,” we reported.
“I’M really proud. I can’t believe what I’m hearing! I’m just so proud of him right now – I’m gonna make sure he knows how proud I am. The last year, every time that we come in here we are embarrassed, and feel like we don’t know what to do. It’s so good to hear good things. This isn’t what I was expecting at all!” the stepdad said. He looked like he was remembering the boy who he had forgotten.
After he left the room, he sat down on a chair in front of the bulletin board, and read from start to finish a paper that his stepson had written about playing football, leaning in close to capture every word.
It’s always revealing and eye opening to meet the parents. It always explains a lot. Often it’s as we predicted. The strict parents who ask the good questions are the ones with the kids who are already doing well. The ones whose parents don’t show up are the ones who we most needed to see. The angriest parents have the angriest kids. But whatever the experience turns out to be, it’s important for us to see where these kids come from, and understand what they go home to every night.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Bulletin Boards
Bulletin board are the worst. Currently my bulletin board displays half finished papers, which are graded with sticky notes that simply say a number on them. Teachers everywhere complain about bulletin boards. They are time consuming and nit-picky, and the punishments for not doing them are real. In some ways, it is an illustration of how ridiculous the profession of teaching has made itself that such a focused is placed on these boards. It’s as though teachers are mocking themselves, making a benchmark of their profession something as ridiculous as bulletin boards.
I know that I am a better teacher this year than the years prior, because for the first time, I have nothing to put on the boards. Bulletin board work is pretty and polished. You have to mount it nicely on construction paper, and put it up each month. You have write a title for the bulletin board - no title, you will lose points, as with a 6th grade science project. You have to grade the work, and you have to write a comment on each piece of work, which compliments the student, and then also tells them something that they could do to improve their work. You have to show how you graded it (the rubric) and you have to describe the assignment.
In theory, this is simple. But the truth is, that student work folders don’t look much like a bulletin board. My students are writing papers right now. Each week, we work on a new aspect of writing. We started with ideas, and spent a week focused on ‘ideas’ - developing them, focusing them, adding details. They had to write a draft that I graded just based on how good their idea was. Then we added in organization, and they had to write a draft that I graded for ideas and organization. So on, and so forth, until we get through the other traits of writing (voice, sentence fluency, conventions, presentation, word choice). This is not a neat and tidy process. There are papers everywhere, looseleaf being scratched up and written on, words being inserted and deleted, sentences and paragraphs being reorganized. It’s a mess. But it works. My students are growing so fast and they are improving so much, that I’m thrilled every day.
The first of the month came without warning, and I got a slip in my mailbox reminding me to do my bulletin board. Crap! A bulletin board! What would I put up? My students are in the middle of their papers - I want them to revise them 3 more times before they are done. I can put up their baseline assessments, but those are total crap - the first things that they wrote this year, which were essentially just a way for me to measure where their skill level was. I consider rebelling, not doing one, because really, the ‘punishment’ consists of putting a LETTER in my file saying that I didn’t do the board, and it’s hard to get myself too worked up over a letter. But in the world of teaching, a letter in your file is like a death sentence, and I don’t want to make any enemies or make it too obvious that I find it ridiculous, so I had to put something up. I went on the computers and printed out all of the papers that the students were working on. I stapled them to pretty paper, and cut out stars and shapes, and wrote in nice letter what the title was. I went down the checklist of things that were required, and I finished my board.
On Monday, the kids saw the board, and were shocked - they wanted to know what their grades were, how they got up there when I had said that their writing needed so much improvement. I had to let them in on the little secret of teachers everywhere - that bulletin boards are a bit of a chore, not to be taken too seriously, and that we would be continuing on track.
But the truth is, we never really did get back on track. They students didn’t want to go back to those pieces - they had already been published in some way, and they felt more done then they had when they left on Friday. So we abandoned them, for the most part, and started new work. And I never went back and gave the real grades for the papers, and the kids lost out on what they should have learned from rewriting them.
Bulletin boards are the worst. They make no sense, and I think they are basically silly. Even my students know how I feel about them. But I do them. And I think that that’s important. It’s important to show my students that even when you don’t want to do something, you do it because you’re supposed to sometimes. They know when I don’t want to go to a meeting, but they see that I go anyway. They know that there are probably people I hate and horrible things that I want to say sometimes, but that I keep them in my head, and that, more than anything, is an example that they need.
So in the end, I justify the bulletin boards to myself in that they can be a vehicle through which my kids can learn a bit about life - even if it is at the expense of ELA.
I know that I am a better teacher this year than the years prior, because for the first time, I have nothing to put on the boards. Bulletin board work is pretty and polished. You have to mount it nicely on construction paper, and put it up each month. You have write a title for the bulletin board - no title, you will lose points, as with a 6th grade science project. You have to grade the work, and you have to write a comment on each piece of work, which compliments the student, and then also tells them something that they could do to improve their work. You have to show how you graded it (the rubric) and you have to describe the assignment.
In theory, this is simple. But the truth is, that student work folders don’t look much like a bulletin board. My students are writing papers right now. Each week, we work on a new aspect of writing. We started with ideas, and spent a week focused on ‘ideas’ - developing them, focusing them, adding details. They had to write a draft that I graded just based on how good their idea was. Then we added in organization, and they had to write a draft that I graded for ideas and organization. So on, and so forth, until we get through the other traits of writing (voice, sentence fluency, conventions, presentation, word choice). This is not a neat and tidy process. There are papers everywhere, looseleaf being scratched up and written on, words being inserted and deleted, sentences and paragraphs being reorganized. It’s a mess. But it works. My students are growing so fast and they are improving so much, that I’m thrilled every day.
The first of the month came without warning, and I got a slip in my mailbox reminding me to do my bulletin board. Crap! A bulletin board! What would I put up? My students are in the middle of their papers - I want them to revise them 3 more times before they are done. I can put up their baseline assessments, but those are total crap - the first things that they wrote this year, which were essentially just a way for me to measure where their skill level was. I consider rebelling, not doing one, because really, the ‘punishment’ consists of putting a LETTER in my file saying that I didn’t do the board, and it’s hard to get myself too worked up over a letter. But in the world of teaching, a letter in your file is like a death sentence, and I don’t want to make any enemies or make it too obvious that I find it ridiculous, so I had to put something up. I went on the computers and printed out all of the papers that the students were working on. I stapled them to pretty paper, and cut out stars and shapes, and wrote in nice letter what the title was. I went down the checklist of things that were required, and I finished my board.
On Monday, the kids saw the board, and were shocked - they wanted to know what their grades were, how they got up there when I had said that their writing needed so much improvement. I had to let them in on the little secret of teachers everywhere - that bulletin boards are a bit of a chore, not to be taken too seriously, and that we would be continuing on track.
But the truth is, we never really did get back on track. They students didn’t want to go back to those pieces - they had already been published in some way, and they felt more done then they had when they left on Friday. So we abandoned them, for the most part, and started new work. And I never went back and gave the real grades for the papers, and the kids lost out on what they should have learned from rewriting them.
Bulletin boards are the worst. They make no sense, and I think they are basically silly. Even my students know how I feel about them. But I do them. And I think that that’s important. It’s important to show my students that even when you don’t want to do something, you do it because you’re supposed to sometimes. They know when I don’t want to go to a meeting, but they see that I go anyway. They know that there are probably people I hate and horrible things that I want to say sometimes, but that I keep them in my head, and that, more than anything, is an example that they need.
So in the end, I justify the bulletin boards to myself in that they can be a vehicle through which my kids can learn a bit about life - even if it is at the expense of ELA.
Cultural Collision
It is 2:30, and I am walking my 38 students to my room for homeroom - the last 10 minutes of the day where we take attendance, give out homework, and make important announcements. The kids are energetic, bouncing around in line, eager to get into, and out of homeroom.
A familiar woman waits outside the door, and as I let the kids into the classroom, she tells me that she needs to speak with me. I recognize her as the mother of one of my students, and tell her that she can come in the room if she would like, and we can talk after the kids are dismissed. She shakes her head, evidently very upset, and says that it’s personal, and we need to speak privately.
She waits in the hall while Wendy and I let the kids get packed up and ready to go home, and then line them up for dismissal. When we approach her after dismissal, she tells us that she is very upset because a male student in our class has been calling her daughter, asking her to come over to study. We both pictured the scrawny 13 year-old boy, who looks more like he is 9, and spends nearly all of his time with his head in his books, and wondered, What was the problem?
She went on, her voice trembling, saying that it wasn’t appropriate for him to be calling her daughter. She said that they shouldn’t be studying together, that they should not be talking or spending time together. She was enraged that he would call, that he would try to do something so inappropriate. Her daughter joined us, a sweet, curly haired girl who always wears her uniform and reads on a 3rd grade level. She looked sheepish as she realized what her mother was ranting about.
Her mother turned towards her daughter, and shook her finger in her face, that she should not be talking to that boy! We intervened, assuring the woman that we had never seen them interact in school, and were surprised to hear that they were friends. We assured her that we had in fact encouraged the students to find neighbors to study with, and that perhaps that was the only intention of this boy.
The mother could not be deterred. She was outraged, disgusted, and most of all, terrified. She works until midnight every night and lives in the projects in a terribly unsafe neighborhood. Her only daughter is at home alone, working on her homework, eating dinner, presumably doing chores. They immigrated here from Guyana, and the culture shock of the Bronx couldn’t be more pronounced.
She confided to us that when her daughter is showering, she checks her body for marks, and when she is sleeping, she goes through her things, searching for clues, evidence, of some crime that she fears will one day be committed.
The little girl is outraged, as any American girl would be, that her mother is so strict, so angry about nothing.
“But Ma, I didn’t do nothing! I don’t even talk to him, or like him, he just wants to study!”
“No! I don’t want you talking to any boys, you should not even be talking to them, looking at them!”
GIrls are pregnant in this school. Even if they weren’t, even if we were in the most elite of schools, in the most affluent neighborhood, it would be natural that girls develop a keen interest in the opposite sex at around this age. It’s programmed into them. And so I find myself sympathizing with the plight of this girl, who is crazy about her mother, but embarrassed and frustrated by the cultural expectations that accompany her.
Wendy steps in, saying the only thing that we can really say. “Do you understand that this is a big deal, and that it is really important to your mother?” she asks the girl. The girl nods, her big brown eyes widened to show us that she is serious. “Really important, and that you have to respect what is important to your mother?” she nods again, a bit reluctantly.
“Your mother is worried about you,” I say, when she begins to protest again that she hasn’t done anything wrong, “she isn’t there with you, and she worries. You need to make sure that you don’t give her anything to worry about.”
After they leave, we look at one another, speechless. It’s rare to see parents at all, let alone ones who are upset and advocating for their students. Usually they arrive after being called multiple times, dragged in to remedy some behavior problem that their children are presenting. It’s always moving to see a parent who really cares, who proclaims that it is their only job to protect their child. And yet, in this case, we both understood the position of the daughter.
“She’s raising her daughter in America,” Wendy said. And she was right. I often consider the unique set of circumstances that these kids are presented with as the result of being immigrants. A huge language barrier that sets them years behind their peers, a high level of financial instability, the many obstacles that arise from trying to become citizens, the possibility of deportation. And yet I rarely consider the cultural implications that may come with it - the norms that are so different here than in the cultures that they came from.
You live in America, but you came here with a deeply ingrained sense of propriety, and of what is right and wrong. You arrived with your own set of expectations for your children. And here, you encounter cultural norms which may be very much at odds with what you are used to. It’s like making sure that your kids learn Spanish, in an environment where it makes much more sense to speak English. How do you ensure that both languages, both cultures, both sets of principals survive?
A familiar woman waits outside the door, and as I let the kids into the classroom, she tells me that she needs to speak with me. I recognize her as the mother of one of my students, and tell her that she can come in the room if she would like, and we can talk after the kids are dismissed. She shakes her head, evidently very upset, and says that it’s personal, and we need to speak privately.
She waits in the hall while Wendy and I let the kids get packed up and ready to go home, and then line them up for dismissal. When we approach her after dismissal, she tells us that she is very upset because a male student in our class has been calling her daughter, asking her to come over to study. We both pictured the scrawny 13 year-old boy, who looks more like he is 9, and spends nearly all of his time with his head in his books, and wondered, What was the problem?
She went on, her voice trembling, saying that it wasn’t appropriate for him to be calling her daughter. She said that they shouldn’t be studying together, that they should not be talking or spending time together. She was enraged that he would call, that he would try to do something so inappropriate. Her daughter joined us, a sweet, curly haired girl who always wears her uniform and reads on a 3rd grade level. She looked sheepish as she realized what her mother was ranting about.
Her mother turned towards her daughter, and shook her finger in her face, that she should not be talking to that boy! We intervened, assuring the woman that we had never seen them interact in school, and were surprised to hear that they were friends. We assured her that we had in fact encouraged the students to find neighbors to study with, and that perhaps that was the only intention of this boy.
The mother could not be deterred. She was outraged, disgusted, and most of all, terrified. She works until midnight every night and lives in the projects in a terribly unsafe neighborhood. Her only daughter is at home alone, working on her homework, eating dinner, presumably doing chores. They immigrated here from Guyana, and the culture shock of the Bronx couldn’t be more pronounced.
She confided to us that when her daughter is showering, she checks her body for marks, and when she is sleeping, she goes through her things, searching for clues, evidence, of some crime that she fears will one day be committed.
The little girl is outraged, as any American girl would be, that her mother is so strict, so angry about nothing.
“But Ma, I didn’t do nothing! I don’t even talk to him, or like him, he just wants to study!”
“No! I don’t want you talking to any boys, you should not even be talking to them, looking at them!”
GIrls are pregnant in this school. Even if they weren’t, even if we were in the most elite of schools, in the most affluent neighborhood, it would be natural that girls develop a keen interest in the opposite sex at around this age. It’s programmed into them. And so I find myself sympathizing with the plight of this girl, who is crazy about her mother, but embarrassed and frustrated by the cultural expectations that accompany her.
Wendy steps in, saying the only thing that we can really say. “Do you understand that this is a big deal, and that it is really important to your mother?” she asks the girl. The girl nods, her big brown eyes widened to show us that she is serious. “Really important, and that you have to respect what is important to your mother?” she nods again, a bit reluctantly.
“Your mother is worried about you,” I say, when she begins to protest again that she hasn’t done anything wrong, “she isn’t there with you, and she worries. You need to make sure that you don’t give her anything to worry about.”
After they leave, we look at one another, speechless. It’s rare to see parents at all, let alone ones who are upset and advocating for their students. Usually they arrive after being called multiple times, dragged in to remedy some behavior problem that their children are presenting. It’s always moving to see a parent who really cares, who proclaims that it is their only job to protect their child. And yet, in this case, we both understood the position of the daughter.
“She’s raising her daughter in America,” Wendy said. And she was right. I often consider the unique set of circumstances that these kids are presented with as the result of being immigrants. A huge language barrier that sets them years behind their peers, a high level of financial instability, the many obstacles that arise from trying to become citizens, the possibility of deportation. And yet I rarely consider the cultural implications that may come with it - the norms that are so different here than in the cultures that they came from.
You live in America, but you came here with a deeply ingrained sense of propriety, and of what is right and wrong. You arrived with your own set of expectations for your children. And here, you encounter cultural norms which may be very much at odds with what you are used to. It’s like making sure that your kids learn Spanish, in an environment where it makes much more sense to speak English. How do you ensure that both languages, both cultures, both sets of principals survive?
A New Year
My co-teacher, Wendy, and I eye one another nervously. Surely this is a joke. Collaborative team teaching classrooms, such as ours, are traditionally dumping grounds for behavior problems. And yet, all of these kids are in their seats, reading in absolute silence. In line, they don’t talk or try to escape - they actually walk, one behind the other. When I need them to be silent and I count down from 3 - they are quiet by 2!
Surely this is a joke. It’s November, and we’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop. These kids are cut from a different mold than last years kids. People will say, “No - you are just a better teacher, it’s you who has changed, not them.” Surely I have changed, and I am a better teacher. But it’s not me - it’s them. These kids WANT to learn. They are slow - much further behind than my class last year, but they have something that those kids didn’t - motivation. We tell them to form study groups, and they actually do. We collect homework, and 90% of the kids produce it. It may be jibberish, but they tried - and that’s more than last year’s kids could do.
Also working in their favor, is what they don’t have - bad attitudes. While the walls of our room last year dripped with sarcasm and cattyness, this year, there is a childlike, age appropriate sweetness in the room. They smile more, they insult less, they seem to desire guidance.
A hand will shoot up, or a kid will come over to one of our desks to report that another student is bothering them, taking their pencils, or calling them some sort of name. This in itself is a huge step. Last year, the kids didn’t turn to us to settle their disputes, they handled them themselves, with a callous cruelty that left us breathless. This year, slightly less jaded, they seem unable to confront these challenges without the intervention of an adult. It’s a role that feels somehow new to me.
So this is where we are - a third year in this same school. This year I am in the same classroom as last year, working with the same wonderful partner as last year, and engaged to get married to Mr. Mullen, whose room is just one door away from mine. In this toxic environment, I feel like I have an island of good.
I am teaching English Language Arts again, only this year I feel far more adept at it, and am excited by the growth that I am already seeing my students make. I am also teaching Science, a surprise that I got on the first day of school. Wendy and I are more or less winging it when it comes to these lessons - thought we started off strong. The first unit in 8th grade covers sexual reproduction, which was really smooth sailing as far as getting the students interested went. Lots of questions which we tried to answer. There are many school districts where letters are sent home before we address the topics that we did, but that’s not the type of district that we are in, and it may be for the best. A high percentage of our students are sexually active, and an equally high percentage are sorely misinformed about their bodies reproductive capabilities. The questions are all the things that you would expect, and yet when you look at a 13 year old’s face fall when you tell her that, yes, you can definitely get pregnant on your period or using the ‘pull-out’ method, it really does hit home how dangerous it is for these kids not to know. So I feel like I’m doing a public service of some sort, however unqualified I may be to be delivering the message.
It’s a year that feels remarkably different from last year, and a lifetime apart from my first year. And yet there are the same basic components - kids, lessons, management, student engagement, data, and surprise. Perhaps it’s the element of surprise that keeps this job interesting, and bearable. You may teach the same lessons year after year, but it will never go the same way twice. Teaching sexual reproduction, I’ll get questions that make me blush, and reading there papers, I’m shocked to find myself laughing out loud at the stories that they tell. No matter how many papers you grade, how many lessons you teach, how many parents you have to call, you are dealing with kids. Kids, who are defiantly themselves, who don’t know to conform, who are ignorant of expectations, are what ultimately defines this job. And they are always a surprise.
Surely this is a joke. It’s November, and we’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop. These kids are cut from a different mold than last years kids. People will say, “No - you are just a better teacher, it’s you who has changed, not them.” Surely I have changed, and I am a better teacher. But it’s not me - it’s them. These kids WANT to learn. They are slow - much further behind than my class last year, but they have something that those kids didn’t - motivation. We tell them to form study groups, and they actually do. We collect homework, and 90% of the kids produce it. It may be jibberish, but they tried - and that’s more than last year’s kids could do.
Also working in their favor, is what they don’t have - bad attitudes. While the walls of our room last year dripped with sarcasm and cattyness, this year, there is a childlike, age appropriate sweetness in the room. They smile more, they insult less, they seem to desire guidance.
A hand will shoot up, or a kid will come over to one of our desks to report that another student is bothering them, taking their pencils, or calling them some sort of name. This in itself is a huge step. Last year, the kids didn’t turn to us to settle their disputes, they handled them themselves, with a callous cruelty that left us breathless. This year, slightly less jaded, they seem unable to confront these challenges without the intervention of an adult. It’s a role that feels somehow new to me.
So this is where we are - a third year in this same school. This year I am in the same classroom as last year, working with the same wonderful partner as last year, and engaged to get married to Mr. Mullen, whose room is just one door away from mine. In this toxic environment, I feel like I have an island of good.
I am teaching English Language Arts again, only this year I feel far more adept at it, and am excited by the growth that I am already seeing my students make. I am also teaching Science, a surprise that I got on the first day of school. Wendy and I are more or less winging it when it comes to these lessons - thought we started off strong. The first unit in 8th grade covers sexual reproduction, which was really smooth sailing as far as getting the students interested went. Lots of questions which we tried to answer. There are many school districts where letters are sent home before we address the topics that we did, but that’s not the type of district that we are in, and it may be for the best. A high percentage of our students are sexually active, and an equally high percentage are sorely misinformed about their bodies reproductive capabilities. The questions are all the things that you would expect, and yet when you look at a 13 year old’s face fall when you tell her that, yes, you can definitely get pregnant on your period or using the ‘pull-out’ method, it really does hit home how dangerous it is for these kids not to know. So I feel like I’m doing a public service of some sort, however unqualified I may be to be delivering the message.
It’s a year that feels remarkably different from last year, and a lifetime apart from my first year. And yet there are the same basic components - kids, lessons, management, student engagement, data, and surprise. Perhaps it’s the element of surprise that keeps this job interesting, and bearable. You may teach the same lessons year after year, but it will never go the same way twice. Teaching sexual reproduction, I’ll get questions that make me blush, and reading there papers, I’m shocked to find myself laughing out loud at the stories that they tell. No matter how many papers you grade, how many lessons you teach, how many parents you have to call, you are dealing with kids. Kids, who are defiantly themselves, who don’t know to conform, who are ignorant of expectations, are what ultimately defines this job. And they are always a surprise.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Yearbooks
At the end of the year, the kids get yearbooks. The teachers get them too, and the child in me forces the kids to sign mine. Perhaps I just need that moment of affirmation, or maybe I am afraid that I’ll forget them one day. I loved my class this year. They were crazy and they aggravated me, but I genuinely loved most of the kids, and will genuinely miss them.
They graduated, and next year will go to various high schools around the city. Very few of them will be together, which makes them sad, and none of them will be with me, which makes me sad.
I met these kids when they were in 7th grade, and I had exactly 0 days of teaching experience. They were wild and crazy, testing me and pushing me and angering me every day. Last year, I would brace myself for their arrival in class, and count the seconds until they left. They were more than challenging - they were impossible.
180 students, 2 grades, zero experience or knowledge of social studies - I was in over my head. Perhaps if you put me in the same situation now, I would be better equipped to handle it. I’d like to believe so.
Last year was a year of growth - I started out overwhelmed, and confused as to why the kids were looking to me for answers. Eventually I realized that they thought that I was a teacher, and accordingly, I began to come one. Through trial and error, and failing in a new way every day, I eventually learned what it meant to teach. But it was a treacherous path and a vertical learning curve.
Last year ended with a sigh of relief, and a great deal of self doubt. Had I wasted a year of my life? Had I accomplished anything? Had the kids learned? How could I possibly go back in the fall? All summer my stomach clenched when I thought of returning, and when I eventually did walk back into the building, my throat closed up as I passed through the front doors.
When you are in it, you convince yourself that it’s not so bad. Last year, I spent a lot of time focusing on the good - looking at the small successes. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gone in every day. When you are in it, you don’t see the lessons, the growth - how much you have changed.
Before I started to teach, I ran into a guy I knew at a bar. He had done Teach For America, and I told him I was considering it. In his intoxicated state he was especially passionate - “It’s real. It’s the most real thing that you will ever do. It’s hard, every day, but it’s real, and the problems are real for you and for your students, so it’s okay that it’s so hard. It makes everything else in your life seem silly.” I was working for a job where everything felt slow and dull and abstract. I was sold.
The first year was brutally challenging, and brutally real. I learned about the kids, the community, the achievement gap, and about myself. It was the first job I had had, and the first moment of my life, when my time was occupied thinking of someone other than myself. And by looking away from myself for a moment, I learned a lot about who I am.
The first year that I taught, numbers and statistics became concrete. A second grade reading level wasn’t just a phrase - it was the difference between sounding out letters, and knowing a word. Literacy became not an abstract concept, but the difference between being able to understand what you read, teach yourself, expand your world - and being powerless to play a significant part in the world around you. The achievement gap stopped being a story you heard about; it played itself out as a tragedy in my classroom everyday. It was the futures that these kids didn’t even know to hope for, the dreams that they never had, and the inevitabilities that defined their lives. The communities weren’t a hotbed of stereotypes, they were a collection of stories, some sad, others hopeful, all ending up in a place where kids weren’t allowed to be outside after 6pm, and only 1 in ten of them would go to college.
The realness of this is what makes you go in every day. You don’t show up at a miserable job, where you make little money, get cursed at and threatened, ignored and mocked, just to fight for an abstract cause. The IDEA of the achievement gap doesn’t get you to plan a lesson and make worksheets that will likely end up on the floor. It’s the reality - the kids, the faces, and tales that they tell, and the future that you want for them more than they know to.
This year, I taught. I made many of my kids learn the curriculum, and hopefully a few things about life. They achieved great things, and left more ready for high school than they were when they got to me. This year, going to work wasn’t hard on most days. I stopped fighting the reality that this job had taken over my psyche, and allowed myself to talk about it wherever I went, whenever asked. The job is still a challenge, but now I see the rewards.
This class that graduated, was with me for my first two years. They watched me grow from a kid who felt more like one of them than like a teacher, into an adult who doesn’t doubt her authority. They introduced me to Mr. M, and pushed us towards one another, ultimately giving me one of the greatest rewards of this job - love. They taught me about slang, and sneakers, and hair weave. They taught me about responsibility, and patience, and a sense of humor. They taught me to pick my battles, and how to fight. They taught me to swallow my pride, to not take it personally, and to show love when I feel hate.
These were the most challenging two years that I could have imagined, and these kids were on the journey with me every day. They can tell you how things have changed, how I’m different now. They will say that I used to be cooler, or that I dress nicer now. They don’t realize how much more they learned this year from me than last year - to them, if a teacher keeps them busy, they must be learning. They don’t realize how much work it has taken to become ‘less cool’. They don’t realize how much they mean to me, and how much I worry for their futures.
Perhaps the fact that I cannot imagine what lies ahead for them is what inspires me to have them sign the yearbook. Perhaps it’s the fear that none of my dreams for them will come true. I think of their future as much as I consider my own - but have no control now that they have passed through my door. They will go to bad schools in bad neighborhoods. They will face pressures from boys, and gangs, and their own families and friends. They will have ample opportunity to get pregnant, or go to jail, or drop out. The statistic says that 1 in 10 will go to college, and only half will graduate high school. The real picture - that remains to be seen.
Here are some of the entries that the kids made in the yearbook - some are to Mr. Mullen as well as to myself:
To Mr Mullen
You are my dude to da death. best math teacher i’ve ever had no kidden. and you cool like ice. thanks for your support and help. u kept up with my shit lol. your pal, T
Ms Klein:
Ima miss your white self!!! Your awesome don’t get gassed*. Everytime I wanted to get you mad I would do things to erk you. I can’t spell so i’m not going to try to. I know you gonna miss me and mullen too even though he don’t know it yet. i’m going to come back all the time next year i promise. you and mullen better have a baby and a wedding by the time i finish high school. hopefully no one in your next class is better than 804. you and ms. j made 8th grade fun, and you from 7th grade. i’m gun accomplish my goals.
love, your little girl, s.m.r.
p.s. mullen + klein = all because of me - say thanks when you get married!!
Ms. Klein
you were one of my best teachers. i will miss you and please take care of mullen. Ms, remember life is just a game we all have to play, and you have to choose which side you on. if the kids give you a hard time call me. i love you.
N
*get gassed = get a big head or get full of yourself
They graduated, and next year will go to various high schools around the city. Very few of them will be together, which makes them sad, and none of them will be with me, which makes me sad.
I met these kids when they were in 7th grade, and I had exactly 0 days of teaching experience. They were wild and crazy, testing me and pushing me and angering me every day. Last year, I would brace myself for their arrival in class, and count the seconds until they left. They were more than challenging - they were impossible.
180 students, 2 grades, zero experience or knowledge of social studies - I was in over my head. Perhaps if you put me in the same situation now, I would be better equipped to handle it. I’d like to believe so.
Last year was a year of growth - I started out overwhelmed, and confused as to why the kids were looking to me for answers. Eventually I realized that they thought that I was a teacher, and accordingly, I began to come one. Through trial and error, and failing in a new way every day, I eventually learned what it meant to teach. But it was a treacherous path and a vertical learning curve.
Last year ended with a sigh of relief, and a great deal of self doubt. Had I wasted a year of my life? Had I accomplished anything? Had the kids learned? How could I possibly go back in the fall? All summer my stomach clenched when I thought of returning, and when I eventually did walk back into the building, my throat closed up as I passed through the front doors.
When you are in it, you convince yourself that it’s not so bad. Last year, I spent a lot of time focusing on the good - looking at the small successes. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gone in every day. When you are in it, you don’t see the lessons, the growth - how much you have changed.
Before I started to teach, I ran into a guy I knew at a bar. He had done Teach For America, and I told him I was considering it. In his intoxicated state he was especially passionate - “It’s real. It’s the most real thing that you will ever do. It’s hard, every day, but it’s real, and the problems are real for you and for your students, so it’s okay that it’s so hard. It makes everything else in your life seem silly.” I was working for a job where everything felt slow and dull and abstract. I was sold.
The first year was brutally challenging, and brutally real. I learned about the kids, the community, the achievement gap, and about myself. It was the first job I had had, and the first moment of my life, when my time was occupied thinking of someone other than myself. And by looking away from myself for a moment, I learned a lot about who I am.
The first year that I taught, numbers and statistics became concrete. A second grade reading level wasn’t just a phrase - it was the difference between sounding out letters, and knowing a word. Literacy became not an abstract concept, but the difference between being able to understand what you read, teach yourself, expand your world - and being powerless to play a significant part in the world around you. The achievement gap stopped being a story you heard about; it played itself out as a tragedy in my classroom everyday. It was the futures that these kids didn’t even know to hope for, the dreams that they never had, and the inevitabilities that defined their lives. The communities weren’t a hotbed of stereotypes, they were a collection of stories, some sad, others hopeful, all ending up in a place where kids weren’t allowed to be outside after 6pm, and only 1 in ten of them would go to college.
The realness of this is what makes you go in every day. You don’t show up at a miserable job, where you make little money, get cursed at and threatened, ignored and mocked, just to fight for an abstract cause. The IDEA of the achievement gap doesn’t get you to plan a lesson and make worksheets that will likely end up on the floor. It’s the reality - the kids, the faces, and tales that they tell, and the future that you want for them more than they know to.
This year, I taught. I made many of my kids learn the curriculum, and hopefully a few things about life. They achieved great things, and left more ready for high school than they were when they got to me. This year, going to work wasn’t hard on most days. I stopped fighting the reality that this job had taken over my psyche, and allowed myself to talk about it wherever I went, whenever asked. The job is still a challenge, but now I see the rewards.
This class that graduated, was with me for my first two years. They watched me grow from a kid who felt more like one of them than like a teacher, into an adult who doesn’t doubt her authority. They introduced me to Mr. M, and pushed us towards one another, ultimately giving me one of the greatest rewards of this job - love. They taught me about slang, and sneakers, and hair weave. They taught me about responsibility, and patience, and a sense of humor. They taught me to pick my battles, and how to fight. They taught me to swallow my pride, to not take it personally, and to show love when I feel hate.
These were the most challenging two years that I could have imagined, and these kids were on the journey with me every day. They can tell you how things have changed, how I’m different now. They will say that I used to be cooler, or that I dress nicer now. They don’t realize how much more they learned this year from me than last year - to them, if a teacher keeps them busy, they must be learning. They don’t realize how much work it has taken to become ‘less cool’. They don’t realize how much they mean to me, and how much I worry for their futures.
Perhaps the fact that I cannot imagine what lies ahead for them is what inspires me to have them sign the yearbook. Perhaps it’s the fear that none of my dreams for them will come true. I think of their future as much as I consider my own - but have no control now that they have passed through my door. They will go to bad schools in bad neighborhoods. They will face pressures from boys, and gangs, and their own families and friends. They will have ample opportunity to get pregnant, or go to jail, or drop out. The statistic says that 1 in 10 will go to college, and only half will graduate high school. The real picture - that remains to be seen.
Here are some of the entries that the kids made in the yearbook - some are to Mr. Mullen as well as to myself:
To Mr Mullen
You are my dude to da death. best math teacher i’ve ever had no kidden. and you cool like ice. thanks for your support and help. u kept up with my shit lol. your pal, T
Ms Klein:
Ima miss your white self!!! Your awesome don’t get gassed*. Everytime I wanted to get you mad I would do things to erk you. I can’t spell so i’m not going to try to. I know you gonna miss me and mullen too even though he don’t know it yet. i’m going to come back all the time next year i promise. you and mullen better have a baby and a wedding by the time i finish high school. hopefully no one in your next class is better than 804. you and ms. j made 8th grade fun, and you from 7th grade. i’m gun accomplish my goals.
love, your little girl, s.m.r.
p.s. mullen + klein = all because of me - say thanks when you get married!!
Ms. Klein
you were one of my best teachers. i will miss you and please take care of mullen. Ms, remember life is just a game we all have to play, and you have to choose which side you on. if the kids give you a hard time call me. i love you.
N
*get gassed = get a big head or get full of yourself
Balancing The Karma
I was there for the chicken tenders, and the little pigs in the blanket. The kids were there for the drama, the dancing, and the pictures that would preserve this night for years to come. It was prom.
We have prom at a venue in the middle of the Bronx. On this night, it’s filled with middle school proms. Outside, kids in unnatural colors of satin and tulle pile out of cars, the clingy materials riding up on them, the girls teetering in their first attempt at 4 inch heels. The dresses are chartreuse, magenta, aqua and gold. The girls have their hair done and their eyebrows plucked, and their nails done - long acrylic tips with designs of hearts or flowers painted on. The boys wear suits or tuxes. On Southern Boulevard or Fordham Road you can but a full suit for $70, including shoes. They have fresh hair-cuts or ‘shapeups’ (a shapeup is when you have the barber clean up the edges of your buzz cut, making sharp, 90 degree angles and straight lines along your hairline).
There are tables with tablecloths, and chairs draped in heavy covers. Balloons float up from the centerpieces on the tables, and the DJ sits up on a stage. Despite the evidence that this venue is something of a factory, mass-producing middle school proms, it feels special to the students, who are rarely in such a fancy place for an event. The march in, feeling beautiful, ready to pose for pictures. As they enter, they scan the crowd for a friend to cling to, and then rush towards them. They ooh and ahh over one another. The lights aren’t dimmed yet, so no dancing takes place. The boys clump, and the girls clump, and when the food comes out, they all rush towards it unabashedly.
Eventually the lights are dimmed and the dancing starts, adolescents rubbing up against one another, showing off, moving in ways that they would never want their parents to see them move. The next day they will run around, begging that any videos of them dancing be deleted, for fear of their mother finding out, but for this moment, everyone feels special and attractive, and close to these friends that they have been with for so many years.
In truth, I felt proud of my students, watching their easy confidence. With this crowd, there are very few who exhibit the awkwardness and self-consciousness that plagues so many middle schoolers. I wonder why this is - if perhaps there is a less rigidly defined box that they are supposed to fit into, if the standards by which they judge one another are lower than they are in other communities.
The kids paid $40 each for this night. Then they paid for a dress, shoes, hair-do, eyebrow wax, manicure and pedicure. Last week they paid $28 for their senior trip - a boat ride around Manhattan, and before that, $60 for their cap and gown, and yearbook. Graduating from middle school comes at a cost.
Unsurprisingly, the costs are prohibitive to many of the kids. It’s not a responsible fiscal decision to spend half your paycheck on your child’s senior activities, when there are so many other pressing needs. Several students in my class were not going to be able to attend. A couple of weeks ago, one of my students approached me and asked if we could do a fundraiser to raise money for the kids who couldn’t afford prom. This unusual display of altruism caught me off guard, and I quickly agreed, not wanting to be responsible for stifling any sign of generosity or caring in my students. We thought of ideas for raising money, and struggled to think of a good way to quickly raise money, and properly allocate it. We didn’t want to bring attention to the struggles of some kids, making it an embarrassing situation for them, but it was a challenge to have a public fundraiser for just a few students, without drawing attention to the recipients.
I decided to send out an email to close friends and family, explaining the situation, and asking if they would like to ‘sponsor a senior’. The money would go to the seniors who were likely to miss out on these activities. For some seniors, I would have said good riddance, but many of the ones who were unable to go were kids who I have seen terrific growth in, who work exceptionally hard, despite living in shelters, having unemployed parents, and generally facing some of the worst circumstances.
The response was surprising - everyone quickly pledged to contribute. The money collected went to 6 students, covering various expenses that their parents couldn’t. I told the girl whose idea the whole thing had been, and her eyes grew large.
“Really? They just want to give it? Why?” she asked, confused by the prospect. I explained to her that sometimes if people were in a position to help someone, they felt good about doing so. Her smile spread across her face. “That’s so nice! Miss, your friends are so nice. I want white friends! White people are so nice!”
We went shopping for a prom dress. S, the girl who came up with the fundraising idea, met me on 14th street with D, the girl who we were shopping for. We went to Forever 21, and they loaded their arms with tiny, shiny sparkly dresses. In the fitting room, they giggled as they squeezed into the clothes, before emerging to have me say that it was too tight, and to try again.
S, who weighs in at 76 pounds, laughed as she tried to zipper the zipper on D’s much larger frame. “Omigod D, you’re type fat!” she said. Both girls laughed. Apparently body image is less of a problem for these 13 year olds than it was when I was 13.
We went to H&M, where the dresses came in larger sizes, and finally found one. They were excited, but looked at me hesitantly. “This dress is type expensive,” they explained. It was $39.99. We picked out matching earrings and bracelets for another $9. D jumped up and down in the long line for the register.
The money also bought shoes and a prom ticket for M, a sweet, hardworking, pleasant girl whose family has been living in a shelter for 9 months. It paid for C, a boy who has matured more than any other, from a deviant child into a kid who i can count on, trust, and who helps out when he is given the opportunity. It paid for A, who has been in 12 different foster homes in the last 8 years. It paid for D, a boy who had no family show up for his graduation, or to hear him sing in the school shows.
For any student, there is a compelling story that makes it worthwhile to contribute, and to help them out. Perhaps it is a financial reason - the family is financially unstable, not sure what they will eat at night, or how to buy the kids new clothes when they need it. For Christmas we bought one girl a winter coat, because she waited for 2 hours in the cold after school every day for her dad to pick her up. Or perhaps money isn’t the biggest problem. Maybe there is abuse in their family, either physical, or emotional. Maybe there is addiction to drugs or alcohol. Maybe they suffer because of difficulties in their parents relationships. Maybe a sibling is in jail, or having a baby at the age of 15. These are the stories that are my students lives. Every one of them can break your heart, move you, inspire you.
A neighbor of mine gave a generous contribution, with the note said,
"In my job, I find sometimes it is necessary to balance the karma in the
world. Thanks for giving me the opportunity."
In her job, she sees stories like these every day, and knows all too well the overwhelming hopelessness that you can feel when you look at the situations. I am lucky. I am looking at the more hopeful part of the picture. I see the faces of the kids, who still have a chance to grow up and have something better. And yet even for me it feels hopeless sometimes.
We can’t fix their problems, or save them from their own lives. But I have given a lot of thought to the idea of ‘balancing the karma’. Maybe giving them a night to feel special, to dance and laugh with people who they love, to feel like they have accomplished something worth being acknowledged by a ceremony - maybe that’s as much balance that we are capable of giving. And maybe it’s enough.
We have prom at a venue in the middle of the Bronx. On this night, it’s filled with middle school proms. Outside, kids in unnatural colors of satin and tulle pile out of cars, the clingy materials riding up on them, the girls teetering in their first attempt at 4 inch heels. The dresses are chartreuse, magenta, aqua and gold. The girls have their hair done and their eyebrows plucked, and their nails done - long acrylic tips with designs of hearts or flowers painted on. The boys wear suits or tuxes. On Southern Boulevard or Fordham Road you can but a full suit for $70, including shoes. They have fresh hair-cuts or ‘shapeups’ (a shapeup is when you have the barber clean up the edges of your buzz cut, making sharp, 90 degree angles and straight lines along your hairline).
There are tables with tablecloths, and chairs draped in heavy covers. Balloons float up from the centerpieces on the tables, and the DJ sits up on a stage. Despite the evidence that this venue is something of a factory, mass-producing middle school proms, it feels special to the students, who are rarely in such a fancy place for an event. The march in, feeling beautiful, ready to pose for pictures. As they enter, they scan the crowd for a friend to cling to, and then rush towards them. They ooh and ahh over one another. The lights aren’t dimmed yet, so no dancing takes place. The boys clump, and the girls clump, and when the food comes out, they all rush towards it unabashedly.
Eventually the lights are dimmed and the dancing starts, adolescents rubbing up against one another, showing off, moving in ways that they would never want their parents to see them move. The next day they will run around, begging that any videos of them dancing be deleted, for fear of their mother finding out, but for this moment, everyone feels special and attractive, and close to these friends that they have been with for so many years.
In truth, I felt proud of my students, watching their easy confidence. With this crowd, there are very few who exhibit the awkwardness and self-consciousness that plagues so many middle schoolers. I wonder why this is - if perhaps there is a less rigidly defined box that they are supposed to fit into, if the standards by which they judge one another are lower than they are in other communities.
The kids paid $40 each for this night. Then they paid for a dress, shoes, hair-do, eyebrow wax, manicure and pedicure. Last week they paid $28 for their senior trip - a boat ride around Manhattan, and before that, $60 for their cap and gown, and yearbook. Graduating from middle school comes at a cost.
Unsurprisingly, the costs are prohibitive to many of the kids. It’s not a responsible fiscal decision to spend half your paycheck on your child’s senior activities, when there are so many other pressing needs. Several students in my class were not going to be able to attend. A couple of weeks ago, one of my students approached me and asked if we could do a fundraiser to raise money for the kids who couldn’t afford prom. This unusual display of altruism caught me off guard, and I quickly agreed, not wanting to be responsible for stifling any sign of generosity or caring in my students. We thought of ideas for raising money, and struggled to think of a good way to quickly raise money, and properly allocate it. We didn’t want to bring attention to the struggles of some kids, making it an embarrassing situation for them, but it was a challenge to have a public fundraiser for just a few students, without drawing attention to the recipients.
I decided to send out an email to close friends and family, explaining the situation, and asking if they would like to ‘sponsor a senior’. The money would go to the seniors who were likely to miss out on these activities. For some seniors, I would have said good riddance, but many of the ones who were unable to go were kids who I have seen terrific growth in, who work exceptionally hard, despite living in shelters, having unemployed parents, and generally facing some of the worst circumstances.
The response was surprising - everyone quickly pledged to contribute. The money collected went to 6 students, covering various expenses that their parents couldn’t. I told the girl whose idea the whole thing had been, and her eyes grew large.
“Really? They just want to give it? Why?” she asked, confused by the prospect. I explained to her that sometimes if people were in a position to help someone, they felt good about doing so. Her smile spread across her face. “That’s so nice! Miss, your friends are so nice. I want white friends! White people are so nice!”
We went shopping for a prom dress. S, the girl who came up with the fundraising idea, met me on 14th street with D, the girl who we were shopping for. We went to Forever 21, and they loaded their arms with tiny, shiny sparkly dresses. In the fitting room, they giggled as they squeezed into the clothes, before emerging to have me say that it was too tight, and to try again.
S, who weighs in at 76 pounds, laughed as she tried to zipper the zipper on D’s much larger frame. “Omigod D, you’re type fat!” she said. Both girls laughed. Apparently body image is less of a problem for these 13 year olds than it was when I was 13.
We went to H&M, where the dresses came in larger sizes, and finally found one. They were excited, but looked at me hesitantly. “This dress is type expensive,” they explained. It was $39.99. We picked out matching earrings and bracelets for another $9. D jumped up and down in the long line for the register.
The money also bought shoes and a prom ticket for M, a sweet, hardworking, pleasant girl whose family has been living in a shelter for 9 months. It paid for C, a boy who has matured more than any other, from a deviant child into a kid who i can count on, trust, and who helps out when he is given the opportunity. It paid for A, who has been in 12 different foster homes in the last 8 years. It paid for D, a boy who had no family show up for his graduation, or to hear him sing in the school shows.
For any student, there is a compelling story that makes it worthwhile to contribute, and to help them out. Perhaps it is a financial reason - the family is financially unstable, not sure what they will eat at night, or how to buy the kids new clothes when they need it. For Christmas we bought one girl a winter coat, because she waited for 2 hours in the cold after school every day for her dad to pick her up. Or perhaps money isn’t the biggest problem. Maybe there is abuse in their family, either physical, or emotional. Maybe there is addiction to drugs or alcohol. Maybe they suffer because of difficulties in their parents relationships. Maybe a sibling is in jail, or having a baby at the age of 15. These are the stories that are my students lives. Every one of them can break your heart, move you, inspire you.
A neighbor of mine gave a generous contribution, with the note said,
"In my job, I find sometimes it is necessary to balance the karma in the
world. Thanks for giving me the opportunity."
In her job, she sees stories like these every day, and knows all too well the overwhelming hopelessness that you can feel when you look at the situations. I am lucky. I am looking at the more hopeful part of the picture. I see the faces of the kids, who still have a chance to grow up and have something better. And yet even for me it feels hopeless sometimes.
We can’t fix their problems, or save them from their own lives. But I have given a lot of thought to the idea of ‘balancing the karma’. Maybe giving them a night to feel special, to dance and laugh with people who they love, to feel like they have accomplished something worth being acknowledged by a ceremony - maybe that’s as much balance that we are capable of giving. And maybe it’s enough.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Money Matters
Maybe you’ve heard, there’s a financial crisis in America. New York City, being a part of America, is having its own struggles. Most recently, there have been rumors and threats that 5,000 teachers will be laid off next year. This includes almost every teacher hired since 2007, and it goes without saying that it includes me.
The teacher contract expired earlier this year, and the city and the union have been in negotiations for months. The union is pushing for an 8% pay raise over the next 2 years. The city is pushing back. They say that they don’t have the money, and the union says that they won’t accept anything less. When they finally reach an agreement, if they agree on a raise, they will have to retroactively pay all of us.
To prove that they have no money, the city has made various threats - some with a stronger foundation than others. They claim that we are in a financial crisis, and prove it by threatening to eliminate free metrocards and yellow buses for students. Given that public transportation is the key method of travel for most students, this was no small thing. My logic said that it was posturing - after all, how much money does the city really save by taking away metrocards? The MTA isn’t a limited commodity - they don’t sell less metrocards to regular people because of the free cards that they give to students. And it’s not a very strong argument to say that less people ride as a result of the kids being on the trains. There aren’t actually many other options in NYC.
But, posturing or not, earlier this year it went to a vote, and they decided that next year there will be no metrocards.
Then it was about charter schools. The Union is anti-charter schools, because teachers in charter schools aren’t unionized. Currently there is a cap of 200 on the number of charter schools in New York. Obama is offering up to $700 million of education funding through Race For The Top. States compete for the money. this money is an incentive for states to change their education policies to focus more on teacher accountability, and less on teacher security. Obama embraces charter schools, and New York’s cap on them looks bad. The city said that unless the union agrees to lift the cap, we won’t get the $700 million, and therefore, teachers will lose their jobs. After much debate, the cap was lifted - it’s hard for anyone to justify walking away from that kind of money in this kind of economy.
The threats continued, big and small, some followed through on and others dropped. The teacher layoffs were the biggest one, marched out this past month. They said that unless the union accepted no raises, there would be 5,000 teacher layoffs. This means that they would have to increase class sizes by up to 45, as they did in California. It’s nearly impossible to imagine a controlled class of 45, let alone one in which learning is taking place. This isn’t college - you don’t just lecture and hope kids learn. A good teacher has to cater their lessons to each individual students level and learning style.
This week, the mayor made an announcement. Bloomberg said that there would be no layoffs, and that he would not agree to give teachers raises. This was great news for those of us whose jobs were on the line, but infuriated a great many teachers who were counting on the raise, and the union, who felt that he had gone over their head, and outside the parameters of the contract negotiation.
Regardless of whether or not we get the raise, the fiscal crisis is doing permanent damage to education. One key example came up this week, when we met to discuss promotional criteria. To go from 6th grade to 7th grade, and from 7th grade to 8th grade, you have to pass your math and ELA state exams. To be clear, passing your state exam requires getting at least a 25% on the state exam.
The exams are graded on a scale of 1 - 4. 1 is 25% or less, 2 is 25% - 55%, 3 is 55 - 75%, and a 4 is 75% and up. The test itself is simple, very basic, minimally challenging. This is where the state sets the bar for its students. The reason for making the bar so low is logical - Bush’s No Child Left Behind bases state funding on performance on these exams. Unfortunately, this part of the plan is as short-sighted as the rest of it, and doesn’t set parameters for the exam. States dumb down exams to increase their funding.
To go to the 7th or 8th grade, all you have to do is pass these exams. You can fail every single class and still get promoted. You can only come to school for the test, pass it, and be promoted. this is a financial decision - the state can’t afford to send kids to summer school, and in an effort to avoid sending masses, they lower the criteria. Again and again they lower the bar to get money, and to avoid spending it. If failing your classes mattered, they would have to sent exponentially more students to summer school, especially considering that most teachers have standards that are far more challenging to meet than those of the state exams. however, as it is, it is essentially permissible for students to move from one grade level to the next only having mastered 25% of the years content. And yet people seem mystified as to how people can graduate from high school being functionally illiterate.
Special education is just as bad. It lowers the bar enormously, and ultimately harms the people in the system. If you have an IEP that says that you have a socio-emotional disturbance, the promotional criteria is lowered. To be clear, socio-emotion disturbances are not a cognitive impairment. The kids with this problem should be able to achieve every bit as much academically as their non-special education peers. Perhaps they need a modified environment, or other specialized services, such as counseling, but lowering their promotional criteria is ridiculous. And yet most of the special education students in my school have this very disability, and they have promotional criteria that requires that they master as little as 20% of the content for the year in order to go on to the next grade. Unsurprisingly, when they end up in a class of kids who mastered 80% of the content the year before, they feel alienated and diminished by their general education peers, and their problems are exacerbated.
Set the bar low, and people won’t fail to meet it. The low expectations that the education system has for its students is infuriating. It the efforts that we as teachers make all year round. We spend our time maintaining expectations, making it clear that there is a high bar that they are expected to meet, and that As are difficult to earn. Then, the student who failed every subject gets the same diploma as the one with straight As.
Financial decisions do effect education - far more than people want to admit. It's not about class size, or lack of resources. Rather, it's about these systemic decisions that are made at the expense of student achievement.
The teacher contract expired earlier this year, and the city and the union have been in negotiations for months. The union is pushing for an 8% pay raise over the next 2 years. The city is pushing back. They say that they don’t have the money, and the union says that they won’t accept anything less. When they finally reach an agreement, if they agree on a raise, they will have to retroactively pay all of us.
To prove that they have no money, the city has made various threats - some with a stronger foundation than others. They claim that we are in a financial crisis, and prove it by threatening to eliminate free metrocards and yellow buses for students. Given that public transportation is the key method of travel for most students, this was no small thing. My logic said that it was posturing - after all, how much money does the city really save by taking away metrocards? The MTA isn’t a limited commodity - they don’t sell less metrocards to regular people because of the free cards that they give to students. And it’s not a very strong argument to say that less people ride as a result of the kids being on the trains. There aren’t actually many other options in NYC.
But, posturing or not, earlier this year it went to a vote, and they decided that next year there will be no metrocards.
Then it was about charter schools. The Union is anti-charter schools, because teachers in charter schools aren’t unionized. Currently there is a cap of 200 on the number of charter schools in New York. Obama is offering up to $700 million of education funding through Race For The Top. States compete for the money. this money is an incentive for states to change their education policies to focus more on teacher accountability, and less on teacher security. Obama embraces charter schools, and New York’s cap on them looks bad. The city said that unless the union agrees to lift the cap, we won’t get the $700 million, and therefore, teachers will lose their jobs. After much debate, the cap was lifted - it’s hard for anyone to justify walking away from that kind of money in this kind of economy.
The threats continued, big and small, some followed through on and others dropped. The teacher layoffs were the biggest one, marched out this past month. They said that unless the union accepted no raises, there would be 5,000 teacher layoffs. This means that they would have to increase class sizes by up to 45, as they did in California. It’s nearly impossible to imagine a controlled class of 45, let alone one in which learning is taking place. This isn’t college - you don’t just lecture and hope kids learn. A good teacher has to cater their lessons to each individual students level and learning style.
This week, the mayor made an announcement. Bloomberg said that there would be no layoffs, and that he would not agree to give teachers raises. This was great news for those of us whose jobs were on the line, but infuriated a great many teachers who were counting on the raise, and the union, who felt that he had gone over their head, and outside the parameters of the contract negotiation.
Regardless of whether or not we get the raise, the fiscal crisis is doing permanent damage to education. One key example came up this week, when we met to discuss promotional criteria. To go from 6th grade to 7th grade, and from 7th grade to 8th grade, you have to pass your math and ELA state exams. To be clear, passing your state exam requires getting at least a 25% on the state exam.
The exams are graded on a scale of 1 - 4. 1 is 25% or less, 2 is 25% - 55%, 3 is 55 - 75%, and a 4 is 75% and up. The test itself is simple, very basic, minimally challenging. This is where the state sets the bar for its students. The reason for making the bar so low is logical - Bush’s No Child Left Behind bases state funding on performance on these exams. Unfortunately, this part of the plan is as short-sighted as the rest of it, and doesn’t set parameters for the exam. States dumb down exams to increase their funding.
To go to the 7th or 8th grade, all you have to do is pass these exams. You can fail every single class and still get promoted. You can only come to school for the test, pass it, and be promoted. this is a financial decision - the state can’t afford to send kids to summer school, and in an effort to avoid sending masses, they lower the criteria. Again and again they lower the bar to get money, and to avoid spending it. If failing your classes mattered, they would have to sent exponentially more students to summer school, especially considering that most teachers have standards that are far more challenging to meet than those of the state exams. however, as it is, it is essentially permissible for students to move from one grade level to the next only having mastered 25% of the years content. And yet people seem mystified as to how people can graduate from high school being functionally illiterate.
Special education is just as bad. It lowers the bar enormously, and ultimately harms the people in the system. If you have an IEP that says that you have a socio-emotional disturbance, the promotional criteria is lowered. To be clear, socio-emotion disturbances are not a cognitive impairment. The kids with this problem should be able to achieve every bit as much academically as their non-special education peers. Perhaps they need a modified environment, or other specialized services, such as counseling, but lowering their promotional criteria is ridiculous. And yet most of the special education students in my school have this very disability, and they have promotional criteria that requires that they master as little as 20% of the content for the year in order to go on to the next grade. Unsurprisingly, when they end up in a class of kids who mastered 80% of the content the year before, they feel alienated and diminished by their general education peers, and their problems are exacerbated.
Set the bar low, and people won’t fail to meet it. The low expectations that the education system has for its students is infuriating. It the efforts that we as teachers make all year round. We spend our time maintaining expectations, making it clear that there is a high bar that they are expected to meet, and that As are difficult to earn. Then, the student who failed every subject gets the same diploma as the one with straight As.
Financial decisions do effect education - far more than people want to admit. It's not about class size, or lack of resources. Rather, it's about these systemic decisions that are made at the expense of student achievement.
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