180 Students Turn in Work. Teacher Doesn’t Know Whether to Weep for Joy or Fear of Paper

This year I am blessed with the highest numbers of my short and semi-illustrious teaching career. I have 38 desks, and about 38 students in each class. I have one of 40 and a big winner of 42.  One student uses a barstool for a desk. Another uses a clip board. In another class, student 39 sits on the barstool and uses counter space in the back.  With the exception of one student who has been absent, EVERY SINGLE ONE turned in their first assignment, and most were well done. Given, it wasn’t exceptionally challenging (it did require grappling with a graduate-student level vocabulary word), but I didn’t even have to force anyone to come after to complete the thing.

Thankfully it was an easy one to grade, and all 180 of them look dang cool plastered upon the back of my classroom.

Assignment number two is a bit meatier, and tomorrow I begin tracking down the 20 or so stragglers after school.

Fear and Loathing of Testing (and numbers) in Los Angeles

The LA Times blew it open last Sunday. In the first of a series of articles pertaining to teachers and Los Angeles school performance, the Times unveiled findings of research intending to discern how teachers affect student performance. Researchers employed a “value added” analysis for over six thousand LA elementary teachers, using test score data to track whether students improve, maintain, or fall behind throughout their tenure with a given teacher.

Not surprisingly, teachers in the same school serving the same demographic had wildly different “effects.” Whether or not the increase/decrease was due to the teacher is currently being trampled in the subsequent dust-up, and it’s definitely a dust-up–not only did the Times print names of teachers, they are going to publish a database, open to the public, of all the teachers and their “value added” results!

It is all quite juicy.

Whether or not this is the best way to evaluate teachers is sure to be debated more heatedly than ever, and much thanks is due to the LA Times. This question was not being openly discussed in California before now, and now it’s blowing up nationwide.

I can’t say I’m surprised that A.J. Duffy, head of the LA teachers’ union, called for a boycottof the LA Times shortly after the article was published. Once again, minimal if any interest in learning from the data. No love to the teachers who might actually learn a thing or two from the results (the teachers with poor value-added scores in the article indicated that the score information would be useful for their instructional practice). Just shut the Times up. Classic.

Thankfully, he seems to have backpedaled a bit, thanks to some reasoned response from the head of the national American Federation of Teachers. And bonus props to one of the candidates to replace Duffy at the end of his term, who said he was disgusted by Duffy’s call to boycott the Times.

I don’t know if evaluating teachers based on “value added” is the answer, but I definitely see it as a useful component in the evaluation process. Ironically, much of the credit for this report is due to folks like Duffy and like-minded union leaders who disseminate inaccurate information regarding how test scores might be used in evaluation, and resist any objective measures that might contribute to judging teacher effectiveness. I have had multiple conversations with teachers who tell me, “Oh no, we can never have merit pay. They will base all of our pay and evaluation based on how the kids do on the state tests.” When straw-man sloganeering substitutes for informed debate, you’re bound to get served a big fat helping by the Los Angeles Times.

Humble hat tip to the LA Times, for unearthing information that will be valuable for parents, administrators, and ESPECIALLY for teachers (absolute shame on Duffy for trying to suppress the Times on this one).

I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

8th Grade. Year 8. Day 1.

Seven years ago a timid 22 year old sat on a barstool occupying himself with a Monday morning paper while students only five years his junior trickled raucously into a moldy (seriously; the San Bernardino Sun wrote an article about mold in the English wing of this particular high school), bare-walled classroom.  Yes, that was me, and after 7 years of teaching English I still switch from 3rd to 1st person point of view mid-paragraph.

I used to think that the chaos would subside, I would figure out how to manage a classroom and its daunting paperload, and I would no longer need to spend hours planning for the next few days at a time. At the outset of year 8, I have a handle on class management, paper control is a little less mysterious but still elusive, and I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing one week from today.

Teaching, I’ve found, is about strong content knowledge, planning well, and adapting even better.

Know. Plan. Adapt.

I have improved on each of these, and I look forward to my best year of teaching. Our scores last year showed impressive improvement, and my individual students demonstrated gains from throughout the academic year.

Tomorrow, this year’s crop turns in their first assignment. I’ve told them how it is my personal mission to ensure that they complete every assignment.  I’ve mentioned how it’s impossible to pass without doing all of the work. I don’t think they understand. And yet, I am predicting that at least 90% of them will pass my class, the end result of their hard work and my tenacious harassment.

At lunch today a coworker marveled at how technology may be digitally disintegrating students’ attention span. I have a feeling kids have always been like this, but I don’t doubt phones, iPods, and wireless internet are having an affect. It made me think that teachers simply need to find a way to be a glitch in that technology. An annoying flicker, a burst of static, anything to penetrate the ever-shrinking attention span.

“A pop up ad!” he sat back in his chair.

That’s it. This will be “the year of the pop up ad.” You can shut them out, hit “ignore”,  install blocking software, but somehow the message still gets through, whether you like it or not.

Harass with tenacity. Penetrate like a pop-up ad.  Know, plan, adapt.

Here we go.

End of the Year Reflection

I began this year with hope, motivation, and a few ballsy goals:

August: I promise all my future students that I will work tirelessly, and I pledge to make life a living hell for the lazy ones (i.e., I will MAKE them do work, and REFUSE to allow them to make failure their first choice). I hope and believe they will be better off for having me as a teacher.

August: I’ve laid a lot of curricular/instructional/collaborative groundwork for myself over the last few years, and now it’s time to start capitalizing.

August: The kids are back, and for right now, I’ve got the edge on energy. This will be the first year where I’ve started out with the policy that students must complete ALL major assignments in order to pass, regardless of total percentage. It should be a bit more work, but last year’s F’s dropped dramatically since I basically forced students to complete work.

August: Our scores were up this year, and I’m confident our team will be even more effective this year. Keep the energy up…Keep the energy up…energy up…energy up….

September: And I’m evolving into a superior educational being. Each day that passes leaves the malingerer and the willful ignoramus pathetically undermatched.    These hooligans, and I say that with love, will not escape to high school without learning a lot of things or two.

Here’s how it played out for the most part:

I stuck to the no-work/no-pass policy until the end. It was obscenely draining to track down the kids who didn’t do the work and FORCE them to do it, but it was doable.  My total F’s were down dramatically. Our scores are not in yet, so I’m unsure how our extra collaboration as a department team will affect performance. My own teaching performance, sadly, was not optimal. I think this was mainly due to time constraints exacerbated by my obligations at the university. Nevertheless, the quality of teaching/learning was there, I think. Just not as good as could have been, and not as good as it will be next year.

On the downside, I feel the highest degree of burnout in my career so far. It doesn’t manifest, but it requires a conscious act of resolve to demonstrate the patience and intractability required to counteract student apathy. Moreso than ever.

We did not use the laptops as a class from October until the end of the year. While I was out for Ella’s birth, several students downloaded porn, and many were blatantly breaking school browsing rules. Many knew the culprits, but none confessed or informed, so the laptops never came out again. I think many of them thought it was a bluff, and it was extremely difficult to avoid creating some justfication to go back on my edict. This was one of the most depressing events of my educational career, and the fact that we managed to have a productive and collegial finish to the school year was, I think, a huge accomplishment for all of us. Because of this event, however, I had considerably less respect for this group as a whole, and it was difficult to put this event in the past and set about restoring a sense of camaraderie.

I also feel that much of my potential is yet to be tapped, and I think there is much I could offer at the high school level as well.  But our school culture is fantastic, and we have strong leadership and quality teachers. When the time comes, it’s going to be tough to leave.

It was a solid year, and many students were well-served. Now that my degree is completed, I am confident that next year will be even better. For now, I’m looking forward to my first unemployed summer vacation since the summer before my junior year in high school.

My dad was almost right: Once you start working, you (almost) never stop.

End 2009/2010

The room is packed. The desks are gone. The chairs are stacked five deep and eight wide across the back counter. I am eating almonds for the last time of the 09/10 school year. Some of my students were amazing, some were nightmares, and many fell somewhere in between depending on the time of day and the position of the moon. Nearly all were memorable, and today was the last time I will see many of them.

I look out the window to my right, peeling back the vertical blinds. Something squeaks, but the quad is deserted, as are the basketball courts and what section of the field I can see. More desks are stacked against the mechanical building.

One young lady with an admirable sense of humor gave me this parting gift:

AJ gave me this picture. The lad pictured in the bottom right has had his work featured on this blog below. The scene depicted is a fairly accurate recreation of one of our analogy lessons from the end of the year.  I love stuff like this.

Now I will go to an end of the year/retirement party, say goodbye to some people who I may never see again for the rest of my life.

Goodbye 2009/2010.

Last Academic Day of 2010

We are watching The Diary of Anne Frank today. Some classes are finishing up presentations. I and my students have worked hard this year, and we have worked hard until the end. I am exhausted, but not undone. I look forward to my first employment-free summer since the months before my junior year.

End of the year reflection (and comparison to my thoughts at the beginning of the year) to follow.

Jake graduated yesterday, with high honors. I am proud of my little brother.

Monotony Is

Friday was the pleasure of scoring 1800 middle school essays, the fruits of the famed “district writing test.” Attending the gala were most of the district’s 7th and 8th grade teachers, with a few dedicated or unfortunate members hailing from the elementary and high school levels.

This year I came up with the genius idea of keeping track of how many essays I had scored.  45 essays bought me a bathroom trip.

Another 20 earned me a coffee refill. My total of 199 procured bragging rights. Next year I’ll hit 200.

All before lunch. With a couple of pee stops mixed in.

While I was tallying My estimable colleagues had a pool going on how many times I would use the facilities. I’m not sure what the prize was, but we all found a way to maneuver through the stacks.

Books for the Well-Rounded Child

I sure don’t know what a “TOUCH novel” is, but it sounds like this one might put Edward and Bella to shame.

And fresh from finishing this one:

Education policy, sociology, political science, conservative manifestos, and scintillating teenage love/murder dramas with buffed out teenage boys make for a well-rounded citizen. I should write my own homeschool curriculum.

Someone said something nice.

“Hello,

I just wanted to say thank you, for having me in 7th or 8th grade or even in the summer, I wanted to let you know that i was or happy to be in your classes, now i am wantig to graduate but it was not possibe if you were not helping me along the way so thank yu.”

Teacher Beating

For the record, I am not that teacher from Houston who put a prolonged beatdown on some little kid in her class.

I am actually a kind-hearted soul–patient, benevolent, understanding, connected with my feelings, etc. I am a friend of all creatures, large and small. My lone drawback are two hairy forearms with some burly veins spiderwebbing from elbow to wrist.

This artist, like many of my misguided mentees, is not interested in the fact that I’m gentle as a butterfly on parole from cocoon prison–no, according the prevailing calculus of the class, hair + veins=maniacal maestro.