on saturday night, a friend of mine asked me to tell him two truths and a lie about my past week at school. i said, "i have a student who collects saliva in his mouth for fun, i was proposed to three times and i love every minute of being a high school teacher." can you guess which one was the lie? if you guessed the first one, you're wrong. i do, in fact, have a student who collects spit in his mouth for fun. it's not very fun for me, though. if you guessed the second one, you're also wrong. my students have brought sneaky sexual harassment to a whole new level. good times. now, if you guessed the third one... ding ding ding! you hit it right on the nose. ok, so i don't love every minute of being a high school teacher. do i love most of the minutes, or a lot of them anyway? yes. but definitely not all of them.
i was told that november was going to be one of the hardest parts of the school year. well, i survived november relatively unscathed. it's december that has done me in. coming back from thanksgiving was hell. i cried, i kicked and i screamed.. but i still had to get on that plane and fly back to charlotte. when i arrived at my departure gate on that sunday, one of the flight attendants made an announcement that they needed two people to take a bump and flight out the next day instead. you have no idea how much i wanted to take them up on that offer. as it turns out though, i needed to be back at school to teach the children early the next morning. that made me even more sad. is it normal to feel scared to death at the thought of having to go back to work? it may be a normal feeling for some people, but it can't be healthy! that first week back really wasn't all that bad. we had semi-solid plans in all my classes and the kids were ok. they really didn't want to be there any more than i did, but we tolerated each other just fine. and then came the next week.. and all hell broke loose.
two weeks ago made me want to shut myself in a closet and never come out again. students were being jerks, i was exhausted and unable to deal with their jerky-ness and overall, i felt like i had no control over my own life. not fun, my friends. i'm approximately 12 hours away from the only home(s) i've ever known, and despite the fact that i love the friends i have made in charlotte, it's just not the same. how do i deal with being sexually harassed by 16 year old boys? how do i deal with kids who just won't stop talking, and when i try to discipline them, they say truly cruel things? how do i handle it when all of my students are picking on just one kid? how do i deal with it when all of these scenarios are taking place in one day during one class, probably in the same 5 minute period? i don't know. and i didn't know, which is what made it so awful. i felt like i was doing a disservice to my kids by being there, as their teacher, and yet not teaching them anything. i can't get through any academic instruction if they're acting like animals. but i can't handle myself and my own emotions well enough to try to teach them to not act like animals. quite the quandary, i found myself in. and this persisted all week long - me sucking at teaching, my students sucking at learning. i felt guilty for doing a bad job, and i felt angry at my kids for doing a bad job. i wanted to cry every day, and some days i did. i thought back to all the positive things i've had to say in the past and i realized that i might have been in some la la land fantasy world. but in reality, i suck at this. ok, another quandary. if i suck at this, the one thing that i thought i wanted and needed to do with my life, where am i supposed to go from here? straight into an existential crisis, that's where. ahhh! all of this culminated in me breaking down on the saturday after hell week. the funny thing with break downs is that they make you feel better momentarily afterward. you kind of sigh and are like, ok, time to rebuild. but then sunday comes, and you realize you have to start all over again on monday. ugh.
i literally didn't know how i was going to show up on school on monday and do it all again. i didn't want to hear the disgusting comments from my males students or deal with notes being passed or snide remarks. i didn't want to deal with giving out bathroom passes so students could leave to go who-knows-where for 25 minutes. i didn't want any of it, not even the good things. it didn't matter to me that i'd probably see my favorite student, or that my second period class is usually really awesome. i don't know if it was just the difficulty of coming back from the thanksgiving holiday, or wanting to be home at christmastime or the fact that i'm not always awesome at my job.. but i felt like i truly could not go on. i felt like i'd rather burst into flames than step foot back into my classroom, or my co-teacher's classroom. in order to try to feel better, i tried talking to people about how i felt. they kept saying, "this is normal, there are a lot of people who feel exactly the way you do." unfortunately, that does not make me feel any better. i actually feel really horrible about that. it doesn't actually make me feel good to know that other people are miserable; it makes me feel much worse, in fact. ugh. this is when it becomes absolutely necessary to have an amazingly stellar social life outside of your sucky job. crap. i don't have that either. soooo, sanity, how do i find you?
sanity can be found in sick days, i have realized. my mother would disapprove, but i think it's true. if you need a break from your kids, and your kids need a break from you, what's wrong with taking a mental health day? i realized that when i'm exhausted and upset and wanting to hurt myself if it meant i didn't have to face my students, i cannot possibly be an effective teacher. that and the fact that i have started to have intense stomach pains when thinking about my students or when surrounded by my students or when doing any work for my students or anything at all that involved students in any way. that's bad, right? anyway... i rationalized this in my head, and i'm going to stick with the logic. if i think about it any more i'll start to feel bad. but those sick days have the potential of rejuvenating an individual. what i needed was a way to put my mind at ease and to feel like i could continue on. i don't know that i found that on my sick day, but it was definitely better than being miserable at school. and i came back the next day to hear about how my students missed me, and to grade my students tests and realize that, for the first time, EVERYONE had passed. that made me feel a little better.
despite the fact that i can feel myself going slightly crazy with my one job, teaching, i find myself applying for all sorts of other positions. i am the matriculation intern for my teach for america region, which means that i am in charge of the production and distribution of all the matriculation packets for the incoming corps members. this is an important job (at least that's what i tell myself) because the number of corps members coming to charlotte is going to double next year. we neeeeeed good people who want to be here. these students need them, us. i am also going to be a grad student starting this spring. i'm going to be working towards my graduate certificate in special education, which will lead to my permanent teaching license. very exciting stuff. considering it's free, i want to get my license here because i'll have reciprocal licensing in other states (like new york) where i might end up living after my years here in charlotte are over with. and now, i'm thinking of applying to go back to institute. this time, i wouldn't be going back as a corps member. i'd be going back as a staff member whose job is to support the corps members and their environment. i think that it is because of my experience that i'm realizing how important these supportive, behind-the-scenes positions are. this job is hard. it's so hard. and if there aren't caring people who are trying to make it as stable and manageable situation as possible.. then it won't be possible. and like i said, these kids need us.
when i applied for the position of matriculation intern, this is the letter of application that i submitted:
During the summer of 2006, I joined the Teach For America staff as a Campus Campaign Manager for my university. Despite the fact that I considered myself dedicated to the mission of Teach For America, I had no idea what the mission really meant. Even now, I only have two months of teaching experience, but I am beginning to truly understand what this mission, this responsibility, is all about.
This mission, now my responsibility, is about Devante. It is about Tamez, Michael, Symeon and Sharnee. It is about ensuring that my students receive the educational opportunities that they are entitled to. It is also about ensuring this same entitlement to the thousands of students in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools that I have never met.
In order to continue working towards this goal, of delivering an excellent education to the students of Charlotte, I want to be the matriculation intern for the Teach For America – Charlotte office. I want to provide support and information to as many incoming corps members as possible, and encourage them to find the same desire and responsibility to teach these children that I have. Based on my experiences in the classroom, and my passion for this mission, I believe that I would be able to assist the 2008 corps members with developing that same passion.
Because of the experiences I have had in my classroom thus far, I know that this problem cannot be solved during my two-year commitment as a Teach For America corps member. I know that I do not have the ability to serve as many children as is necessary in order to close the achievement gap in Charlotte, North Carolina. We need hundreds more qualified and dedicated teachers to join us in this mission. I will help to bring these teachers to Charlotte because I truly know how necessary they are to serve our students’ needs.
It is my job to instruct. It is my job to plan. It is my job to keep records. It is my job to constantly be in contact with members of the Charlotte community. But it is my passion to do these things for a valuable reason, which is to make certain that the students of my school receive the services they deserve. It is also my passion to make certain that students all over the City of Charlotte receive these services, which can only be done by helping to bring the next wave of Teach For America corps members to share in this mission.
in the end this is really the way that i feel. i love what i do because i understand its necessity and its importance. but that doesn't mean i can always sugarcoat it to sound glamorous, or that i'm trying to make myself out as a saint. not at all. i suck at this job sometimes, and i don't always act like a good person. this job provides me with a rollercoaster of emotions, which i'm sure i have reflected in this entry. i'm always torn between my love of my favorite students, and my hatred of classroom management issues; my love of advocating for the children, and my hatred of feeling helpless in front of an uncontrollable classroom; my passion for raising awareness and action to fight educational inequity, and my loathing of my 4:25 am alarm clock and being tired by 7 pm at night. the fact that my emotions are always on one end of the spectrum or the complete opposite is not helpful to my peace of mind, but that's how it is. that's how it has to be right now. this is the life i have chosen. and my children need me. i have to admit that i don't always make myself available to them, and i don't always serve them the best way i know how. but i'm doing the best i can with what i've got right now. and what i've got right now is an almost empty tank. i'm drained. i need this winter break to spend time sleeping and enjoying life, not worrying about accounting for every second of my 90 minute periods.
maybe while i'm home for christmas, i won't think about school at all. maybe i'll just think about how good it is to be celebrating the holidays with my family, and sleeping in my old bed and going to all our old hangouts. but probably not. even if it's just because people are asking me how my job is going, school is always on my mind. even if it's in the most indirect way. i had been thinking for awhile that charlotte is the hilton of teach for america placements, and maybe my school in particular was the hilton of school placements within our region.. but i still have students whose daily meals are only the ones they eat for free at school, or who go home to empty houses because their parents have to work around the clock to support them, or who do not go home at all because they don't have one, or who live in neighborhoods where they're forced to join gangs in order to feel protected or to try to make ends meet for their families. many of my kids go through hell every day after school, and school is the only stable environment they have. i don't want to cheapen their situations by making them sound cliche, because they are not cliche. they are real. i have to remind myself that, you know what, other people have it waaay worse than me. and some of those people.. are my students.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Sunday, October 7, 2007
i like to be liked.
it's true. it should not come as any big surprise. most people like to be liked. but this fact is one of the most important and useful realizations i have come to since i began teaching. i can now share teacher philosophy that i will live by number five, which is really a caveat to number one and a culmination of numbers two and three. drum roll please... teacher philosophy that i will live by number five states that i will always make sure that my students are aware of how much i care about them so that they invest themselves in me, put their trust in me and refuse to disappoint me. this will only benefit them in class, and hopefully in life.
this is my primary and most successful approach to classroom management. i know that the students do not have to like me in order to learn, but i also know that it makes it easier on both of us if they do, in fact, like me. i make sure to go out of my way to say kind words and share advice in order to let the students know that i care about their well being, both in and out of school. i will always smile at my students. i will always ask them about their days and nights and weekends. i will always tell them how much i enjoyed reading their papers, and begin my constructive criticism with a compliment. i will always tell them how proud of them i am, and how lucky i am to be their teacher. they will always know i love them. because if i like to be liked, and i most assuredly do, it is more than likely that they like to be liked too. it's a win-win situation really.
the fact that they know i care does nothing but make our classroom better, more efficient. the students understand that i am only there to help them, that i am teaching them for a reason. they know i respect them, and in turn, they respect me. they listen when i speak. they take notes when i ask them to. they quiet down when i tell them it's time to learn. they do it for me, because i know what is best for them. i'm not saying that this technique is 100% effective, but i am saying that it works a lot of the time. there is nothing wrong with having positive relationships with your students, and if that morphs itself into a successful classroom, you really have succeeded in many, many more ways than just being able to spout curriculum without interuption.
but what does ms. quick matter? why should her opinion of these 15 year olds matter? i remember being a student, from pre-school all the way through college. i remember truly believing that my teachers knew everything and that they were the only people that i could learn something from. they were the experts on math and science and history and english, and i needed to catch every word they said. i respected them for graduating from college with a degree in education in order to fill me in on what i needed to understand about the world. i don't think it's any different for my own students. i am the one who sets the tone, who has the information to dispel upon them. if they want to learn, they can only do so through me. and so, i matter at least a little bit. couple that with my intense devotion to my students and their every day struggles and triumphs, and i matter a lot. my mom always tells me of a teacher that she worked with when she mentored an elementary school student. that woman could discipline a child with one hand while stroking their cheek with the other. she mattered to that student, and all her students. she was taken seriously because she was a force to be reckoned with and she had a compassionate soul.
i strive to be like that teacher. discipline is not my forte, though. at least not in the traditional yelling and sending kids out sense. i struggle internally every time a student acts out in class. do i kick him out in order to minimize the other students' distractions (and my own), or do i let him remain in order for him to gain something from today? and what if this happens with the same student EVERY DAY?! i don't know. i very much don't know.
i have one student who this is true for. he is becoming both my biggest accomplishment and my biggest failure. since the second day of class, this individual managed to have himself kicked out of class every day. i have not done any of the kicking out. my co-teacher is go-to-man for discipline. "get out" are his magic words. i finally decided that every day, i would follow this student out into the hallway. i would ask him what was going on inside his head. i would attempt to teach him the material he was missing out on. i would give him opportunities to still receive credit. i would actually get to know him. i would let him know that i respect him, and though he didn't have to like me, i would appreciate his respect in return. especially in front of his classmates. this is why, one day, when he yawned as i was speaking in front of the class, i was so hurt. or at least i was able to act so hurt. when the other students were dismissed for lunch that day, i asked him to stay behind for a moment. immediately, he apologized for yawning and said it was not out of disrespect. i told him that though it may not have been meant to intentionally disrespect me, he still succeeded in doing so. i let him know that i cared about him and his success in this class immensely, and i hoped he would care about his own success just as much. i told him that i was disappointed in his actions, especially after the talk we had had previously. at the end of our conversation, he looked like a wounded puppy. the fact that i was disappointed made him feel bad. he did not act up the rest of class. he has, however, been kicked out on several more occasions since that day. not by me, of course, but even still, i went out into the hallway each time. i asked him questions about his interests. i told him about my experiences with college and sports, and spouted off any knowledge i had about the things he liked. i worked with him on the topics covered inside the classroom so he could receive credit. i constantly reinforced the idea that i care about him, and i want him to do well. i still asked him why he acted so disruptive in the classroom, and he told me he didn't know what was wrong with him. he just acts a fool when he gets in front of other students. he wants to be everyone's favorite. he knows he is hurting himself by missing out on instruction. he is failing all of his classes. all of his teachers hate him. no, i tell him, that's not true. i am your teacher and i could never hate you. we will make sure you pass, together.
it's so cliche. it's so hokey. but it's so true. i have another student, same age, who has struggled for a very long time with managing his anger. he has attempted to teach himself that he cannot fight because if he were to begin to fight, he would not stop. he is a trained boxer, and he knows that he would not be able to control his rage or his ability. i told him immediately that i am proud of him for how aware he is of his problem, and how i know that he will handle any situation correctly if it should present itself. on thursday of last week, that situation did present itself. another student taunted him continuously and relentlessly about a failing mark he received. he sat and took it for awhile, but then he started to let loose. he stood up and began to yell, he shouted obsceneties and threats at the other student. he kicked a chair. but he did not put his hands on that other student. as soon as i heard about what happened, i congratulated him. i know how hard it was for him to keep his hands to himself, but he did it, and he is a better person for it. the next day, he came to me upset. he told me that despite the fact that he had successfully not fought that other student, he still received a discipline referral, a mandatory referral to anger management classes and was reamed out by his mother all night long. he asked me, "why didn't i just beat him up? why didn't i just do it? the same things would have happened to me! i still would have been in trouble!" i told him he was right not have beaten him. he would have received 10 days suspension from school. he would have missed out on important material from his classes. he is a good person for not having resorted to violence, and i am proud of him still. the classes on how to manage his anger will do nothing but continue to reinforce his good behavior. he didn't feel better immediately after our conversation. but he did know that i continued to care about him, and in the end, the school is only doing its duty to improve him and his life, not to hurt him.
i last wrote about my first 2 weeks of school. i wrote about students, and one in particular, who called me "the assistant" and heckled me non-stop. i would like to make an addendum to those statements. that one student who was so cruel to me, and then told me we were cool, told me last week that i was his favorite teacher. well, he didn't tell me actually. i was standing outside of my classroom before classes started and he was walking by with a friend. he came up to me and said good morning, shook my hand, gave me a side hug. he went back to his friend, tugged his t-shirt and made him look back. he said, "yo man, that's my favorite teacher right there. that's ms. quick." it was a magical moment. i worked hard to win him over, especially because of the way our relationship began that first week of school. i praised his poetry and edited his papers. i told him to have a good weekend and i waved to him at the football games. it's amazing. caring endlessly and tirelessly about these students truly is magical. it makes even the most improbable of dreams, like winning over a room full of jaded 15 year olds, a possible reality.
i love these kids. i LOVE them. that is why my heart breaks when i hear about their own heartbreaks. the student who refused to fight was arrested when he was in middle school, and kicked out for his behavior. i don't know what his behavior was, but it was bad. he was given a choice: return to high school when you are of age or go to jail. he went back to school. thank god. his father is jail for involvement with drug sales and other dangerous crimes. he does not get along with his mother, his only relative available to him. in my english III class, we read longfellow's poem of grief over the loss of his second wife. as a closing activity for the week, we had our students write their own poems of grief. one student wrote about his father who abandoned him and his family, never to know his son who would grow up to be a very respectable young man. one student wrote about the death of his mother. another student wrote about the mother who left his life as soon as he was born to take part in a life of drugs instead of a life of motherhood. after 17 years, she is only now trying to rekindle a relationship with the amazing son she left behind. these students have suffered so much. another student lost his 7 year old sister to cancer because she was not able to receive medical attention in time for a proper and prudent diagnosis. yet all of them get out of bed every day and come to school. they do the best they can to learn, for themselves and for teachers like me. for that time, they are just students whose job it is to soak up knowledge. and at the end of the day, they go home. back to the difficult reality of their own lives.
it broke my heart over and over again. when my students read these poems, i cried. i sat in the back of the room, and i cried. they don't have to be there, but they want to be. i need to remember that each day as i drive to school. i am driving there to serve a purpose. i need to make learning relevant and worthwhile for them. i need to let them into my heart and make them feel comfortable in my presence. as helpful as it is for me to have them like me, it is even more important that they know i like them. i like them for who they are and who they can become. not only do i like them for those reasons, but i love them for those reasons. teacher philosophy that i will live by number six is really quite obvious, and is merely reminiscent of previous statements i have made. teacher philosophy i will live by number six is a reminder to myself that teaching is not about me, it is about my students. they are the ones who need the information i have, and i am merely the vessel through which they are going to receive it. i have a purpose, and that purpose is to serve them. i cannot forget that.
this is my primary and most successful approach to classroom management. i know that the students do not have to like me in order to learn, but i also know that it makes it easier on both of us if they do, in fact, like me. i make sure to go out of my way to say kind words and share advice in order to let the students know that i care about their well being, both in and out of school. i will always smile at my students. i will always ask them about their days and nights and weekends. i will always tell them how much i enjoyed reading their papers, and begin my constructive criticism with a compliment. i will always tell them how proud of them i am, and how lucky i am to be their teacher. they will always know i love them. because if i like to be liked, and i most assuredly do, it is more than likely that they like to be liked too. it's a win-win situation really.
the fact that they know i care does nothing but make our classroom better, more efficient. the students understand that i am only there to help them, that i am teaching them for a reason. they know i respect them, and in turn, they respect me. they listen when i speak. they take notes when i ask them to. they quiet down when i tell them it's time to learn. they do it for me, because i know what is best for them. i'm not saying that this technique is 100% effective, but i am saying that it works a lot of the time. there is nothing wrong with having positive relationships with your students, and if that morphs itself into a successful classroom, you really have succeeded in many, many more ways than just being able to spout curriculum without interuption.
but what does ms. quick matter? why should her opinion of these 15 year olds matter? i remember being a student, from pre-school all the way through college. i remember truly believing that my teachers knew everything and that they were the only people that i could learn something from. they were the experts on math and science and history and english, and i needed to catch every word they said. i respected them for graduating from college with a degree in education in order to fill me in on what i needed to understand about the world. i don't think it's any different for my own students. i am the one who sets the tone, who has the information to dispel upon them. if they want to learn, they can only do so through me. and so, i matter at least a little bit. couple that with my intense devotion to my students and their every day struggles and triumphs, and i matter a lot. my mom always tells me of a teacher that she worked with when she mentored an elementary school student. that woman could discipline a child with one hand while stroking their cheek with the other. she mattered to that student, and all her students. she was taken seriously because she was a force to be reckoned with and she had a compassionate soul.
i strive to be like that teacher. discipline is not my forte, though. at least not in the traditional yelling and sending kids out sense. i struggle internally every time a student acts out in class. do i kick him out in order to minimize the other students' distractions (and my own), or do i let him remain in order for him to gain something from today? and what if this happens with the same student EVERY DAY?! i don't know. i very much don't know.
i have one student who this is true for. he is becoming both my biggest accomplishment and my biggest failure. since the second day of class, this individual managed to have himself kicked out of class every day. i have not done any of the kicking out. my co-teacher is go-to-man for discipline. "get out" are his magic words. i finally decided that every day, i would follow this student out into the hallway. i would ask him what was going on inside his head. i would attempt to teach him the material he was missing out on. i would give him opportunities to still receive credit. i would actually get to know him. i would let him know that i respect him, and though he didn't have to like me, i would appreciate his respect in return. especially in front of his classmates. this is why, one day, when he yawned as i was speaking in front of the class, i was so hurt. or at least i was able to act so hurt. when the other students were dismissed for lunch that day, i asked him to stay behind for a moment. immediately, he apologized for yawning and said it was not out of disrespect. i told him that though it may not have been meant to intentionally disrespect me, he still succeeded in doing so. i let him know that i cared about him and his success in this class immensely, and i hoped he would care about his own success just as much. i told him that i was disappointed in his actions, especially after the talk we had had previously. at the end of our conversation, he looked like a wounded puppy. the fact that i was disappointed made him feel bad. he did not act up the rest of class. he has, however, been kicked out on several more occasions since that day. not by me, of course, but even still, i went out into the hallway each time. i asked him questions about his interests. i told him about my experiences with college and sports, and spouted off any knowledge i had about the things he liked. i worked with him on the topics covered inside the classroom so he could receive credit. i constantly reinforced the idea that i care about him, and i want him to do well. i still asked him why he acted so disruptive in the classroom, and he told me he didn't know what was wrong with him. he just acts a fool when he gets in front of other students. he wants to be everyone's favorite. he knows he is hurting himself by missing out on instruction. he is failing all of his classes. all of his teachers hate him. no, i tell him, that's not true. i am your teacher and i could never hate you. we will make sure you pass, together.
it's so cliche. it's so hokey. but it's so true. i have another student, same age, who has struggled for a very long time with managing his anger. he has attempted to teach himself that he cannot fight because if he were to begin to fight, he would not stop. he is a trained boxer, and he knows that he would not be able to control his rage or his ability. i told him immediately that i am proud of him for how aware he is of his problem, and how i know that he will handle any situation correctly if it should present itself. on thursday of last week, that situation did present itself. another student taunted him continuously and relentlessly about a failing mark he received. he sat and took it for awhile, but then he started to let loose. he stood up and began to yell, he shouted obsceneties and threats at the other student. he kicked a chair. but he did not put his hands on that other student. as soon as i heard about what happened, i congratulated him. i know how hard it was for him to keep his hands to himself, but he did it, and he is a better person for it. the next day, he came to me upset. he told me that despite the fact that he had successfully not fought that other student, he still received a discipline referral, a mandatory referral to anger management classes and was reamed out by his mother all night long. he asked me, "why didn't i just beat him up? why didn't i just do it? the same things would have happened to me! i still would have been in trouble!" i told him he was right not have beaten him. he would have received 10 days suspension from school. he would have missed out on important material from his classes. he is a good person for not having resorted to violence, and i am proud of him still. the classes on how to manage his anger will do nothing but continue to reinforce his good behavior. he didn't feel better immediately after our conversation. but he did know that i continued to care about him, and in the end, the school is only doing its duty to improve him and his life, not to hurt him.
i last wrote about my first 2 weeks of school. i wrote about students, and one in particular, who called me "the assistant" and heckled me non-stop. i would like to make an addendum to those statements. that one student who was so cruel to me, and then told me we were cool, told me last week that i was his favorite teacher. well, he didn't tell me actually. i was standing outside of my classroom before classes started and he was walking by with a friend. he came up to me and said good morning, shook my hand, gave me a side hug. he went back to his friend, tugged his t-shirt and made him look back. he said, "yo man, that's my favorite teacher right there. that's ms. quick." it was a magical moment. i worked hard to win him over, especially because of the way our relationship began that first week of school. i praised his poetry and edited his papers. i told him to have a good weekend and i waved to him at the football games. it's amazing. caring endlessly and tirelessly about these students truly is magical. it makes even the most improbable of dreams, like winning over a room full of jaded 15 year olds, a possible reality.
i love these kids. i LOVE them. that is why my heart breaks when i hear about their own heartbreaks. the student who refused to fight was arrested when he was in middle school, and kicked out for his behavior. i don't know what his behavior was, but it was bad. he was given a choice: return to high school when you are of age or go to jail. he went back to school. thank god. his father is jail for involvement with drug sales and other dangerous crimes. he does not get along with his mother, his only relative available to him. in my english III class, we read longfellow's poem of grief over the loss of his second wife. as a closing activity for the week, we had our students write their own poems of grief. one student wrote about his father who abandoned him and his family, never to know his son who would grow up to be a very respectable young man. one student wrote about the death of his mother. another student wrote about the mother who left his life as soon as he was born to take part in a life of drugs instead of a life of motherhood. after 17 years, she is only now trying to rekindle a relationship with the amazing son she left behind. these students have suffered so much. another student lost his 7 year old sister to cancer because she was not able to receive medical attention in time for a proper and prudent diagnosis. yet all of them get out of bed every day and come to school. they do the best they can to learn, for themselves and for teachers like me. for that time, they are just students whose job it is to soak up knowledge. and at the end of the day, they go home. back to the difficult reality of their own lives.
it broke my heart over and over again. when my students read these poems, i cried. i sat in the back of the room, and i cried. they don't have to be there, but they want to be. i need to remember that each day as i drive to school. i am driving there to serve a purpose. i need to make learning relevant and worthwhile for them. i need to let them into my heart and make them feel comfortable in my presence. as helpful as it is for me to have them like me, it is even more important that they know i like them. i like them for who they are and who they can become. not only do i like them for those reasons, but i love them for those reasons. teacher philosophy that i will live by number six is really quite obvious, and is merely reminiscent of previous statements i have made. teacher philosophy i will live by number six is a reminder to myself that teaching is not about me, it is about my students. they are the ones who need the information i have, and i am merely the vessel through which they are going to receive it. i have a purpose, and that purpose is to serve them. i cannot forget that.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
9 days down, now only 171 more to go..
dear god, teaching is hard. i'm pretty sure i am slightly bruised and broken after my first two weeks. and for that, as akon says (and my students repeat like it's shakespeare), "you can put the blame on me." myself, i prefer to quote frank mccourt (slash the dead language of latin): "mea culpa."
it's really not the WHOLE week that was hell. just my 3rd block most of those days. not even all of those days. it's amazing how everything can be going soooo well, and then 10 minutes all of a sudden can just send that perfect day flying off track, straight towards hell. it's also amazing that 10th graders, innocent little 10th graders, could be responsible for that. HA. some of my 10th graders probably pride themselves on their ability to fluster their teachers, and they're quite good at it so maybe they should be proud, but by the end of the semester they will have learned. i made an important realization on that hellish first wednesday of my teaching career. ahem. teacher philisophy i will live by number one is: they don't have to like me. we will not be friends. but they do have to learn from me. that is all i require.
let me tell you about that first wednesday. first block went swimmingly. i taught a lesson on malleable intelligence. all the students understood the lesson and hopefully were able to internalize its importance. fabulous. second block was great! i taught a lesson on multiple intelligences and was sooo impressed by the discussion that took place amongst the students and how quietly and capably they did their group and independent work. i was positively prepared for that same lesson to go just as well in my third block class. i was so wrong. first of all, the students were completely confused about how and why i was standing up in front of the classroom ready to teach. "hey, i thought she was just the assistant?" "you're not a real teacher, where's mr. so and so?" oh boy. so i made it through the first 30 minutes, relatively unscathed. found solace in my peanut butter & jelly sandwich during lunchtime and managed to regroup for round 2 when the students got back from lunch. when i heard the students approaching, i headed back to the classroom to find the door locked because my co-teacher had not yet returned from his not-so-much-allowed-lunch-out-of-the-building. great. so i get a campus security associate to unlock the door and try to wrangle the children into the room. thisclose to impossible. "you're not my teacher." "i don't even know who that lady is." "i don't have to listen to you when mr. so and so isn't around." "the late bell didn't ring yet, i'm not coming in." awesome. wonderful. i have lost control. oh wait, i didn't have control to begin with so couldn't have lost it. eventually the students come in and sit down, i try to start back up where we left off... nobody's being quiet, they're trying to rattle me by calling me "the assistant" and snapping their fingers at me, pointing out the fact that i'm the only white woman in the room and they don't respect me. teacher's inner dialogue: "ok, lindsey, keep your cool. if they see you get rattled they'll never give in." teacher's address to the class: "all right, everyone needs to be completely silent. heads down on your desks. the lights are going out. when you can act like respectable young adults we'll start again." student response: "pssshhhh, we're not kindergarteners. why you treating us like little kids?!" teacher's response: "if you are going to act like kindergarteners, i will treat you like kindergarteners. now close your mouths and put your heads down. 3 minutes. go." teacher's inner dialogue: "i'm going to die in this classroom, aren't i? it's going to be painful and humiliating." 3 minutes go by, students were quiet throughout, we start again. i finish the lesson to the best of my ability, my co-teacher eventually comes back from his extended-not-so-much-allowed-lunch and has the audacity to applaud the students for having come around and behaved so beautifully today and then asks them to give ME a round of applause for having planned and delivered a lesson. i was right about the humiliation part. dammit. class ends 5 minutes later, i run down the hallway to my own classroom and proceed to burst into tears. at least the students didn't see it happen, right? but my co-teacher and another colleague got to see the show. ugh, my life.
i went home that night and relayed my story to anyone who would listen and pity me. it didn't make me feel much better, but at least people knew how miserable i was, i guess. then i got to thinking, and that's when i stumbled across teacher philosophy i will live by number one, as well as number two. teacher philosophy i will live by number two says: kill them with kindness. it is better for them to think you are untouchable than to know they can shake you to your core, so you must become the comeback kid. do it. and i did it! i went back the next day with a smile on my face, giving assistance and positive feedback wherever possible, and in general appeared to be unaffected. i think it surprised a few of them. the one student who was the meanest and made the most pointed and cruel comments the day before said to me, "ms. quick, you know, that was kind of cool of you, not ratting on us for being so bad to mr. so and so." well, student, there is no reason for us to be cool or on anything more than reasonably good terms, but if that what it's going to take for you to start acting respectful towards me, then fine.
this is what brings me to teacher philosophy i will live by number three: the belief that teachers should not smile until after thanksgiving is bogus, for me at least. if you know me at all, you know it is not my way to be extremely sullen and stern. i must smile and be pleasant in order to be myself. as a teacher, i will be nothing more or less than authentic. it will ultimately make me more successful than being fake-mean ever could.
one of my students, a 17 year old still in the nineth grade, cannot do simple math problems without counting on his fingers. and even then, he has difficulty. one of my students reads on a fourth grade level. many of my students are completely unfamiliar with organizing an essay into paragraphs, and if they do use paragraphs at all they do not capitalize or punctuate correctly. my students, generally, do not know how to keep themselves organized or how to study for tests or take notes or any of the most basic student functions. it is horrendous. yet they made it to high school, right into my classroom. so this is why i'm here, and this is why i'm so excited about my study skills class. in the very least, the students will have concrete information, strategies and suggestions on how to go about obtaining and practicing these skills. if you were a policy studies major at syracuse university, you would know that professor coplin wrote a book titled 10 things employers want you to learn in college. you would also know that a curriculum was created based on that book to teach to young students in order to prepare them for the real world. i am going to use said curriculum to convince my students of the importance of little things like taking legible notes and kicking yourself in the butt. even though they're used to not doing anything but their work from other classes or sleeping in study skills class, they will learn from me. dammit.
to get back to "putting the blame on me," and "mea culpa," i will share teacher philosophy i will live by number four: as the teacher, you set the tone. you are the instructional leader in the classroom and are ultimately responsible for all of your students' actions while they are in your care. it is your duty to shape them into the student they need to be, which includes a well-behaved young adult. if i had realized that ahead of time, i mean really realized it and not just assumed that it would happen all by itself, i would not have stayed silent for most of the class while letting my co-teacher go on and on about himself and his expectations for the class. i would have made sure my name and contact info were included in the syllabus and that i had my own space in the classroom. i would have made it clear that i, too, run the show in room 132 and i am a force to be reckoned with. for now, i will remember that on the next first day of school.
a couple times in the past two weeks, i thought about the possibility of there not being a next first day of school. what if i'm not cut out for this? what if i can't do it? what if i fail my students? what if i fail myself? what if i had a regular 9 to 5 job that didn't require me to bring work home with me? mental head slap. the fact that i ask myself a few of these questions serves as reaffirmation that i need to be here, and that i care about my students, and that passion (and sometimes compassion) serves as evidence that i am cut out for this and need to serve my students to the best of my ability. maybe my abilities aren't that great, but they'll get better. and then everyone will need to watch out for ms. quick. i also had a moment on friday of my second week of teaching that reaffirmed this for me. i am calling it my first "this is why i teach for america" moment. it was glorious.
this moment could not have come at a better time, let me tell you. you can probably understand why at this point. on friday in third block we assigned the tenth grade students their first major assignment: a personal reflection essay. it must be at least 5 paragraphs, 1.5 pages. it is due on monday, and if it is not completed by then the highest grade they will receive on their final draft is a 75 - only 5 points above passing. yes, i do smile at my students, but no, i don't cut them any slack when it comes to academic instruction. one of those tenth graders has study skills with another resource teacher fourth block, so i informed her that he could come over to my classroom during my planning period and work on his paper if she had nothing else planned for him. he did in fact come over, and got right down to work. he had a million questions, and even when they were answered to the best of my ability he struggled to get any words down on the page. i went over his ideas and his first paragraph with him over and over, but he just wasn't happy with it. he used the word "to" too many times. it wasn't interesting enough. his ideas were silly. no way! this is great stuff, you're doing a fabulous job, keep writing, progress will make you feel better, i'm here to help you. still, he wasn't satisfied. i finally asked him, "what is wrong with what you're doing? i think you're off to a great start." he looked me in the eyes and said, "ms. quick, no other teacher has ever made me write like this before. like, in paragraphs for a whole page and a half. i used to get by with just one big block of words. this is the first time i really have to do something hard. i just want to make sure i do a good job this first time." ... do you have tears welling up in your eyes? because i do, again. BE STILL MY HEART! if that doesn't make me ready and raring to go at 4:30 on monday morning of my third week, and all the weeks after that, i don't know what will. that student will probably never know how much those words meant to me or why, but he has inspired me to push my students past their limits and get them to actually produce quality work. i am so excited about the possibilities of this job.
i am excited, but i have to admit this is the hardest job of all time. it is not hard because of standing up in front of a classroom or because of the lesson plans i have to write for every day. it is hard for reasons like my heart hurts when my 17 year old student cannot do mental math and yet he has made it to high school. this job is hard because i truly care about my students' lives and how they are and will be affected by academic success versus failure. because i truly care, i will work a million times harder, and this job will be a million times harder, but no one will suffer for that hard work. my students will benefit from their academic successes, and i will live in a better world because they are well-educated.
it is not to complain, but merely to illustrate what it might be like to be a teacher who cares, that i would like to show you my daily schedule now that i'm gainfully employed as an educator. mind you, there are people who do much, much more, which should be frightening and consoling at the same time.
4:30 am - wake up
4:35-5:05 - run on treadmill
5:10-6:00 - get ready for school
6:00-6:10 - drive to school
6:10-7:15 - get ready for the day
7:15 - 8:45 - 1st block (study skills)
8:50 - 10:30 - 2nd block (english III)
10:25 - 11:06 - 3rd block (fundamentals of composition)
11:06 - 11:36 - lunch (aka, sanity time)
11:36 - 12:36 pm - 3rd block continued
12:41 - 2:15 - 4th block (planning)
2:15 - 5ish - continue to do work at school
5ish - 5:15 - drive home
5:30ish - eat dinner, watch tv
6:00 - 8:00 - do more work
8:00 - 9:00 - wind down for the night, watch some tv, make some phone calls
9:00 pm - bedtime
this does not include teach for america meetings added in on some days, or extra training i need to attend after school, or sporting events i will go to in order to see my students be awesome in other ways or the extended day program i might teach when the time comes. it's just a rough outline. i realized on saturday morning when i woke up that i had been awake the day before for 21 hours. 4:30 am wake up call, 1:30 am bedtime. ouch. but worthwhile. i know, i know. you're jealous. who wouldn't be? i get to see that young adults get the most out of their high school tenure every day. life is pretty good.
it's really not the WHOLE week that was hell. just my 3rd block most of those days. not even all of those days. it's amazing how everything can be going soooo well, and then 10 minutes all of a sudden can just send that perfect day flying off track, straight towards hell. it's also amazing that 10th graders, innocent little 10th graders, could be responsible for that. HA. some of my 10th graders probably pride themselves on their ability to fluster their teachers, and they're quite good at it so maybe they should be proud, but by the end of the semester they will have learned. i made an important realization on that hellish first wednesday of my teaching career. ahem. teacher philisophy i will live by number one is: they don't have to like me. we will not be friends. but they do have to learn from me. that is all i require.
let me tell you about that first wednesday. first block went swimmingly. i taught a lesson on malleable intelligence. all the students understood the lesson and hopefully were able to internalize its importance. fabulous. second block was great! i taught a lesson on multiple intelligences and was sooo impressed by the discussion that took place amongst the students and how quietly and capably they did their group and independent work. i was positively prepared for that same lesson to go just as well in my third block class. i was so wrong. first of all, the students were completely confused about how and why i was standing up in front of the classroom ready to teach. "hey, i thought she was just the assistant?" "you're not a real teacher, where's mr. so and so?" oh boy. so i made it through the first 30 minutes, relatively unscathed. found solace in my peanut butter & jelly sandwich during lunchtime and managed to regroup for round 2 when the students got back from lunch. when i heard the students approaching, i headed back to the classroom to find the door locked because my co-teacher had not yet returned from his not-so-much-allowed-lunch-out-of-the-building. great. so i get a campus security associate to unlock the door and try to wrangle the children into the room. thisclose to impossible. "you're not my teacher." "i don't even know who that lady is." "i don't have to listen to you when mr. so and so isn't around." "the late bell didn't ring yet, i'm not coming in." awesome. wonderful. i have lost control. oh wait, i didn't have control to begin with so couldn't have lost it. eventually the students come in and sit down, i try to start back up where we left off... nobody's being quiet, they're trying to rattle me by calling me "the assistant" and snapping their fingers at me, pointing out the fact that i'm the only white woman in the room and they don't respect me. teacher's inner dialogue: "ok, lindsey, keep your cool. if they see you get rattled they'll never give in." teacher's address to the class: "all right, everyone needs to be completely silent. heads down on your desks. the lights are going out. when you can act like respectable young adults we'll start again." student response: "pssshhhh, we're not kindergarteners. why you treating us like little kids?!" teacher's response: "if you are going to act like kindergarteners, i will treat you like kindergarteners. now close your mouths and put your heads down. 3 minutes. go." teacher's inner dialogue: "i'm going to die in this classroom, aren't i? it's going to be painful and humiliating." 3 minutes go by, students were quiet throughout, we start again. i finish the lesson to the best of my ability, my co-teacher eventually comes back from his extended-not-so-much-allowed-lunch and has the audacity to applaud the students for having come around and behaved so beautifully today and then asks them to give ME a round of applause for having planned and delivered a lesson. i was right about the humiliation part. dammit. class ends 5 minutes later, i run down the hallway to my own classroom and proceed to burst into tears. at least the students didn't see it happen, right? but my co-teacher and another colleague got to see the show. ugh, my life.
i went home that night and relayed my story to anyone who would listen and pity me. it didn't make me feel much better, but at least people knew how miserable i was, i guess. then i got to thinking, and that's when i stumbled across teacher philosophy i will live by number one, as well as number two. teacher philosophy i will live by number two says: kill them with kindness. it is better for them to think you are untouchable than to know they can shake you to your core, so you must become the comeback kid. do it. and i did it! i went back the next day with a smile on my face, giving assistance and positive feedback wherever possible, and in general appeared to be unaffected. i think it surprised a few of them. the one student who was the meanest and made the most pointed and cruel comments the day before said to me, "ms. quick, you know, that was kind of cool of you, not ratting on us for being so bad to mr. so and so." well, student, there is no reason for us to be cool or on anything more than reasonably good terms, but if that what it's going to take for you to start acting respectful towards me, then fine.
this is what brings me to teacher philosophy i will live by number three: the belief that teachers should not smile until after thanksgiving is bogus, for me at least. if you know me at all, you know it is not my way to be extremely sullen and stern. i must smile and be pleasant in order to be myself. as a teacher, i will be nothing more or less than authentic. it will ultimately make me more successful than being fake-mean ever could.
one of my students, a 17 year old still in the nineth grade, cannot do simple math problems without counting on his fingers. and even then, he has difficulty. one of my students reads on a fourth grade level. many of my students are completely unfamiliar with organizing an essay into paragraphs, and if they do use paragraphs at all they do not capitalize or punctuate correctly. my students, generally, do not know how to keep themselves organized or how to study for tests or take notes or any of the most basic student functions. it is horrendous. yet they made it to high school, right into my classroom. so this is why i'm here, and this is why i'm so excited about my study skills class. in the very least, the students will have concrete information, strategies and suggestions on how to go about obtaining and practicing these skills. if you were a policy studies major at syracuse university, you would know that professor coplin wrote a book titled 10 things employers want you to learn in college. you would also know that a curriculum was created based on that book to teach to young students in order to prepare them for the real world. i am going to use said curriculum to convince my students of the importance of little things like taking legible notes and kicking yourself in the butt. even though they're used to not doing anything but their work from other classes or sleeping in study skills class, they will learn from me. dammit.
to get back to "putting the blame on me," and "mea culpa," i will share teacher philosophy i will live by number four: as the teacher, you set the tone. you are the instructional leader in the classroom and are ultimately responsible for all of your students' actions while they are in your care. it is your duty to shape them into the student they need to be, which includes a well-behaved young adult. if i had realized that ahead of time, i mean really realized it and not just assumed that it would happen all by itself, i would not have stayed silent for most of the class while letting my co-teacher go on and on about himself and his expectations for the class. i would have made sure my name and contact info were included in the syllabus and that i had my own space in the classroom. i would have made it clear that i, too, run the show in room 132 and i am a force to be reckoned with. for now, i will remember that on the next first day of school.
a couple times in the past two weeks, i thought about the possibility of there not being a next first day of school. what if i'm not cut out for this? what if i can't do it? what if i fail my students? what if i fail myself? what if i had a regular 9 to 5 job that didn't require me to bring work home with me? mental head slap. the fact that i ask myself a few of these questions serves as reaffirmation that i need to be here, and that i care about my students, and that passion (and sometimes compassion) serves as evidence that i am cut out for this and need to serve my students to the best of my ability. maybe my abilities aren't that great, but they'll get better. and then everyone will need to watch out for ms. quick. i also had a moment on friday of my second week of teaching that reaffirmed this for me. i am calling it my first "this is why i teach for america" moment. it was glorious.
this moment could not have come at a better time, let me tell you. you can probably understand why at this point. on friday in third block we assigned the tenth grade students their first major assignment: a personal reflection essay. it must be at least 5 paragraphs, 1.5 pages. it is due on monday, and if it is not completed by then the highest grade they will receive on their final draft is a 75 - only 5 points above passing. yes, i do smile at my students, but no, i don't cut them any slack when it comes to academic instruction. one of those tenth graders has study skills with another resource teacher fourth block, so i informed her that he could come over to my classroom during my planning period and work on his paper if she had nothing else planned for him. he did in fact come over, and got right down to work. he had a million questions, and even when they were answered to the best of my ability he struggled to get any words down on the page. i went over his ideas and his first paragraph with him over and over, but he just wasn't happy with it. he used the word "to" too many times. it wasn't interesting enough. his ideas were silly. no way! this is great stuff, you're doing a fabulous job, keep writing, progress will make you feel better, i'm here to help you. still, he wasn't satisfied. i finally asked him, "what is wrong with what you're doing? i think you're off to a great start." he looked me in the eyes and said, "ms. quick, no other teacher has ever made me write like this before. like, in paragraphs for a whole page and a half. i used to get by with just one big block of words. this is the first time i really have to do something hard. i just want to make sure i do a good job this first time." ... do you have tears welling up in your eyes? because i do, again. BE STILL MY HEART! if that doesn't make me ready and raring to go at 4:30 on monday morning of my third week, and all the weeks after that, i don't know what will. that student will probably never know how much those words meant to me or why, but he has inspired me to push my students past their limits and get them to actually produce quality work. i am so excited about the possibilities of this job.
i am excited, but i have to admit this is the hardest job of all time. it is not hard because of standing up in front of a classroom or because of the lesson plans i have to write for every day. it is hard for reasons like my heart hurts when my 17 year old student cannot do mental math and yet he has made it to high school. this job is hard because i truly care about my students' lives and how they are and will be affected by academic success versus failure. because i truly care, i will work a million times harder, and this job will be a million times harder, but no one will suffer for that hard work. my students will benefit from their academic successes, and i will live in a better world because they are well-educated.
it is not to complain, but merely to illustrate what it might be like to be a teacher who cares, that i would like to show you my daily schedule now that i'm gainfully employed as an educator. mind you, there are people who do much, much more, which should be frightening and consoling at the same time.
4:30 am - wake up
4:35-5:05 - run on treadmill
5:10-6:00 - get ready for school
6:00-6:10 - drive to school
6:10-7:15 - get ready for the day
7:15 - 8:45 - 1st block (study skills)
8:50 - 10:30 - 2nd block (english III)
10:25 - 11:06 - 3rd block (fundamentals of composition)
11:06 - 11:36 - lunch (aka, sanity time)
11:36 - 12:36 pm - 3rd block continued
12:41 - 2:15 - 4th block (planning)
2:15 - 5ish - continue to do work at school
5ish - 5:15 - drive home
5:30ish - eat dinner, watch tv
6:00 - 8:00 - do more work
8:00 - 9:00 - wind down for the night, watch some tv, make some phone calls
9:00 pm - bedtime
this does not include teach for america meetings added in on some days, or extra training i need to attend after school, or sporting events i will go to in order to see my students be awesome in other ways or the extended day program i might teach when the time comes. it's just a rough outline. i realized on saturday morning when i woke up that i had been awake the day before for 21 hours. 4:30 am wake up call, 1:30 am bedtime. ouch. but worthwhile. i know, i know. you're jealous. who wouldn't be? i get to see that young adults get the most out of their high school tenure every day. life is pretty good.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
it's the final countdown!
during the past week, i set up my classroom, i planned my lessons for the first week, i tried to figure out what co-teaching is slash what it will look like in practice, i got additional special ed. training, i received my special ed. caseload, i studied the curriculum for all my (3) classes, i received lots of help from colleagues, i was set up on the crazy computer network and grading system, i found out the names of all of my students, i met parents at open house, i volunteered to help with the extended day program for english II to gain more teaching experience... in addition to all that, i was told i looked too young to be a teacher, my experience was questioned (by myself as well as other people), i was told that being an EC teacher isn't being a real teacher and it's easy compared to "real teaching," i had a mini-mental breakdown and i may or may not have been sexually harassed a few times. what a week.
before i go any further, i have to comment on the whole "being told that EC teachers aren't real teachers and it's going to be easy compared to real teaching" ordeal. it really sucks being told this by my colleagues, people who are also teaching children. first of all, this is mean and hurtful and one educator should never say that to another. and i'll tell you why.. every single child we teach has a special need, whether it's documented and official or not. as teachers, we are all required to address those needs to the best of our abilities to help the child succeed academically. the students that i will be working with already have a stigma associated with their name and lable because of their learning disabilities and behavioral disorders, things entirely out of their control. we're not going to discriminate against kids based on the color of their skin or what their parents do for a living or other things that they can't control. so when a teacher says that they think they're being a punished for having EC students in their classes this year, that's so wrong. and when one teacher says to another that their job is a joke because they're working with EC students, they are so wrong. not only do special ed. teachers have the moral responsibility to push kids to achieve academically alongside their "regular" peers, they have a legal responsibility as well. each student has an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) that denotes what the student's specific academic goals are and a deadline by when they need to be met. as a case manager, which i automatically became when i became a special ed. teacher, i am legally responsible for ensuring each student on my caseload (right now i have about 25) meets those goals. i will have hours upon hours of legal paperwork to keep up with in order to keep myself and my school in compliance with meeting those goals. i can and will be sued otherwise.i will not have all of those students in class. i will have to find time to meet with them outside of my regular class schedule. in addition i will have to run meetings in order to create and re-create IEPs and explain their significance to parents, teachers and adminstrators. on top of that, i will be responsible for planning lessons for multiple and completely different classes, leading instruction, managing student behavior, differentiating lessons for different ability levels, investing the students first and foremost in themselves and then the content and school in general, and building relationships with my students. so to all of you who think that i'm not a real teacher, screw yourselves. as if i didn't already feel scared and confused enough, i don't need people making it worse. even more, our students deserve better than that. shame on you.
i spent a while this week feeling scared to death. as i said earlier, i had a mini-mental breakdown mostly because i feel underqualified and overstressed. when i get uber-stressed, which never really happened all that often until the last year or so, i just need to vent and talk and be told that everything is going to be ok. that's it. just tell me it's going to be ok. please take note of this in case i ever need to cry on your shoulder. i don't want suggestions and advice or to be scolded. i just want to be told it's ok. right. moving on.. so i try to talk to TFA higher-ups and i definitely don't get that. it's not the TFA way, they can't support that mentality. they tell me "you can't let your kids see that. you can't be like that." um, that makes me feel like there's something wrong with me, thanks. i can kind of understand the mentality they want us to have. we have to at least believe we're untouchable so that our students just see a confident and prepared teacher so that they follow our instruction towards academic success and don't mess with us, blah blah blah. but as it turns out, i've taught for a cumulative 4 weeks, i have never been trained specifically for special ed., (*please note: any of you TFA naysayers, that is not to be used in your arguments against the organization, this is just me we're talking about), i'm in a new place with new responsibilities and these kids lives are so important to me and i don't even know them yet. give me a break, please. i will do my job to the best of my ability because that's who i am but it HAS TO be normal to feel scared right now, it just has to be, so be honest with me and tell me that. do it.
so yeah, this is going to be really hard. the rumors are true, this will be the most insane thing i've ever done. and i'm getting so nervous and excited that i feel like throwing up. ugh. the thing about teaching, i'm realizing, is that there is ALWAYS something else you could be doing. there is another worksheet or organization technique or poster i could create. i could always improve upon my lessons or my approach to teaching. i was scared of that concept at first, but i'm thinking i might thrive off of it. i think i'll have to, actually, because i'm going to suck at this at first. so believing that i'm going to get better and my situation will improve and that i am ultimately in control of the whole ordeal might be good for me. or it might drive me crazy. we shall see.
monday, folks, is d-day. school starts and the adventure truly begins. good luck and godspeed to all the new teachers out there.
before i go any further, i have to comment on the whole "being told that EC teachers aren't real teachers and it's going to be easy compared to real teaching" ordeal. it really sucks being told this by my colleagues, people who are also teaching children. first of all, this is mean and hurtful and one educator should never say that to another. and i'll tell you why.. every single child we teach has a special need, whether it's documented and official or not. as teachers, we are all required to address those needs to the best of our abilities to help the child succeed academically. the students that i will be working with already have a stigma associated with their name and lable because of their learning disabilities and behavioral disorders, things entirely out of their control. we're not going to discriminate against kids based on the color of their skin or what their parents do for a living or other things that they can't control. so when a teacher says that they think they're being a punished for having EC students in their classes this year, that's so wrong. and when one teacher says to another that their job is a joke because they're working with EC students, they are so wrong. not only do special ed. teachers have the moral responsibility to push kids to achieve academically alongside their "regular" peers, they have a legal responsibility as well. each student has an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) that denotes what the student's specific academic goals are and a deadline by when they need to be met. as a case manager, which i automatically became when i became a special ed. teacher, i am legally responsible for ensuring each student on my caseload (right now i have about 25) meets those goals. i will have hours upon hours of legal paperwork to keep up with in order to keep myself and my school in compliance with meeting those goals. i can and will be sued otherwise.i will not have all of those students in class. i will have to find time to meet with them outside of my regular class schedule. in addition i will have to run meetings in order to create and re-create IEPs and explain their significance to parents, teachers and adminstrators. on top of that, i will be responsible for planning lessons for multiple and completely different classes, leading instruction, managing student behavior, differentiating lessons for different ability levels, investing the students first and foremost in themselves and then the content and school in general, and building relationships with my students. so to all of you who think that i'm not a real teacher, screw yourselves. as if i didn't already feel scared and confused enough, i don't need people making it worse. even more, our students deserve better than that. shame on you.
i spent a while this week feeling scared to death. as i said earlier, i had a mini-mental breakdown mostly because i feel underqualified and overstressed. when i get uber-stressed, which never really happened all that often until the last year or so, i just need to vent and talk and be told that everything is going to be ok. that's it. just tell me it's going to be ok. please take note of this in case i ever need to cry on your shoulder. i don't want suggestions and advice or to be scolded. i just want to be told it's ok. right. moving on.. so i try to talk to TFA higher-ups and i definitely don't get that. it's not the TFA way, they can't support that mentality. they tell me "you can't let your kids see that. you can't be like that." um, that makes me feel like there's something wrong with me, thanks. i can kind of understand the mentality they want us to have. we have to at least believe we're untouchable so that our students just see a confident and prepared teacher so that they follow our instruction towards academic success and don't mess with us, blah blah blah. but as it turns out, i've taught for a cumulative 4 weeks, i have never been trained specifically for special ed., (*please note: any of you TFA naysayers, that is not to be used in your arguments against the organization, this is just me we're talking about), i'm in a new place with new responsibilities and these kids lives are so important to me and i don't even know them yet. give me a break, please. i will do my job to the best of my ability because that's who i am but it HAS TO be normal to feel scared right now, it just has to be, so be honest with me and tell me that. do it.
so yeah, this is going to be really hard. the rumors are true, this will be the most insane thing i've ever done. and i'm getting so nervous and excited that i feel like throwing up. ugh. the thing about teaching, i'm realizing, is that there is ALWAYS something else you could be doing. there is another worksheet or organization technique or poster i could create. i could always improve upon my lessons or my approach to teaching. i was scared of that concept at first, but i'm thinking i might thrive off of it. i think i'll have to, actually, because i'm going to suck at this at first. so believing that i'm going to get better and my situation will improve and that i am ultimately in control of the whole ordeal might be good for me. or it might drive me crazy. we shall see.
monday, folks, is d-day. school starts and the adventure truly begins. good luck and godspeed to all the new teachers out there.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
"it's not about you, it's about them."
on friday i went and visited the school i will be teaching at: phillip o. berry academy of technology. google it. it's the most amazing facility of all time. i'll give you the basic breakdown... the school is a magnet school for technology, specifically IT, medicine and architecture/construction/engineering type stuff. there are practicum classes specifically for things like computer programming or networking, emt and nursing training, cad design, woodworking, etc. there are over 900 computers at the school. it is connected to a large public library. i will have my own classroom (which is almost unheard of as a special ed. teacher teaching inclusion), access to an unlimited number of photocopies and my own laptop and LCD projector issued by the school. let the guilt trip begin! i definitely feel at least a little ashamed because my fellow TFAers will not be so lucky, especially the special ed. corps members. i have a million resources at my finger tips, an excellent administration and i will have a fairly easy caseload. my students are all at the school because they want to be there.. which makes investing them in the coursework that much easier. when i left that building, all i was thinking was WOW.
another thing that makes me feel extremely lucky is the chair for the EC (EC=exceptional children=term for students receiving special ed. services in north carolina) department at phillip o. berry is incredibly awesome. i mean, i only met her briefly on friday but she seems like she'll be so helpful and she knows that i'm coming in almost completely clueless.. and she's ok w/ that! she asked me what i would prefer to teach before she started making the students' schedules. her and i are the entire special ed. department.. which is nerve-wracking because that's A LOT of responsibility but it will also allow us to develop a really strong working relationship and have complete accountability to the students.
the school is almost anti-the teach for america mindset in some ways. they started by allowing any students from the entire district to attend the school, and they found that they were experiencing the same difficulties as the rest of the schools in the district: behavior problems, low achievement, poverty. this was hard to deal with, obviously. turns out that's how teaching in urban schools works. but phillip o. berry decided to start implementing entrance requirements, and is now phasing out the lowest achieving students.. namely the lower functioning students receiving special education services. now, this makes my job easier. i can't lie. but does it benefit students in the long run? not so sure.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
so i've been in charlotte for almost 2 weeks at this point. my dad and i drove down on july 31st in my tiny little honda stuffed to the brim with stuff, and then i moved said stuff into my new apt. on aug. 1st when my lease started. there starts the stress of life in charlotte. the apt. wasn't ready when we got here - it needed new carpet, new wall fixtures, the interior doors needed to be fixed or replaced, the lighting needed to be fixed... WOW! i was upset, to say the least, because that was supposed to be done and relocating my life was already hard enough. my dad was able to take it in stride and was just like, "ok lin, we'll go do our errands and by the time we get back it will all be done." within the next few days, we drove all over charlotte and got all the errands i could possibly need done.. done. i don't know what i would have done without my dad for traveling, construction and sanity purposes. he was invaluable. i was sad that my mom wasn't around to see what i was doing and just to be able to spend time with her, but her and i are close to the point that it would have been soooo emotionally-charged that i wouldn't have got as much done. we'd have been crying and screaming at each other the whole time.
speaking of my mom not being here.. i have almost NO ONE here. so lindsey, tell me why you chose to move 12 hours away from home to do the hardest thing in the whole world? to make my life a living hell of course! ok, so that's a little (or a lot!) extreme. but this is hard. it's lonely. i don't have cry-on-your-shoulder type friends yet, really. i have friends, i have things to do and i have a great job. but this whole real world/real life thing is crazy. i think i'm realizing for the first time that i'm NOT going back to syracuse this fall, and i won't be surrounded by people and places i'm completely comfortable with. but moving on is all about finding myself in new ways and figuring out new places.. so eventually i'll get used to that.. maybe. sometimes i find myself fantasizing about what it would be like to have a real job: 9-5, no work to take home, semi-mindless.. and i think that would be an easier transition to make. but then i think about what i need to be doing right now and i remember that exactly where i am and what i'm doing is what i'm all about, and i feel very secure and content with that.
so that's starting-my-life-type-stressors. as for teaching for america stressors, they have been present in tenfold. i'm teaching special education, which is extremely important but not taught as an actual subject. as an inclusion teacher, i support the actual subject teachers whose regular ed. classes children receiving special ed. services are receiving their instruction from. (note: it's all about placing children in the least restrictive environment, so some students with special needs are mainstreamed because they will benefit the most from receiving regular instruction and spending as much time as possible with "regular" students their own age). as it turns out, i don't know what specific subjects i will support at my school. so all the individual work time and explanations on how to backwards plan for our classes' coursework or subject area specific sessions on resources or best practices that were available during orientation this past week.. AHHHH! i basically stared at walls during those times. that sucks! i was so incredibly frustrated and upset to not have any direction, and basically to be getting the shaft as far as training and orientation went. that's not ok. it does not serve my students well to have me go to my school and not know anything about what i'm doing! i kept reminding myself that my frustration should not be about me and my comfort level, it should be about my students and how much they will benefit from what i know and do. and i know nothing and have done nothing. GREAT.
on wednesday that week i actually spoke w/ my assistant principal and found out, for sure!, that i'd be teaching a study skills class on my own. i finally had a little bit of direction, so i ran with it. i wrote down any idea i came up with for what do do with my students during that time and i have become so excited about working with students in that capacity. when i taught summer school during institute, i found that my students were lacking basic note-taking and test-taking strategies. it's almost impossible to learn and succeed without those abilities! most of us are lucky to have developed them naturally or learned them without even knowing it, but these students are definitely not that lucky. so that's all i know, along with the fact i'll have my own classroom, so i'm trying to come up with high expectations, investment and classroom managment techniques and ways to set up my classroom. suggestions welcome. i just want to meet my students and get started.. but there's a lot more to it than that.
what it all comes down to is that i have to prepare and organize my classes and classroom and get my life together. buena suerte, lindsey quick.
another thing that makes me feel extremely lucky is the chair for the EC (EC=exceptional children=term for students receiving special ed. services in north carolina) department at phillip o. berry is incredibly awesome. i mean, i only met her briefly on friday but she seems like she'll be so helpful and she knows that i'm coming in almost completely clueless.. and she's ok w/ that! she asked me what i would prefer to teach before she started making the students' schedules. her and i are the entire special ed. department.. which is nerve-wracking because that's A LOT of responsibility but it will also allow us to develop a really strong working relationship and have complete accountability to the students.
the school is almost anti-the teach for america mindset in some ways. they started by allowing any students from the entire district to attend the school, and they found that they were experiencing the same difficulties as the rest of the schools in the district: behavior problems, low achievement, poverty. this was hard to deal with, obviously. turns out that's how teaching in urban schools works. but phillip o. berry decided to start implementing entrance requirements, and is now phasing out the lowest achieving students.. namely the lower functioning students receiving special education services. now, this makes my job easier. i can't lie. but does it benefit students in the long run? not so sure.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
so i've been in charlotte for almost 2 weeks at this point. my dad and i drove down on july 31st in my tiny little honda stuffed to the brim with stuff, and then i moved said stuff into my new apt. on aug. 1st when my lease started. there starts the stress of life in charlotte. the apt. wasn't ready when we got here - it needed new carpet, new wall fixtures, the interior doors needed to be fixed or replaced, the lighting needed to be fixed... WOW! i was upset, to say the least, because that was supposed to be done and relocating my life was already hard enough. my dad was able to take it in stride and was just like, "ok lin, we'll go do our errands and by the time we get back it will all be done." within the next few days, we drove all over charlotte and got all the errands i could possibly need done.. done. i don't know what i would have done without my dad for traveling, construction and sanity purposes. he was invaluable. i was sad that my mom wasn't around to see what i was doing and just to be able to spend time with her, but her and i are close to the point that it would have been soooo emotionally-charged that i wouldn't have got as much done. we'd have been crying and screaming at each other the whole time.
speaking of my mom not being here.. i have almost NO ONE here. so lindsey, tell me why you chose to move 12 hours away from home to do the hardest thing in the whole world? to make my life a living hell of course! ok, so that's a little (or a lot!) extreme. but this is hard. it's lonely. i don't have cry-on-your-shoulder type friends yet, really. i have friends, i have things to do and i have a great job. but this whole real world/real life thing is crazy. i think i'm realizing for the first time that i'm NOT going back to syracuse this fall, and i won't be surrounded by people and places i'm completely comfortable with. but moving on is all about finding myself in new ways and figuring out new places.. so eventually i'll get used to that.. maybe. sometimes i find myself fantasizing about what it would be like to have a real job: 9-5, no work to take home, semi-mindless.. and i think that would be an easier transition to make. but then i think about what i need to be doing right now and i remember that exactly where i am and what i'm doing is what i'm all about, and i feel very secure and content with that.
so that's starting-my-life-type-stressors. as for teaching for america stressors, they have been present in tenfold. i'm teaching special education, which is extremely important but not taught as an actual subject. as an inclusion teacher, i support the actual subject teachers whose regular ed. classes children receiving special ed. services are receiving their instruction from. (note: it's all about placing children in the least restrictive environment, so some students with special needs are mainstreamed because they will benefit the most from receiving regular instruction and spending as much time as possible with "regular" students their own age). as it turns out, i don't know what specific subjects i will support at my school. so all the individual work time and explanations on how to backwards plan for our classes' coursework or subject area specific sessions on resources or best practices that were available during orientation this past week.. AHHHH! i basically stared at walls during those times. that sucks! i was so incredibly frustrated and upset to not have any direction, and basically to be getting the shaft as far as training and orientation went. that's not ok. it does not serve my students well to have me go to my school and not know anything about what i'm doing! i kept reminding myself that my frustration should not be about me and my comfort level, it should be about my students and how much they will benefit from what i know and do. and i know nothing and have done nothing. GREAT.
on wednesday that week i actually spoke w/ my assistant principal and found out, for sure!, that i'd be teaching a study skills class on my own. i finally had a little bit of direction, so i ran with it. i wrote down any idea i came up with for what do do with my students during that time and i have become so excited about working with students in that capacity. when i taught summer school during institute, i found that my students were lacking basic note-taking and test-taking strategies. it's almost impossible to learn and succeed without those abilities! most of us are lucky to have developed them naturally or learned them without even knowing it, but these students are definitely not that lucky. so that's all i know, along with the fact i'll have my own classroom, so i'm trying to come up with high expectations, investment and classroom managment techniques and ways to set up my classroom. suggestions welcome. i just want to meet my students and get started.. but there's a lot more to it than that.
what it all comes down to is that i have to prepare and organize my classes and classroom and get my life together. buena suerte, lindsey quick.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
warning: real life, straight ahead..
on sunday, mr. evan riley called me. it was one of the most awesome phone calls i've ever received. he's not a movie star or a guy i want to date, he's one of my 7th graders from institute. he "just wanted to call and see how things were going with ms. quick." so cool! his life has been much more interesting than my own since i left atlanta. he's been to the zoo, gone camping and water skiing.. all sorts of fun stuff. and he called me to tell me about it. it doesn't mean that he can all of a sudden read on grade level or that he's ready for 8th grade, but it means i had some sort of positive effect on him, enough for him to want to keep in touch at least. it makes me feel a little guilty for not being the one to initiate contact, with him or any of my other students. notice that it's now wednesday.. and that i haven't called any of my other students still. bad teacher.
i'm a little frustrated with the next phase of life right now. i no longer have a placement in charlotte. boo. i got an email at the beginning of last week telling me the high school i was placed at in charlotte overestimated how many special ed. teachers it would need, and that since i was the last one placed there i would be the first to go. ugh. i mean, it's really fine. i know that it's only july and i'll get a placement eventually, maybe even before the schoolyear starts (fingers crossed!, ha), and that i'm a roll-with-the-punches kind of person so maybe it's better that this happened to me rather than someone else, but it still doesn't help the anxiety i'm feeling about relocating MY LIFE to a new city. going to charlotte without a job.. excellent. i already feel extremely nervous about being a special education teacher, and add that to being unemployed, living in a new city, being a real person, feeling out of shape teacher-ness-wise.. simply frightening. so basically what i'm saying is i'm a big baby.
being scared and being frustrated, etc. are making me unenthusiastic about this whole thing, which is BAD. i have committed 2 years to something really important, something i really really care about as it turns out, and i'm not excited right now. this is how i felt in december and january, but for completely different reasons. and i know now exactly what i knew then: i need to get over it and fast. i've got kids waiting for me in charlotte who need a good teacher, so i need to be a good teacher. being a good teacher means being confident in what i'm doing and why, which means i need to be passionate, which means i need to be wicked energetic. which means i need an attitude adjustment ASAP.
this is my major issue.. towards the end of institute i felt like, i can do this. i can teach a class. but it's still unclear to me what my role in a classroom will be. as a special education teacher in an inclusion setting, i will be the second teacher in the classroom. (fyi: inclusion means that students with special needs are placed in regular classrooms because it's the best environment for them to work towards, and meet, their academic goals.) there will be a general ed. teacher in the class who is primarily responsible for teaching the subject's content. i will be responsible for the students with special needs in that regular ed. classroom in order to make sure they reach their academic goals. but i have so many questions!!! will the gen. ed. teacher respect me since i'm a 1st year teacher? will the gen. ed. teacher respect me since i'm a special ed. teacher? how much responsibility will i have? will i get to plan or deliver any lessons? will the students i'm assigned to benefit from me being in the classroom with them? how will the other students be affected by my presence? what will classroom management look like? what will the classroom itself look like? what grade(s) will i be working with? what subject(s) will i be working with? what if i don't like this?
"what if i don't like this?" is a dangerous question to ask myself, i think. it gives me an out way too early on. i can be thinking, "it's only 2 years. all i have to do is survive." that's bad! that's really bad. in this moment, i have too many doubts. but at least i'm conscious of that, right?
i'm a little frustrated with the next phase of life right now. i no longer have a placement in charlotte. boo. i got an email at the beginning of last week telling me the high school i was placed at in charlotte overestimated how many special ed. teachers it would need, and that since i was the last one placed there i would be the first to go. ugh. i mean, it's really fine. i know that it's only july and i'll get a placement eventually, maybe even before the schoolyear starts (fingers crossed!, ha), and that i'm a roll-with-the-punches kind of person so maybe it's better that this happened to me rather than someone else, but it still doesn't help the anxiety i'm feeling about relocating MY LIFE to a new city. going to charlotte without a job.. excellent. i already feel extremely nervous about being a special education teacher, and add that to being unemployed, living in a new city, being a real person, feeling out of shape teacher-ness-wise.. simply frightening. so basically what i'm saying is i'm a big baby.
being scared and being frustrated, etc. are making me unenthusiastic about this whole thing, which is BAD. i have committed 2 years to something really important, something i really really care about as it turns out, and i'm not excited right now. this is how i felt in december and january, but for completely different reasons. and i know now exactly what i knew then: i need to get over it and fast. i've got kids waiting for me in charlotte who need a good teacher, so i need to be a good teacher. being a good teacher means being confident in what i'm doing and why, which means i need to be passionate, which means i need to be wicked energetic. which means i need an attitude adjustment ASAP.
this is my major issue.. towards the end of institute i felt like, i can do this. i can teach a class. but it's still unclear to me what my role in a classroom will be. as a special education teacher in an inclusion setting, i will be the second teacher in the classroom. (fyi: inclusion means that students with special needs are placed in regular classrooms because it's the best environment for them to work towards, and meet, their academic goals.) there will be a general ed. teacher in the class who is primarily responsible for teaching the subject's content. i will be responsible for the students with special needs in that regular ed. classroom in order to make sure they reach their academic goals. but i have so many questions!!! will the gen. ed. teacher respect me since i'm a 1st year teacher? will the gen. ed. teacher respect me since i'm a special ed. teacher? how much responsibility will i have? will i get to plan or deliver any lessons? will the students i'm assigned to benefit from me being in the classroom with them? how will the other students be affected by my presence? what will classroom management look like? what will the classroom itself look like? what grade(s) will i be working with? what subject(s) will i be working with? what if i don't like this?
"what if i don't like this?" is a dangerous question to ask myself, i think. it gives me an out way too early on. i can be thinking, "it's only 2 years. all i have to do is survive." that's bad! that's really bad. in this moment, i have too many doubts. but at least i'm conscious of that, right?
Saturday, July 14, 2007
home again, home again..
i finished institute, a.k.a. "the best 5 weeks of hell of my life," a.k.a. teacher boot camp. i taught, or attempted to teach i should say, a class of 11 of atlanta's summer school students according to the 7th grade english standards. ahhhhh! in the end, did my kids learn? yes. in the end, do i know that my students realize how much i care about them? maybe. in the end, do i know that my students have what it takes to be successful 8th graders? no.
today, i left institute kind of angry. no not kind of, really super duper angry. i am angry that one of my kids, a 7th grader, reads on a 2nd grade level. i am angry that my students feel like they need to resort to violence to solve their problems. i am angry that some of the teachers in the school i worked at think it's ok to hit the students. i am angry that my students were tested on a higher level than we were told to teach. i am angry because i didn't do a good enough job preparing my students this summer. i am angry my students' teachers don't all think they can achieve academically. i am angry some of my students believe that the only way to go to college is to play sports. i am angry the bus drivers forgot to pick up a few of my students some days. i am angry that one of my students' mothers is a drug addict, and that my student is suffering because of it. i am angry because one of my students was performing at such a high level academically and then got himself kicked out of summer school because of misbehavior. i am angry that after these 5 weeks of training, i still don't know what it means to be a special education teacher. i am angry that i might not be considered a "real teacher" when i go to my placement in charlotte this fall. i am angry because i think my students will suffer because of those 2 things. i am angry that, because of where my students live, and the color of their skin, they have not received an excellent education. i am angry because my students are not the only ones who face this problem.
i can't let anyone read this and not think there were some successes in my classroom this summer, however big or small. the biggest one was latara: she went from a 47% mastery of the summer school objectives to an 86% mastery within 2 weeks of instruction. she went from being one of the worst behaved students in school (based on what i'm told) to being one of the very best (based on what i actually saw). she was, and is, incredible. my partner's and my students scored the highest out of all the 7th grade english classes in our school on the midterm exam - they made the most academic gains in those first 2 weeks. they rock. and on top of those 2 amazing things, there were a million little things. miracle set a positive example for her classmates and made herself in charge of keeping the students in line when they were walking through the halls. jarrett started raising his hand and participating. evan admitted he couldn't see the board and brought his glasses in. candice could figure out how to say words on a 12th grade reading level. shemeka said she didn't want to get in fights any more. deandre explained to us that "fighting doesn't solve anything," which is why he refuses to do it. ashley consistently got good grades. all of our students could name at least 3 things they learned this summer, and explain them to the class. i love them.
i taught my students for only 4 weeks, i only know bits and pieces of their life stories. but i do love them. sometimes they didn't behave well, sometimes they didn't do well on the assessments, sometimes they didn't come to school, sometimes i could tell they weren't listening to me, sometimes i wanted to run out of the classroom screaming. but i love them. i love them after just 4 short weeks, in spite of or because of all of these things. how will i feel about my future students after 9 or 10 months? now that's intense. i feel the desire, if not the need, to continue to be involved in their lives and show them how much i care. if they don't realize it by now, i'm crazy about them and want nothing less than the best for all of them. i gave them my contact information at the end of summer school and told them to reach me if they ever need ANYTHING. and i mean it. my heart broke when i realized not all my students were there for the last day, and then again when i saw the school buses drive off on friday, and then again when i heard from their afternoon teachers they wanted my partner and me to come back again. how can 13 yr olds affect me this much?
because i drank the koolaid, that's why. i totally believe in what teach for america is doing and why it's important. which is good, because i committed at least the next 2 years of my life to them.
i have harped on this all summer long.. but i really feel like i learned more during my 5 weeks of institute than i did my last 2 years of college. scary. it was the most intense experience i have ever had. i was awake and working hard for my students for about 18 hours a day. and i am leaving knowing that i still could have worked harder. even more scary. listening to the ideas and stories of my colleagues has made me realize i can always do better, which leads me to believe this is going to be a very frustrating process. teach for america hires some of the best and brightest college grads from across the country knowing they are probably going to suck at first, and that it will feel like a kick in the teeth for all of them because they're used to being awesome at everything. and teach for america knows that these same high achieving college grads will fight tooth and nail to actually become good, not only to prove it to themselves but to make a difference for their students. it's amazing. it was amazingly frustrating and rewarding to start going through that process, and to watch others go through it, and it's both frightening and comforting to know i'm not done going through that process. i can still improve, which means i can help my students more and more.
at our closing ceremony on thursday night, the director of tfa's atlanta institute asked us to picture where our students from this summer will be in 10 years. and then she pointed out that it is impossibe to know. that hit me so hard. no matter how much i loved my students this summer, or how much i tried to teach them about middle school english or life in general, it was only 4 weeks and i only have so much control. their lives will be decided by other forces and influences and people. but when i go to charlotte, i'll be there for years. i have the chance to make more of an impact on more students, and i c a n ' t w a i t.
today, i left institute kind of angry. no not kind of, really super duper angry. i am angry that one of my kids, a 7th grader, reads on a 2nd grade level. i am angry that my students feel like they need to resort to violence to solve their problems. i am angry that some of the teachers in the school i worked at think it's ok to hit the students. i am angry that my students were tested on a higher level than we were told to teach. i am angry because i didn't do a good enough job preparing my students this summer. i am angry my students' teachers don't all think they can achieve academically. i am angry some of my students believe that the only way to go to college is to play sports. i am angry the bus drivers forgot to pick up a few of my students some days. i am angry that one of my students' mothers is a drug addict, and that my student is suffering because of it. i am angry because one of my students was performing at such a high level academically and then got himself kicked out of summer school because of misbehavior. i am angry that after these 5 weeks of training, i still don't know what it means to be a special education teacher. i am angry that i might not be considered a "real teacher" when i go to my placement in charlotte this fall. i am angry because i think my students will suffer because of those 2 things. i am angry that, because of where my students live, and the color of their skin, they have not received an excellent education. i am angry because my students are not the only ones who face this problem.
i can't let anyone read this and not think there were some successes in my classroom this summer, however big or small. the biggest one was latara: she went from a 47% mastery of the summer school objectives to an 86% mastery within 2 weeks of instruction. she went from being one of the worst behaved students in school (based on what i'm told) to being one of the very best (based on what i actually saw). she was, and is, incredible. my partner's and my students scored the highest out of all the 7th grade english classes in our school on the midterm exam - they made the most academic gains in those first 2 weeks. they rock. and on top of those 2 amazing things, there were a million little things. miracle set a positive example for her classmates and made herself in charge of keeping the students in line when they were walking through the halls. jarrett started raising his hand and participating. evan admitted he couldn't see the board and brought his glasses in. candice could figure out how to say words on a 12th grade reading level. shemeka said she didn't want to get in fights any more. deandre explained to us that "fighting doesn't solve anything," which is why he refuses to do it. ashley consistently got good grades. all of our students could name at least 3 things they learned this summer, and explain them to the class. i love them.
i taught my students for only 4 weeks, i only know bits and pieces of their life stories. but i do love them. sometimes they didn't behave well, sometimes they didn't do well on the assessments, sometimes they didn't come to school, sometimes i could tell they weren't listening to me, sometimes i wanted to run out of the classroom screaming. but i love them. i love them after just 4 short weeks, in spite of or because of all of these things. how will i feel about my future students after 9 or 10 months? now that's intense. i feel the desire, if not the need, to continue to be involved in their lives and show them how much i care. if they don't realize it by now, i'm crazy about them and want nothing less than the best for all of them. i gave them my contact information at the end of summer school and told them to reach me if they ever need ANYTHING. and i mean it. my heart broke when i realized not all my students were there for the last day, and then again when i saw the school buses drive off on friday, and then again when i heard from their afternoon teachers they wanted my partner and me to come back again. how can 13 yr olds affect me this much?
because i drank the koolaid, that's why. i totally believe in what teach for america is doing and why it's important. which is good, because i committed at least the next 2 years of my life to them.
i have harped on this all summer long.. but i really feel like i learned more during my 5 weeks of institute than i did my last 2 years of college. scary. it was the most intense experience i have ever had. i was awake and working hard for my students for about 18 hours a day. and i am leaving knowing that i still could have worked harder. even more scary. listening to the ideas and stories of my colleagues has made me realize i can always do better, which leads me to believe this is going to be a very frustrating process. teach for america hires some of the best and brightest college grads from across the country knowing they are probably going to suck at first, and that it will feel like a kick in the teeth for all of them because they're used to being awesome at everything. and teach for america knows that these same high achieving college grads will fight tooth and nail to actually become good, not only to prove it to themselves but to make a difference for their students. it's amazing. it was amazingly frustrating and rewarding to start going through that process, and to watch others go through it, and it's both frightening and comforting to know i'm not done going through that process. i can still improve, which means i can help my students more and more.
at our closing ceremony on thursday night, the director of tfa's atlanta institute asked us to picture where our students from this summer will be in 10 years. and then she pointed out that it is impossibe to know. that hit me so hard. no matter how much i loved my students this summer, or how much i tried to teach them about middle school english or life in general, it was only 4 weeks and i only have so much control. their lives will be decided by other forces and influences and people. but when i go to charlotte, i'll be there for years. i have the chance to make more of an impact on more students, and i c a n ' t w a i t.
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