If you want schools to be run like businesses, then make sure you get things taken care of at school like a business would

It's official. We have rats in the F-wing. I will spare you the photos of rat crap. Instead, enjoy this photo of my hamster Yuki, RIP 2003-2004

In on the ground floor

Building, creating, linking, making - with my own hands.

For the past few days, I've been doing some exciting - and apparently VERY cutting edge - stuff with a group of secondary math teachers. Basically, we are writing highly targeted, standards based, leveled assessments to give to students in order for them to understand where they are at, where they need to go, and how they (and us) can get there.

There's way more detail involved of course, but I'm talking here about the chance to even do something like this. To be in on the ground floor of something awesome. To make decisions with other like-minded professionals. To be challenged and to ask ourselves questions that probably don't have answers.

And I'm stoked. Because this is exactly the type of thing I wanted in a teaching position when I was job hunting a little more than a year ago. Getting a wish granted so directly has only ever happened to me once before: when I was in the second grade and I wished for a dog, and my dad brought a Chow Chow puppy home the next week.

On a similar note, last week I sat on an interviewer panel for a math position at my school. Please note: I AM ONLY A SECOND YEAR TEACHER. Yet, my principal, the AP in charge of taking care of the details of hiring, and my department chair all valued my opinion enough to let me have a say like this. I keep getting told how awesome I am for my school. And here I am, thinking I'm the one who got lucky.

Maybe we are both lucky. Maybe that's what it takes to have an ideal employer/employee relationship.

Business minded

Some people think schools should be run more like businesses. Opponents immediately balk when they hear this. But today, I want to ask: which business?

Because I wouldn't mind schools running along the lines of Zappos.

Their core values are here.

Doesn't that sound like a wonderful place to work? Doesn't that sound like what education needs right at this moment? Doing the unconventional, innovative, fun, and weird stuff. Grow by learning, communicating, and doing more with less. Building a family spirit. Being humble.

Actually, that's all what American society at this moment needs a bit more of.

Re-thinking the way we re-think

Seagulls...are they related to this post? Yes. Why? I leave that up to you.

Despite the profuse supply of The Bachelorette video clips and the like, the internet is still a grand source of inspiration and thoughtfulness.

Any savvy consumer of information would have by now encountered kottke.org by now. I stumbled upon this article there and it very concisely phrased what I've been trying to put into words. Granted, the writer is talking about workspace design and working, while I'm talking about technology and teaching. But in essence, it's the same.

I love technology, I really do. But my use of it for teaching is not what will make me a great teacher in the end. I can show endless Khan Academy videos, use those little remote control "voting" things for students to punch in their answer, wear out my (non-existent) SmartBoard and (arrived! or at least my colleague's has; I'm assuming mine is here too since the principal ordered both of ours at the same time, although I haven't checked yet) ELMO, and go through enough cans of Dust Air cleaning my LCD projector and it STILL will not make me a great teacher.

What will make me a great teacher?

~ practice

~ life-long learning

~ bouncing ideas off of colleagues

~ professional respect and trust

~ discovering new ideas in both familiar and surprising places

~ experimentation (aka "making mistakes")

~ time and space to recharge my batteries

So what will make my students great learners? Laptops for all? Fancy phones that can text their answers to the professor's iPad? Olympic-sized school swimming pools? Shiny, new hardback textbooks? I don't know about all that.

I only know that this coming school year, I will fuss less about the arrangement of student desks in my oddly proportioned classroom.

40 minutes fast

Summers are for leisurely made and eaten Greek salads.

Dug up this 2009 article from the New York Times after talking to a colleague about our short lunch times. Apparently, when my colleague (in her 40s) was in school, she had a full hour for lunch from elementary through high school. I remember my high school lunch period being 50 minutes - enough time for me to go home for a decent lunch and get back with time to spare.

My middle school has a 40 minute lunch period, including the 5 minute passing period at the end for students to transition to 5th period. When I worked at the elementary level, I had a 35 minute lunch period.

It sucks in elementary - by the time the kids are all lined up, out the door, and safely under the supervision of the lunch time staff, there's about 25 minutes left until lunch is over. And it was expected at that school for teachers to start going out to the playground by 5 minutes before to pick up their class. My master teacher, Mr. B, taught me the trick of lining the class up at least 5 minutes before the bell so that when it finally did ring, we would be half-way to the cafeteria. This takes A LOT of practice, timing the lessons just right and making the morning sessions as productive as possible. Fortunately, that was my 5th/6th split and they were savvy enough to catch on - if we worked hard in the morning, we got to go to lunch first. And 5th/6th graders love being first.

My colleague, Ms. O, has this theory that kids no longer know what to do with themselves in their free time, leading to more behavior problems, which is why there is a seeming trend that school lunch periods are getting shorter and shorter. I say seeming because I haven't come across any documentation or studies on this. This is the first I've ever heard of Ms. O's theory, but it sort of makes sense.

So here's my first question I've ever directly posed to my blog audience (if there's anyone reading this): Have you noticed the trend of shorter lunch times? What do you make of it?

Yearning to breathe free

From here.

Couldn't say it better.

Tiger teacher

Yeah, yeah, it's a lion, but that's the closest photo I have.

No, I haven't read the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. It sounds interesting, but it's not at the top of the my To Read list. Maybe because I had a Tiger Mother, and so the story would be old news to me.

The commentary surrounding the book is more immediately consuming for me, particularly two quotes from Nancy Gibb's essay in Time.

First:

Their [what Gibbs calls "Choppers" aka helicopter parents] fury at a bad grade is more likely to land on the teacher than on the child.

And this one:

I suspect one reason the book has touched such a nerve is a suspicion among the Choppers that an excessive fear of failure guarantees it - that if you don't let your kids get clobbered now and then by a tough teacher, they'll never have the resilience to thrive as adults in a competitive economy.

These two quotes basically sum up my week. It's the end of the semester, and I gave some low grades to students who can do better than what they got but didn't, because they didn't turn in assignments on time, or showed little-to-no effort, or were just making some jerk wad choices. I clobbered some of my students because I expected better from them.

And the backlash from certain parents towards my choices have been overwhelming. Not just the parent of T, by the way. There are more.

I know I can't give up being a tough teacher. I can't let myself allow students to slack off. I can't slack off myself. It really is a tiger battle with my students. And the path of least resistance is one I don't want to take.

But sometimes, a tiger needs a quiet place sheltered from the battle to lick its wounds.

An email with humility and sincerity

Dear Parent of T, I hope your day went well.

Here's an update on what I did for T today:

T came in to see me from around 3-4pm today. She was able to copy the original notes from sections 5.1 to 5.2. Unfortunately, another student had borrowed my 5.3 notes and have not returned them yet, so T did not copy those original notes. However, I did give her an impromptu lesson on 5.3 without the notes anyway.

Then, T took a different, abridged version of the 5.1-5.3 quiz. She was able to get a 100% on it. I put it in the grade book and it does not seem to affect her overall grade significantly - it is a B+, the same as before the retake today.

I would also like to reiterate that re-teaching happens in-class. If students would like more individual attention, they need to see me during my drop-in tutoring hours. I did give the quiz to T right after she returned: it would have been unwise to give her instruction on the quiz material while the rest of the class were sitting in the same room, taking the same quiz. That is why I instructed T to try the quiz anyway: test taking is also a method of learning, and she would be doing the same thing her fellow classmates were doing. I also told her to get a copy of the notes, either from a fellow classmate or from me after school, and to take home the 5.1-5.3 quiz for her re-take. The quiz that I had was the only quiz in my possession in her file, so I assumed she had turned in her re-take. If it is still the first quiz, as you believe it is, then I suppose T never turned in the re-take - of which I am certain I gave her. She was not the only student who was absent, and thus missed the quiz, so I had plenty on hand for them. I do toss out the old quizzes in order to keep the paperwork under control. Perhaps I should not do that anymore.

T never showed up during my tutoring hours to get the notes, so I assumed she was able to find a friend to copy the notes from. This, I also admit, was my fault. I do need to do more binder checks with all students in order to keep them accountable for their note-taking. T was doing well with in-class activities (albeit a little distracted, which is normal after coming back from such a big trip) so I decided to push forward. It is very difficult for students to catch up, as well as keep up with the current material, after a long absence. Pushing forward together with the whole class and doing review daily was a better choice, in my opinion, than holding T back because she had missed some material. I hope you understand, even if you don't agree with, my methods.

I feel the need to lay out my case, and hold that I did everything in my power to help T bridge the gap from her absences, even before today. I do not like the fact that I can't shake off the feeling that T's retake today felt unfair and unjust - not to T, but to her classmates. Although it's probably not your intention, I do not like how this situation feels as if I was being attacked for not doing my job. I am generally flexible with second, and third, and fourth chances. I am also flexible with giving extra time to students to turn in missed work. I do not, and will never, intend to disregard student needs and I hope you do not think I disregarded T, or her learning. I do my best with the time and resources that I have, both of which are limited in supply, so at some point there has to be an end.

I know you may not agree with me, but I still hope that this end is satisfying to you. I have really learned a lot from this event.

With humble regards and sincerity,

This Child Left Behind


**I've already pressed the send button, but on hindsight, it might have been better to swing this by my principal, or dept. chair first. whoops. oh well.

It's been a weird type of day. A weird type of week. I'm planning a Mental Health day soon. And it's really sad because this past weekend was so much fun and so relaxing. All it took was one day back in the classroom to ruin all the good that resting did.

It's also only been three weeks since winter break.

Today, we had a department meeting to talk about schedule changes. I don't like the bell schedules - we have at least 5 different ones for all the special days we have.

But I'm more than a little ticked off about the school days schedule. It's not something each school can change though - it goes down with the district. Which is just too bad.

Because I absolutely HATE having the end of the first semester after winter break. It's awful.

Cleaning out the closets

I did a bit of cleaning/reorganizing/redecorating in the classroom over winter break. It's kind of nice that students notice it, and like it, and are interested in what's on my walls.

Now all I need to do is find the perfect formation of student desks in my oddly too-long room.

Orwellian, no joke

This video reminds me of those digital simulations of car accidents on Chinese television news.

Frankly, both sides that these "people" represent seem rather ridiculous. Come on, who on EARTH actually uses the word "Orwellian" in normal conversation? And Mr. Admin Dude, you are not better off, being so argumentative about everything except your own opinion.

Truly, it doesn't help the situation anymore than all the fights and hate and "I'm right you're wrong" mentality going on. Rather, the video kinda fuels it - just read the comments in Youtube.

Um, I think I'll go back to my classroom now, to do what I can, with whatever I've got. k'bye.

Question

Happy, and not so happy, at school. One of them obviously gets more rest.

How does one go about petitioning the Powers That Be to instill a different kind of school year calendar? One where we get a three day weekend every month? Of course, to keep the number of school days, we'll have to extend the school year. Which also means shorter summer vacations.

I'm also in favor of:

- longer spring breaks
- longer Thanksgiving breaks (I guess two weeks each should do it)
- longer school days ONLY if teachers and students get longer breaks throughout the day too. Because lunch HOUR really should be an hour long

Would anybody even go for this? Will I see this happen in my life time?

Well, one thing at a time. Gonna get on that three day weekend petition.

Media Mondays: Changing Education Paradigms

This is pretty interesting. I don't agree with all of it, but it's still interesting. And it just underlines how ginormous this education "problem" is. It's quite awful in some ways, but I like to look at it as a challenge.

Bring it on!

Also, I vaguely remember one of my teaching credential professors discuss Sir Kenneth Robinson and his ideas about education and the arts. Hm, might dig out my notes and see what's there.

The non-equality of inequality

Black and brown and completely different in different ways.

One of the other Algebra 1 teachers at my school teaches graphing of inequalities this way:

"Make the inequality so that the variable appears on the left. Then graph according to which way the 'arrow' points."

True, this procedural method allows some students to get the correct answer more consistently. But I don't like it because understanding the meaning of the inequality is lost. How do you really know what the variable is greater/less than? And what the hell: an inequality sign is NOT an 'arrow.'

This method of teaching graphing of inequalities is So. Very. Grating. To. My. Soul. The beauty of knowing what those math symbols mean is gone. There is no thinking involved - it's all robotic work.

This is the same teacher with whom I got into a little spat with on Friday - in front of my students no less - with the way I give grades. I allow homework redos and extra credit assignments, but I don't allow test re-takes for a better grade. She allows test re-takes, but no homework redos and no extra credit assignments.

She thinks my way of grading is too easy.

I think the way she teaches is not accurate, nor rigorous enough.

That evens us out, right?

I, frankly, don't give a damn what kind of grades my students get. My priority is to have them think critically - and grades are not necessarily a good measure of how well students can think.

Stronger today

A bit clearer.

Today was better.

I would not mind it at all if I taught two half days every week. That would be awesome. I don't even care about the pay decrease. I teach at such a higher quality when well rested and the paper work isn't piling up constantly.

Monday will start fresh - but first, tear apart the old. This makes completely no sense, I suppose. But I see Thoughts Notebook Kid on Monday. I need to make things right with him.

And yes, Thoughts Notebook Kid has a "thoughts" notebook. As in the kind therapists use for emotionally disturbed people. Yeah. A whole school year worth of that. Let's gear up for the fight.

Detention

I handed out my first detention of the year today. A kid - a pretty smart kid - decided it was funny to take someone's backpack and hide it in another part of my room. He did it right when the bell rang, as he was leaving the classroom. He didn't steal anything, but that kind of prank is unacceptable.

On the other hand, Devil Kid has been quite an angel. He listens, participates, is quiet when I need him to be, takes direction, and is generally pretty happy to come to school.

Which makes me think: mischievous kids are manageable. They need re-direction a lot, but on the whole, their attitude and personality are light. Kid-like. Normal.

First Detention Kid, however, has an attitude that stinks to high heaven. He is smart, and he is bored out of his mind in pre-algebra. He lacks the maturity to handle algebra 1 (that and his STAR scores were right under the cut-off mark). He's cocky, obnoxious, and mean-spirited. If he were an adult, he would be on par with those loud talking-heads who spout their opinions with no facts to back it up.

First Detention Kid is also passive aggressive. Subversive. He also has the dangerous skill of setting the mood in the classroom - he's quite clearly the leader, even though he is usually quiet. I need to re-seat him away from his more gullible classmates. I haven't decided if I want to put him front and center, or way in the back corner.

Blocked

As relaxed as napping bunnies.

I have never experienced block period schedule until now. Didn't have it in high school personally. And those four hour labs in college don't count.

I'm not sure what to think about a block schedule though. I like it, and at the same time I don't. I like the freedom of doing something that isn't restricted to the traditional 49-ish minutes. It takes the routine out of the week and adds something fun, social, and verbal/artistic/whatever to math.

I don't like it because sometimes, those block periods seem So. Freaking. Long. Also, it takes me forever to memorize the bell schedule. I have a hard enough time remembering the regular bells, let alone a whole new set of them during the week. I've had the bell times posted on nearly all four walls of my classroom, plus on the overhead projector, plus on my desk, plus in my Data binder, plus saved on both my school computer and my own laptop. I still have yet to remember the entire schedule.

Today was the first block day. I passed out textbooks and the students recorded damages. We went over the homework, did warm-up problems, and the students took notes and did in-class practice on the lesson. I gave them about ten minutes of in-class homework time (to make sure everyone knows what to do, and to answer questions that might pop up). Then we did a Get It Together activity - the "What Went Bad?" one. It's a medium difficulty word problem, and I scaffolded it MAJORLY by creating a graphic organizer for the students to fill out in their teams.

It was fun to listen to all the discussion and logical arguments they had. Some were quite heated. It also gave me a lot of insight on who was a natural leader and who liked to be in the background.

The productivity continues. I'm so amazed at how well behaved these kids are. I've gotten a lot more buy-in to my classroom than I've ever had before, even with Mr. B's one-in-ten-years classroom. I like to think that is partly me, although it's still too early to tell.

Swimming

Yep. Mr. B was right. If I don't keep up with the paperwork, it'll be crazier than a band of monkeys on Prozac.

Third day was great too - not as good, nor as smooth as the second day - but overall, good. Productive. I have to think of some other things for my Algebra Readiness class to do before the actual lesson - they are all blowing through the homework during in-class work time like nothing else. Which should be a good feeling, and they need that kind of thing every so often, but not every day.

I've been staying until 5 or 5:30 every day this first week, and getting to school two hours early. Today, I pretty much spent 12 hours at school. I've done that before, and I swore I would never do that again. But surprisingly, I don't leave school emotionally and mentally drained. I'm still tired - oh, I am SO sleeping before 9pm today! - but it's not the type of tired that continuously sucks the life out of you. It's more like I-did-a-lot-of-work-and-it-was-fun-and-we-all-accomplished-something-so-it's-time-to-go-home type of tired. The good type of tired.

I hope my students are feeling the same. Overall, they are performing well on informal assessments, and they are going about math with confidence. Trying to maintain this level, gotta mix it up with other things too. It's not going to last at this pace, I know it. They will get antsy with the same old routine.

Paying dues and comparison

Apples? More like toast and oranges.

Well. I've calmed down a bit since yesterday. Fretting less, especially after some inside info given by a very nice HR person. Asking questions is awesome.

Thought #1: I know I'm pretty whiney about this whole job thing. It's hard not to be, especially when I'm starting to dislike teaching because the job hunt has been so fruitless. But I've got it better than 90% of the planet. So just suck it up and keep plugging along, Emo-Self-Pitying-Self.

Thought #2: At the same time, there are people who have it "better" than me. Not that they don't have problems, but they are teaching and I'm not. A lot of them started teaching after I did too! What have I been doing wrong? How did they manage to get it right, seemingly effortlessly? Is it just the anomaly that SCUSD? Because most of them got jobs through their student teaching placements - for places like social studies, and elementary; placements that, according to the Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook has had "adequate" teachers for the past 10+ years! When I've been applying to the same elementary, and the "high need" math areas and I've got squat. Did I not ask the right people? Was I not forward enough? So many questions comparing my slow-developing-so-much-more-to-travel path to teaching and these younger-than-me-but-further-along-their-path people I know. So very few answers.

Thought #3: Which leads me to this: I compare WAY too much. I need to look at the absolutes more than the relatives. Just like how I look at the absolutes in academic performance of my students. Are their multiplication tables at 100%? If not, where are they? How can they get a little higher? I don't say things like, "Johnny is better than Diego at math." That doesn't tell me anything about how well Johnny OR Diego is doing in math. So stop fretting! Quit thinking so much about how "behind" you are!

You've done this much. You are here. Your next few steps are these. The end goal is something like that. And by the time you reach it, you will probably have thought up a newer, end goal to chase after.

YOU catch up to ME

Hello there, snail-lio. Working hard, or hardly working?

Today, in art class:

Student: (whine) Wait! I'm not finished yet! Slow down!

Me: Kiddo, it's your job to keep up with ME.

Some weeks ago, also in art class:

Co-teacher: (whispers) There's a student that's behind, can you slow down?

Me: I'm going at the middle-rate. I'm not going to slow down for one or two students. They need to catch up to ME.

The co-teacher gave me an exasperated look at the time. But you know what the student from today's conversation did? He sped up. His eyes lit up. He didn't say anything in reply, but I could tell from the look on his face that a fire in his belly had been lit. At the end of art class, he had quite an awesome drawing - probably not the neatest, nor the most creatively colored, but still awesome. Because he took the effort and gave it his all, and was proud of his achievement. And he knew it.

So there, co-teacher. I light fires in my students' bellies. I highly suggest that you do too.