tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31703506559107817162024-03-08T02:54:21.578-05:00Reading the DistrictMy blog about the trials and wonders of teaching Reading in Washington, DC.Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.comBlogger100125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-84325611444165459512016-06-21T22:14:00.003-04:002016-06-21T22:14:33.950-04:00the end of 2015-2016 school yearThis year has been the most difficult teaching year I have ever experienced. I look at this sentence now and a flood of thoughts come to me, recounting the various emotions and memories -- which feel more like physical dents in a car than little chemical expulsions in the brain --associated with the year, the wordlessness I feel when attempting to uncover the experience of it all. It's embarrassing, a little, as a writer to be without words. I'll attempt to explain:<br />
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I felt a wreck. I was as many euphemisms and metaphors for crushed as any poet could muster. I was crumpled by sleeplessness, my severe dedication to ensuring the curriculum work, my attempts to please my co-teacher and work with her as much as I could, and learning a new grading system very much unlike all other systems I have seen. Demoralized and distraught, I kept pushing. I held so much tension in my body, a countlessness of tears sucked into whatever space possible and released at odd times, and my own opinions (to the principal, at least) about what was truly wrong: I needed help and I couldn't communicate in sync with how they needed it.<br />
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But honestly, as I read over these words, I get tired of recreating it all in my head. I want to remind myself and my readers that I am not the most knowledgeable of teachers (I still have some learning to do), but I'm a good teacher. And I am getting better. And I cannot wait to chronicle the building and the growth I will encounter and experience in the next year to come. New school, new ninth grade, new routines. I'm into the building. I'm ready to start thinking about curriculum.<br />
<br />Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-19686846827410491152014-04-17T11:38:00.001-04:002014-04-17T11:38:29.411-04:00QuandryIs not differentiating an essay test, as a final means of seeing what the kids know about discovering theme, organization, and analysis ok? I gave them a possible guide for a body paragraph. It's not much. It's small. There are some who <i>need</i> the differentiation. But I want to test it. I'm conflicted.Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-77862345277216332602014-03-25T09:23:00.001-04:002014-03-25T09:23:14.489-04:002014: The Year of the Job?Crazy that I'm doing this, but I felt like it's time to get back into the hang of talking about things, getting interested in what I'm doing, and also playing around with ideas to whomever sees them.<br />
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I've been at my new job for now three years (or will have completed three years), and I'm getting antsy for more money. The private sector is interesting, or at least the private Catholic sector is interesting--I don't know how much one gets in other schools, but I haven't seen much advancement in mine because we don't have a lot of money. I'm afraid to ask for a raise because I don't want to a) get disappointed and b) be forced to say well, I think I need to leave the school, which will mean an aggressive job search and quite possibly disappointing results, depending upon whatever happens, right?<br />
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So, I'm in this strange place now: updating my resume (having forgotten, in the first place, how long or how short a resume should be, and what it should include now that I'm no longer a new-new teacher), in dire need of putting together a portfolio (which means giving myself a deadlines), getting all of my packets for MD, VA and DC certification (my MA license expires this summer--gulp!!), and working up the chutzpah to talk to my boss about a raise. All of these things are happening at once, and they are nerve-wracking as hell.<br />
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I was glancing at a job at a private school and it said to submit a cover letter and a short description of my philosophy of education. I had to do exactly that in graduate school. To borrow a phrase from Robert Hayden, what did I know? What did I know of teaching's austere and lonely offices? Or, to be a little less dramatic: I was so young, uninhibited, uninformed (save what I learned from year-long, wonderful experience and grad school), and uninitiated. But now I'm not. So what is my philosophy of education?<br />
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Here are some notes: over the past five years I've realized that without a plan, I feel out of place and stuck. You have to know where your kids are going, and what you want to get out of them, (e.g., a skill set, or a standard or what have you) because if you don't--if <i>I</i> don't--you lose yourself in not understanding your text and floundering around with "the paper." I believe that student achievement is a mixture of a lot of things: that success is incremental, that it should be tracked holistically and on spreadsheets (though a focus on holistic has been my way, i.e., I see patterns of behavior and poor/mediocre results as opposed to formal data-driven instruction as the trend is) and looked at consistently, that you gotta know your kid's limits socially and emotionally before you can even pretend to try and force them to do something they're uncomfortable with. Hitting on that last point again, it's impossible for me to go forward with any school year without building a relationship with my students--the importance I put on person-to-person relationships, as a way to build classroom management and for general empathy, is the utmost. I feel that English is just as skills-based as Math or Science, and that it's all about steps and questions when you get down to the nitty gritty, but a flood of emotions when it comes to entering into a text and falling in love with language. It's a balance of love and mechanics, as is everything. Reading is a difficult process of metacognition and self-monitoring, and writing is about seeing models over and over to learn the rules, the break them. A teacher's worth a ton. A student is worth a ton.<br />
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That was a good exercise. Now, Spring Break, I will attempt the impossible: get out of my house, go to the gym and do some physical exercise.Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-75660116248612756332011-07-26T16:24:00.002-04:002011-07-26T16:33:07.932-04:00100th post, and what news!I've officially been fired by DCPS. I've been RIF'ed, IMPACTed, "excessed," and I am officially one of the 200+ fired this 2010-2011 school year. Well, at the very least, I have a job.<div><br /></div><div>Speaking of which, here's the newest list of jobs: English I (9th grade) + Textual Analysis (read: Reading Workshop), and 10th grade Honor's English.</div><div><br /></div><div>My biggest fear, I'm not very good at analyzing long novels. In fact, I realize that I never did a lot of long-novel analyses, and, in fact, all my college work in that realm was a lot of content, and not much skill. I mean, that's most of what college is, developing the skill of in-depth analysis instead of basic skills analysis.</div><div><br /></div><div>I wonder, teachers: what's your biggest fear in teaching something new?</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-68379451720494608842011-07-21T16:05:00.001-04:002011-07-21T16:06:30.077-04:00short storiesAnyone know any good short stories that are good for 9th graders, but also are easily digestible for students that are struggling readers?Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-8721004394489803992011-07-19T23:11:00.003-04:002011-07-19T23:29:15.702-04:00creating curriculumThe easiest thing in the world is to take a curriculum that's done for you and ride it. I think that's how I felt the first year I started teaching. I never created. Last year, I tried, but felt pressure so hot and pressed against my face that I just did what I could with what was given to me, and did what I thought was best: teach it, but teach it slower. Now, I have a whole new challenge up against me: choice.<div><br /></div><div>My students are supposed to read Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, Romeo & Juliet, a poetry unit, and an expository (non-fiction) unit. There are clear goals for each of the units, products laid out, and everything seems rather organized. It's the curriculum my lovely 9th grade partner-in-crime, er teaching, has sent me. She said to me, "Do it as you see fit." Thus, my problem: choice.</div><div><br /></div><div>The thing I see, or rather, that I <i>don't</i> see, is a cohesion that unifies each, um, unit: a theme. Expeditionary Learning's taught me that a curriculum should be the investigation of a question, and one of my favorite things to look at is the question of power. I just don't know the question just yet. What I learned from this inquiry-based professional development thing that I did over the past two weeks, is that children (adolescents) have an innate curiosity about them (this is the supposed belief...I can dig it), and that they, themselves, can ask those kinds of questions. I just have to be mindful of what that question leads to.</div><div><br /></div><div>A thought, though, and I think this might be it: <b>What is power? What does it mean to have power? </b>Usually, my thought process goes to things like <i>superheroes, dictators, self-empowerment, and words.</i> One of the goals that seems to be pervasive in this curriculum outline is the subject of power: censorship; propaganda; totalitarianism; the power of an author's choices and how that affects tone, theme, plot, and characters; the power of words and grammar in a student's writing; the tragic power of fate vs. the conflict of self-determination and fate (R&J). The list goes on.</div><div><br /></div><div>Does this work? I'm going to have to think a little more about this, and figure out how to wrap these around, and also how to coax questions about power out of my new 9th graders.</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-79442199041310550152011-06-27T21:17:00.002-04:002011-06-27T21:18:46.714-04:00aaaand, i have a new jobYup. That's right, folks. I'll no longer be employed by DCPS. Instead, I'm entering into the private realm. We'll see how this goes, but I'm excited for the change in scenery. I'll still be teaching remedial, but this time within the context of a normal English class.<div><br /></div><div>Details later once I find out.</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-19312258720258782722011-06-26T22:38:00.002-04:002011-06-27T00:25:51.933-04:00the news so farSo, as it is, I can't be fired from DCPS yet because there's some clause in the contract, according to my union rep, that my first year doesn't count. And I haven't been given a "you're fired" letter from my school, so that's that. Meantime, I'm having a chat with a principal tomorrow at a different school (gulp) to discuss the job. We'll see what happens.<div><br /></div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-11267704757245940352011-06-15T22:05:00.002-04:002011-06-15T22:07:09.628-04:00i've been impactedJoking aside, I'm probably going to be excessed this summer. I just had my post-conference with my admin, and I got a 1.9, which means that, in total, just counting observations, I have a 2.3. CSC (which is a fucking impossibility in my school) looks like all 1's, and TAS looks like all 1's, also. Wonderful.<div><br /></div><div>Here's to you, DCPS. But more importantly, here's to you, dick administrator. So what's next for me? Charter? Private? Stay tuned!</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-9193801882491850972011-06-01T22:20:00.002-04:002011-06-01T22:37:13.143-04:00My Galley, charged with Forgetfulness (Sir Thomas Wyatt)My galley, charged with forgetfulness,<div>Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass</div><div>'Tween rock and rock; and eke mine en'my, alas,</div><div>That is my lord, steereth with cruelness;</div><div>And every owre a thought in readiness,</div><div>As though that death were light in such a case.</div><div>An endless wind doth tear the sail apace</div><div>Of forced sighs and trusty fearfulness.</div><div>A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain,</div><div>Hath done the weared cords great hinderance;</div><div>Wreathed with error and eke with ignorance.</div><div>The star be hid that led me to this pain;</div><div>Drowned is Reason that should me comfort,</div><div>And I remain despairing of the port.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I was observed by my administrator on our canceled field day: a day that I never expected to have to scrounge up a lesson, because I don't teach first period, which was supposed to be our only period of the day. </div><div><br /></div><div>I believe, according to IMPACT, if you get, one year, a bad evaluation, you have an "improvement plan," and another year to recuperate. If, however, you have two years in a row, then you're out of DCPS. IMPACT scholars, is this true? If that's the case, most likely, I'm cooked, I'm pretty sure of it. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'll talk with my administrator, see if I can get a hint at whether he saw improvement, which means whether or not I fucked myself over too hard. Either way, I'm a nervous wreck. Not a good feeling on my last few weeks of school, huh? Field day tomorrow, but a normal day with other students. More news on the next few days with period four: we're reading for fun, how interesting is that??</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-87851653984241146192011-05-16T22:05:00.002-04:002011-05-16T22:11:33.673-04:00PS: updates on the job stuffIf you're into transferring, this might be your gig on the 25th:<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 82, 131); font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">Summary: To follow up on the transfer fair for WTU employees held last week, we will be holding an event for all non-WTU employees interested in transferring schools for the SY11-12 school year at Walker-Jones Educational Campus from 4-7 PM on May 25. Please check the <a href="https://sites.google.com/a/dc.gov/educators/dcps-policies-and-procedures/human-resources" style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68) !important; ">Human Resources page</a> for a list of available vacancies.<br /><ul><li>Applicable Educators: All educators</li><li>Date: May 25, 2011</li><li>Time: 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM</li><li>Location: Walker-Jones EC, 1125 New Jersey Ave. NW</li><li>Contact: <a href="mailto:DCPSStaffing@dc.gov" style="color: rgb(68, 68, 68) !important; ">DCPSStaffing@dc.gov</a></li></ul><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">ALSO:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">May 23rd, at Luke Moore Academy (1001 Monroe St, NE), there's a meeting to hash it out about IMPACT as it pertains to teacher support. If you're like me, you'll be there with bells on. The event starts at 4:30 and ends at 6:00 pm.</span></div></span></div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-14714922783672960772011-05-16T21:49:00.003-04:002011-05-16T22:04:32.294-04:00value addedWhat gets me really miffed about the idea of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider/post/kamras-dcps-will-be-a-value-added-world-for-most-teachers-in-five-years/2011/05/08/AFfNt6ZG_blog.html#pagebreak">value added</a> is that I just don't understand the math. That, and the fact that it's all test-score and benchmark related, and therefore only promotes a certain <i>type</i> of teaching within the classroom.<div><br /></div><div>If a classroom is only an assessment-related classroom, the focus becomes only the measurement of skill. That's the only thing that is measurable, because it can be identified clearly within students abilities. For instance, as a reading teacher, I can figure out how well my students do in the following skills: main idea, compare and contrast, drawing conclusions, etc, etc. These are identifiable and measurable through a test. And, in fact, it's good to measure them: we're able to see how well a student can comprehend and, indeed, chew, savor and swallow a text that way. All these things are gateway drugs: we gather ourselves into reading through comprehending, which makes us enjoy things like beauty and language. But when we <i>only</i> measure those skills, then we falter where things really count: the <i>synthesis</i> of skills, namely writing, and projects, which usually takes the content we learn and wonder about and synthesizes it with a skill such as drawing conclusions based on information gathered, making inferences about character motivations, etc.</div><div><br /></div><div>I also wonder how intensely the replacement of DCPS standards with <a href="http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards/english-language-arts-standards">Common Core Standard</a>s are going to affect how we measure skills, and how we teach. I like the holistic (err...whole-istic?) approach, but is DCPS doomed to be a testing culture because of value added? In the next five years, it looks like. Ugh. </div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-42310641139515171202011-04-05T22:31:00.002-04:002011-04-05T22:37:09.378-04:00return of the CAS!So, as most of us in public ed. & charter schools know in DC, the CAS is upon us. Today was quite the shit show, as usual: 4 1/2 hour period for non-testers, a substitute (in my classroom) who sat there reading the newspaper and didn't even <b>hand out the work I had clearly on the table label "Sub Folder."</b> Oy. Sometimes (and I hope I'm not offending any substitutes here), subs are just so uninterested in doing anything--they just want to make their money and go. Are they so jaded, or just ridiculous? Pardon, pardon to those subs who are really great and deserving of real teaching jobs: there are a couple of subs at my school who're regulars, and who are wonderful teachers. Sucks that a few bad apples ruins the whole bunch.<div><br /></div><div>Anyways, while I was returning the CAS items today, my friends and I were like, well, the return of the CAS...which reminded me of an amazing song, and which will now be the anthem of this next week of ridiculous testing. Please enjoy, "Return of the Mack," and substitute Mack with CAS...all the time.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/twgArtVqMlM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-45487158405172699212011-03-30T22:23:00.003-04:002011-03-30T22:26:17.405-04:00DENIED!Fucking denied, man. I took an <i>entire</i> day off of school to go to OSSE to drop off my licensure packet that I <i>slaved</i> over for an entire year, and I just got a letter saying I was denied!!! All for one stupid thing: I didn't score high enough on my Praxis II Pedogogy test. Ugh!<div><br /></div><div>Now, I have to take the test again, fork over another 50 bucks for a processing fee, wait another five weeks for the scores again, get <i>another</i> transcript from my college and graduate school, get <i>another</i> letter of clearance from my graduate school and <i>another</i> freaking background check letter, and submit it again!!!!!! </div><div><br /></div><div>This is the most annoying thing ever. I'm so disappointed, OSSE. What the fuck, man. Jeez.</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-44176171821204612782011-03-28T20:11:00.004-04:002011-03-28T20:16:44.644-04:00a quick word about obamaI don't know if anyone caught Univision today (everyone was talking about it at school), but Obama said something to the tune of how we over-test our students. <div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; ">"Too often what we have been doing is using these tests to punish students or to, in some cases, punish schools," </span>were his exact words.</div><div><br /></div><div>He said it's boring to have schools teach to tests, and it won't make the student learn in the least. I'm all for that. But what are we going to do about it? That's the next question.</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-88902399397911637782011-03-28T19:34:00.002-04:002011-03-28T19:49:35.405-04:00one small step for man, one giant leap for RTDSo, Reading the District is finally getting himself organized. Better late than never, I suppose! I've bought my MS students binders, and am going to instruct them on how to organize them. The reason that this is so late coming is several-fold:<div><br /></div><div>a) I'm not a very organized person</div><div>b) I was placed in this class midyear, without much of an organizational system intact already</div><div>c) I'm not a very organized person</div><div><br /></div><div>Binders haven't been my thing, mostly because I think I just never thought of them. We're supposed to keep some form of a portfolio, so I thought that I was covered. Falsity. Binders are the shit, and will help you and your students immensely IF you keep them organized and make sure they are counted every week.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's my management system for this, so far. Let me know if I need to work some kinks out:</div><div><br /></div><div>1. Divide into sections: reading logs, homework, projects</div><div>2. Have a checklist or table of contents (?) for all projects and homeworks</div><div>3. Check this every week for completion</div><div><br /></div><div>What say you? Organized finally?</div><div><br /></div><div>In other news, I'm looking for jobs at public, charter and private schools. Let's see what happens!</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-69627024111045739792011-02-17T20:50:00.002-05:002011-02-17T20:58:38.841-05:00trying to respond to studentsI don't know how successful this will be, or if this is a good idea at all, but I have a couple of students who might be a bit despondent these days about their reading levels, and probably quite frustrated by the fact that they're still in Read 180.<div><br /></div><div>I also have two of my favorite students completely down in the dumps lately: unresponsive, very cold, not trying (one of 'em, at least). Basically, not their usual selves. This kills me, because they were the lights of my career as a second-year teacher. They made my class lively, entertaining and wonderful.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, since most of my students fill out once in a while (when I want to get a "pulse of the classroom" as they say in the fucking jargon) this fill in the blanks free-write, and since a lot of them say the same stuff, I feel like it's time to respond to them. I'm going to use the same format, but just make it a response, allay fears, hopefully build confidence, hopefully show them that I know they're growing and doing better each time.</div><div><br /></div><div>Is this an ok thing to do? I think so. I'll just trust my judgement, and see where it goes.</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-51734967255601784772011-02-15T22:12:00.002-05:002011-02-15T22:37:28.021-05:00the process of covering one's buttOne of the things that is very difficult for me to swallow is having to cover yourself. I didn't understand this concept at all in grad school, and didn't exactly follow it to the T last year. This year, however, stakes have raised, and, in order for me to function well--both under IMPACT and under the administration here--is to cover myself:<div><br /></div><div>1. Always make sure you "hit" a certain amount of higher order thinking questions (HOTS, what a silly acronym)</div><div>2. Create spreadsheets that cross-reference DCBAS, Lexile levels, ELL levels and SpEd status and accomodations--for any other reason than just simply having it handy.</div><div>3. Keep a list of evidence that you have called 100% of parents, recording each time you call and whether it was answered, and what actions will take place.</div><div><br /></div><div>The thing that makes me the most frustrated is that all of these are probably, in all likelihood, useful! But the mere fact that it is "required" of me to "hit" high order thinking questions, instead of "encourage" me to make my students go farther by asking them deeper questions, seems to me to be fake. Maybe it's the rebellious-side of me, but all this constant "hitting" things, or covering or do-it-because-they-tell-me really makes me less interested in the educational theory our school wants to shove toward us. It makes me also just not want to do it. </div><div><br /></div><div>So, here's my question to the masses: how do I make it so that I can convince myself that, it's ok to do things with silly acronyms, or collect data sets, or record how many times I've called a parent? In a way, how do I make myself care?</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-33391029596085487942011-02-10T23:07:00.004-05:002011-02-14T16:37:17.619-05:00a triple-header tonight--procrastination at its finestCheck out this little quote: the 8-year-old son of Teach for America founder, Kopp, interviewed her for a project at school:<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; "><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>She quotes her son Benjamin, then 8, after he had interviewed her about her life's work for a school project. His final question was: "If this is such a big problem -- you know, kids not having the chance to have a good education -- why would you ask people with no experience right out of college to solve it?"</blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; ">Interesting, no? I ask this same question many times. I think TFA has lots of good points, but many, many bad. I'm not a fan of those who think it's a vacation between college and law school (no offense to those who have done so). Teaching should be a decision, a career choice, and TFA should encourage that career choice through preparation and encouragement to stay in the ranks. Says I.</span></span></div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-7193810726414795142011-02-10T21:13:00.001-05:002011-02-10T21:14:51.007-05:00eating well vs. having time to grade & do workI love to cook, don't get me wrong. But damn if it doesn't take a long time! I just finished and it's 9:14 pm. So, do I enter my homework grades in now? Those <i>always</i> make me lazy. Ay, what to do.Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-9066702779853394472011-02-10T20:59:00.002-05:002011-02-10T21:10:17.517-05:00a teacher's complaintHow to Ruin Your Classroom Dynamic In One Two Easy Steps:<div><br /></div><div>1. Reschedule two of the loudest loud-mouthed kids from their original period to the quietest, most productive period.</div><div>2. Rinse and repeat.</div><div><br /></div><div>My classroom's been overrun by ridiculousness, and I'm not sure how to stop it. Two students, one who is "bored" because she's "not aloud to do anything" and so loves to talk and talk in the class. She's a rebellious type who's having trouble at home, and can dish out the snide-remarked disses, but can't take 'em herself. The other is an attention-seeker who seeks haven in the rapid-fire comments he makes to each and every single one of his classmates, only to get a laugh or disrupt the flow of the classroom. Thus, the class, who were once leaders, has thudded into the grasp of loudness, disruption, and/or general malaise (in some students). One of my favorite students (honestly, I can't say that I don't have favorites--I love all (read: most) of my students, but this one girl is just a treat to have in class: excited, ready to learn, a leader, if only she'd stop doubting her capability) has lost that smile she always has when she sees me. She hates coming to the class. She lays her head down. She lays her head down.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, I don't know what to do. Whether to accept it or make calls home expressing concern about behavior and the animosity that's built between those who were switched into the fourth period, and those who were there to begin with. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is killing me.</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-1766965017826656972011-01-23T16:47:00.002-05:002011-01-23T19:37:49.686-05:00so many things to say, such procrastinationIt's my own fault that I'm not posting. It's procrastination. Like most things that require long periods of time to think about and etc., I've put it off and off and off until now, when I'm procrastinating my real school work, and posting on this blog. So here I am.<div><br /></div><div>It's a wonder that practically <i>no</i> other teacher blogs that I have linked are posting--although it's not even a wonder: there seems to be a general malaise, or at least a negative space and attitude on the posts that've been going around since last my favorite teacher blogs posted. I don't know if people have time, or if they feel the energy to post as much as before. I know I haven't as much, though I've wanted to.</div><div><br /></div><div>A wonderful moment: one of my students is participating (and will win) the Poetry Out Loud competition on the 27th. I will be there with bells on. I can't wait to hear her--it'll be absolutely spectacular. She'll be reading <a href="http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Irby/KAW-Radio/Irby-Ken_Those-Winter-Sundays_KAW-Radio_01-98.mp3">"Those Winter Sundays,"</a> by Robert Hayden.</div><div><br /></div><div>A sobering moment: one of my students, a natural jerk, in want of an audience, who wants to feel important and a leader, who is a 9th grader and had a stern talking to by the vice-principal of 9th graders, and the guidance counselor (they think he's in a gang; he's not). He's failed three of his classes, including mine, and has passed English with a B. Stubborn and stubborn, he came in somber and sober after the conversation. At the end of the day, we spoke, and he said I'd be seeing a new him come Monday, and he seemed pretty serious about it. He'll be in my 4th period this semester, which will be a very big change of scenery and environment, which will be very good for him.</div><div><br /></div><div>This semester will be good in terms of students; same old shit, tho with the school. We'll see how things develop.</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-31383985599166312942010-11-28T21:14:00.003-05:002010-11-28T21:23:16.935-05:00back to the grindhouseTomorrow's school again, and I'm wondering whether or not I'm dreading anything. Not particularly. I think the biggest thing is that I have to create some semblance of a final exam based solely on what the DC CAS looks like/is. Basically, I am taking a DC CAS specifically tailored to main idea, details, sequencing, and literary elements, and making that the test. I hate the CAS, think it's boring an not useful. But most of all, I hate having to make my reading class, which is FULL of ELL students that shouldn't really be there in the first place, some form of differentiated instruction of CAS questions. What a buncha bull.<div><br /></div><div>So, my question: do I do what my supervisor wants me to do? Make a bunch of these stupid differentiated questions, or just go about my business with what's already done? I suppose I'm going to have to, because I'm the "lead teacher" of Read 180. So many people in my school try and for the most part succeed in getting away with not submitting things to admin, not doing things that admin asks them to do. I'm trying not to do that so that I can not be a silly teenage rebellion type, and assume my responsibilities. But the temptation is so great, and it seems that so many people get away with it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Either way, back to DC CAS support class, I mean, Read 180.</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-76639601670725460982010-11-11T00:07:00.003-05:002010-11-14T20:10:16.715-05:00getting angry<div>See, I have a friend--a good friend--one who's been with me since last year--one who's candid and open and unendingly opinionated--one who makes mistakes like the best of us and will own up to them--one who believes that the only way to make things happen, to really make things change, is to get angry. And he's angry at the school. So, he tries to encourage his students to make change by making them angry enough that they want it. Or, at least the smart kids, he says. He says that what he's trying to do is get the kids to break out of the lie that they've been fed by the administrative body. He does this, and he also puts his race out there by playing the role of "white oppressor." He does it in order to get the kids angry, not necessarily at him, but at certain injustices that "he" is the cause of. His goal is anger. And he achieves it.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've had a lot of conversation about this lately, and I've come to some conclusions about it. See, whenever he tells me about this stuff--and he confronted me about this, saying that I tend to question his motives a lot, looking at him strangely and not saying anything--it makes me unendingly uncomfortable. And, through conversations with friends, I've realized why:</div><div><br /></div><div>Most of this discomfort with his style is that I feel that he is playing a part, and tends to manipulate his students into believing in his agenda, however socially just it may be. In a way, another friend said to me, it is "inception." But, the most important thing here is that he is trying to get students angry in order to recognize injustice in the world. His is not a problem of action, rather, or recognition. My thing is not necessarily recognition, rather, action. I want students to have recognized and researched and become passionate about a<i> </i>problem in society, and then <i>change </i>it. I'm about empowerment and action, he's about empowerment in recognition. He is the yang to my yin. </div><div><br /></div><div>So what does this mean in terms of my own teaching? I want kids to recognize things, but it's never on my official agenda because that's not what I'm teaching, and I don't always have the opportunities to do it. I can't quite put my race out there because there's not much to be provocative about in Read 180, unfortunately. All content is a means to an end goal: being able to read well. I guess I need to find some sort of yang to complete my yin in my community service club...what does it take to recognize a problem in the world?</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3170350655910781716.post-3198105043880601382010-11-03T23:15:00.002-04:002010-11-03T23:41:56.808-04:00is it me, or is it them?I think one of the things, personally, that I do when it comes to my job is take things personally. Not on the kids side, rather, the things that they say are either funny, ridiculous or annoying (See side note: today in new MS class, I have regained some ground by, instead of high fiving a student, giving him a high elbow--again, what I love about MS is the pure willingness they have to do simple, silly things). This whole switch to MS thing, how can I not take this personally, as if the admin has not much else to do than throw teachers on one place on a whim just simply because they can.<div><br /></div><div>This is hard to swallow, but, it's not me, it's them. It's going to take me a very long time to realize this...it's how the school operates: they make things shitty for teachers, because that's just how they think things should be run. They do it in the name of certain things (data, etc), and, perhaps they're right in some respects; but, I don't think I'll ever quite "win" because there's nothing <i>to</i> win. Maybe that's what I've been thinking about for such a long time. That there's a fight to win, that I can control what my job is. But it's not about that. It's about them being the boss, me being the employee.</div><div><br /></div><div>It'll take some time, I suppose. Do I sound defeatist?</div>Reading the Districthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11635072700180534927noreply@blogger.com0