Author Archives: Monday

Day 52 of 180

Things I have learned:

  1.  My students panic at the word essay, even when they have been writing essays for me for the past three years.  Why is that?  What about the word “essay” fills my students with such dread?  For real, I thought my juniors were going to start vomiting.  They couldn’t come up with thesis statements.  They couldn’t figure out how to restate the prompt.  Heck, they couldn’t even figure out what the poem was or who wrote it.
  2. Urgency can’t be impressed enough, and apparently I still haven’t figured out how to explain it to my students.  I think I need clearer deadlines.  But I think they need clearer understanding of what it means to have a deadline.
  3. When I get frustrated, I appear depressed.  Sometimes I get afraid that I’m going to lose my temper.  It’s not okay to lose my temper at my students.  I think it’s okay to show them that I’m frustrated or disappointed in their behavior, but actually losing my temper at them is not going to get myself anywhere.
  4. When I wake up and I feel like I’m going to vomit, chances are that my sugar levels are high and it’s not that I don’t want to go to work.  Sometimes, however, it is hard to tell the difference.

Day 49 of 180

How do we improve time management and urgency?  I don’t mean for the adults in the school, though I’m sure we could all benefit from that.  No, I mean the students’ senses of urgency and their time management skills.  Having to give kids that faux-MCAS two weeks ago re-emphasized that for me.  5 X 45 = 225 minutes or 3 hours and 45 minutes.  They did not work with any sense of urgency.

And yes, I know that this was a test to see what they know, so we can assess that and figure out what we need to teach them, so that they can take a test to prove that they know what it is the state thinks that they’re supposed to know.  However, I feel like they’re taking their time because they have no sense of time, not (only) because they don’t know or they’re thinking about the answers.

So, without actually setting their hair and/or chairs on fire, how do we make children feel that things need to be completed by a certain time, and that time isn’t going to change?

Day 46 of 180

Had all day, all staff PD on Tuesday.  On the downside, this means today is only day 46 and not 47, on the plus side, it means today is only day 46 and not 47.  In the middle of PD I was so angry.  I didn’t understand why we were all suffering through this CRAP.  What was the point?  Why should we care?  Etc. Etc. Etc.

Part of that, no doubt, has been my negativity about my school in general.  Another part came from – once again – getting conflicting messages about what we’re supposed to be doing.  The last part definitely came from my colleagues.  What is it about being in PD that makes teachers want to prove their smarter than the presenters, and want to attack them?

However, it’s a new day and I have a new outlook.  I’m trying to remain positive, because the truth is always that I love my students and they deserve me to be in as good a space as possible.  So I tried some new group work patterns and roles today.  It was … clunky … at best, but hopeful.

I love to see that my groups all want to support each other, but I want them to be honest in their reviews of each other.  That honesty is what will help them grow.  Instead, every single student said that everyone in their group did WONDERFUL, PERFECT, A PLUS PLUS PLUS work.  Uhhh, sure they did.  That’s why you were complaining to me about so-and-so not working the day before.

I got around some of that by having them reflect individually in their notebooks, but we’ll see.  I might have to change up the rubric to have more specific questions, or make each student fill out the rubric for homework and return it.  Maybe the fear was that someone else would see it and have their feelings hurt?  Silly sensitive students and their silly sweetness!

Day 44 of 180

One of my students called me Mom last week.  That was the first time this year, but certainly not the first time over all.  I have several students who continue to call me mom, even years later.  I imagine that happens to everyone.  Sometimes, it’s an accident, a slip of the tongue.  Other times it feels like so much more, like the weight of the world in one small word.

Mom.

I’m not a mother to biological or adopted children.  In general, I’m a cats-not-kids kind of woman.  However, there’s something magical about being acknowledged as the woman who takes care of / makes a difference in a student’s life.  It warms my heart.

***

I spent last week with one class giving them a practice test to figure out what they need to work on so we can practice what skills they need for a test. On the flip side, I spent another class looking at poetry and a collection of my students embraced it with everything they had.  There is no better reward than seeing kids’ brains click with the lesson.

Day 39 of 180

Obama’s education administration acknowledged their part in making our public schools testing factories.  Only 2% of a year should be high stakes testing, apparently.  Okay, so in my state our students take the MCAS or the PARCC.  My students still take the MCAS.  Right now, in tenth grade it takes up five days between English and Math.  Seven days if you include the two days of Science the year previous.  Five days is one week, or approximate 2.78% of an 180 day school year.  However, I only see my students half the year.  So really, it’s 5.56% of my academic time.

That doesn’t include two district determined measures – that the state insists on currently. (2 days)

The six unit exams that I’m supposed to give – that the district insists on currently (6 days)

So in total, for my tenth graders, that’s 5 + 8 = 13 days of testing that I didn’t create to show mastery of the materials.

Today, some of my students began a 5 day (45 minutes/day) abridged mock-MCAS.  That’s another 5 days of educational time that I’ve lost.

Remind me again what the point of teaching is?

Day 37 of 180

I made a decision earlier this year, that I wouldn’t be returning to this school in the Fall.  I’m scared, and I’m sad, and I’m so very angry.  Is it me? My innocent naiveté that “that’s the way it is here” isn’t a good answer seems to back me into corners where I can’t stay.   I love teaching.  I love watching students’ brains at work.  I’m not good with the educational politics of quantity over quality that are dominating the schools.

For P-Diddy it was all about the Benjamins.  For Weird Al it was all about the Pentiums.  For schools it’s all about the numbers: numbers enrolled, numbers graduating, SPED numbers, SEI numbers, MCAS numbers, school level numbers, this test numbers, that test numbers, numbers numbers numbers.

And so I find myself counting.  Day 37 of 180 with the kids, and 183 for me with built in PD days.