Friday, June 16, 2006

Questioning Technique

OK, I think I am backing off on that whole last post. I am still committed to getting my kids as much education as possible but I am also trying to do it in the most engaging possible way. It is in that way that I used a questioning technique to gauge my fairly aggressive approach to teaching.

There are so many things these kids need to know about the world. They come from bad backgrounds. Most of my kids are over 15. One told me he sold drugs. The vast majorities aren’t getting the parental attention they deserve. They have role models that make me cringe, rappers and athletes whose behavior is often abhorrent. They need to hear something else.

I want them to hear optimism. I want them to hear things that apply to their lives. I want them to learn something about their history, which they seem to be stunningly ignorant of. I also want them to read and write well so that they can out in the world and make something of themselves. It turns out that I can do both at the same time. It may be the case that I have to do both at the same time for either goal to be accomplished.

As a person of color, I have so much more leeway to talk to these kids about race and class and poverty than the majority of teachers in the program that despite their best intentions don’t understand the sting of racism because they never experienced it. I have to talk about the world these kids live in because it seems that very few people are willing to. If I don’t talk about this stuff and give them a positive, optimistic message at the end, who will?

In response to this situation and exploiting the previously stated advantage, I’ve attempted to become a teaching idea machine. I’ve already played rap music in class to introduce ideas (with some success, especially after other teachers in my group gave me ideas to make it better), created extended metaphors between writing structure and a basketball team (not so hot, others could do it better), and attempted to get content that interests them. So far I have been getting better and better at the last one. I may have peaked this week, when I finally got over myself and talked about race and poverty, flat out, through literature and got their attention more than at any other point I have taught them.

Jesse Jackson (as much as he sickens me) gave speeches to the 1984 and 1988 Democratic National Conventions about the plight of the people at the bottom, ones that look quite similar to them. So yesterday I worked through those two speeches with my class. I used to talk about rhyme, repetition, word use, and more importantly to them, its message. THE CLASS ATE IT UP. It was the first time a student complimented my choice of content. James Baldwin wrote about the destructive nature of racism. I worked through one of his writings with the class talking about the exact same things. Although less successful than Jackson, they got the message and hopefully learned some more writing elements. One of the other teachers in my group read Maya Angelou, giving them rich poetry with a message to teach them about rhyme structure.

OK, so the point of this post was to talk about a questioning technique I used. Today, as we talked about James Baldwin, I used cold calling. Since my class has six people, I made multiple index cards for each student and then drew them at random, calling out questions as we were reading. I think it was fairly effective. It allowed me to keep the pace of the class where I wanted it and prevented long, painful silences between me asking a question and somebody volunteering to answer it.

I also gave out index cards to the students at the end of class, asking them to write three questions or comments about the reading and my teaching of it. I found it to be an effective way of gauging comprehension. In this case, all but one of the kids understood the meaning of the reading and enjoyed it, an indicator that I am still engaging them with this content. I also got enough information that will enable me to refine my style of teaching for future classes to maximize comprehension.

I really want to get better at teaching. But I strongly suspect that as long as I am putting forward good content that they are far more likely to walk away with some new knowledge. I will keep asking my students for comments at least once a week, ask for more outside observation, and keep finding things that my students need to hear and will help them both learn English and to survive in the world.

I mean, my class won’t be focused on race or poverty come fall semester. I have much bigger concerns, like keeping control of the room. There will be political things here and there but there is far more to learn. My class will be focused on interesting readings by interesting authors, stuff that the kids will actually want to read. I will attempt to assign engaging papers. So there, I hope to get them to the state standards by being consistently interesting. That is my approach thus far and I will stick to it until either it fails (as perhaps indicated by the question/comment cards) or something better comes along.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

First Week of Summer School

So, I have taught two classes of eighth grade English. It was the first time ever I had stood in front of a group of kids (a whopping six in my class) and attempted to teach them something. I am pretty sure it showed. The first lesson was well planned but I was too nervous to deliver it properly. The second class had a far less engaging lesson plan (as I had them writing for most of the class) but I was better able to deliver it. Despite the weaknesses I was able to keep control of the class during both lessons and get the students to accomplish all the objectives I set out. When looking back I still mostly focus on the weaknesses but I think there were some good things in there. Considering I had never taught a class before, I think I could be doing significantly worse.

There are many things about this summer school teaching that eat me up. I feel a little bad that I am using them to learn how to teach. I feel a little bit bad about the whole summer school thing in general. Group teaching must suck for my students. No one teacher in my group is in charge of the curriculum and I worry that my students are getting a muddled message delivered in six different ways. Even if we were on the same page all the time it our personalities and teaching styles are so different that it would seem to muddle the effectiveness of the overall class. My teaching style in particular is outside the prevailing norm of my group. To me, this seems to be a very ineffective way of teaching.

I worry that I am expecting too much from my students. On my second lesson I clearly went over their heads with not only the vocabulary/terminology I was using but also in the work I want to see from them. I am asking them to do work based on the eighth grade standards when I am skeptical they have even made it to the sixth grade standard. I am not sure if I should just keep going on, explaining the content and my expectations better but sticking to my overall plan since my objectives are being achieved, or if I should just throw the whole thing out, dumb down my future lessons, and make it easier for them. My decision would be significantly easier if I was not being told multiple things from both first and second year teachers.

These kids are not meeting a single state standard for their grade level. Two of my students are 16 years old and still in eighth grade. Yet I am getting conflicting messages, half of which stun me. Are people honestly telling me that the first priority is to make sure the students aren't bored? The idea being that the only way that I can keep these kids interested in school is to be constantly interesting. Are people telling me that being able to read and write well, to be able to understand and express should not be the main focus at this point? SERIOUSLY? To me, the first priority is getting them to the standard, no matter how painful it might be for everyone involved. I know it is impossible to get there in four (now three) weeks but it still should be attempted.

I don't know why I care so much whether or not all my students are being engaged every single moment of my class. I don't think any of my teachers really cared all that much about my interest level as long as I did the work and did well on it, that whole learning thing. School was almost never fun for me. I did it because I had to, because I was expected to. I believe that if you set a high standard, students will tend rise up to it. If they accomplish it, they will feel better about themselves. If they feel better about themselves, maybe they will stick it out and finish their formal educations.

Optimally I would be able to maintain my high standards/expectations and accomplish the arduous task of teaching them grade level objectives with amazing and engaging lessons. I am hoping the lesson plans I write for next week will be much better in pursuit of these dual goals.

OK, enough ranting for me. I will probably end up changing my mind on half of these points by the end of the week.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Charter Schools

The purpose of this post is to discuss charter schools, a topic that was inspired by reading a paper written by one of the MTC second-year teachers, Evan Couzo. This post is very indecisively written and I will have to resist the need to continually revise it. Anyway, Couzo's paper asserts that charter schools and voucher programs are a new development in education has served to increase student performance.

This is has prompted me to revisit a thought that has been circulating in my head for years. Are public schools as we know them are worth saving? Would it just be better to cut our losses and try something new?

The state of Mississippi is perhaps the most stark picture of public school failure. By most measurements, the public schools are among the nation's worst. Those with the most resources (middle and upper class whites) have abandoned the system. Those with the least (poor blacks) are trapped in it.

From what I gather from the films and hearing MTC teachers, the situation on the ground is not always the best (to be subtle). Administration and teachers are often on totally different pages. Members of one or both of the groups could be grossly incompetent in their jobs and are not invested in the success or failure of the students since they most likely will have a job the next year doing the exact same thing. Children are slipping through the cracks, making it to high school wihtout basic math or literacy skills.

Are charter schools the answer? If we exposed public education to competition, would things get better? Couzo's paper seems to suggest so. I have heard many competing studies on the issue and I think it is less clear cut than he suggests. Either way, it is clear that we have very little to lose. We already have a flawed product and to me it is worth risking for something better.

In theory, as a teacher (maybe even a long-term one), I don't think I should be scared of facing competition from others schools or teachers. If my peers and I good teachers, students will want to come to my class and school. The charter school survives another day. If my peers and I are bad teachers, my school will fail to keep its charter and it would be a good sign that I need to look at other career paths.

It is a little disturbing to me that schools are increasingly being exposed to market forces. I always thought education was about a community providing a common good to its children. It makes me sad that the community has given up on a lot of its kids and that now we must seek competition as our savior.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Expectations

If the last two weeks has been an indicator, change is perhaps the only constant in my life. Two weeks ago I turned in my last college paper. That kicked off a period of time in which I would fly home to South Carolina, buy a new car in a 72-hour window, fly back to Amherst, graduate from Amherst, fly back home to South Carolina four hours later, and then make the drive to Mississippi.

Teaching high school in Mississippi is clearly not the easy path. I knew that when I chose to come here in February. I had the admission to Vanderbilt Law School in my hand. I could have accepted it, chilled out during the summer, coasted through law school, and then made a ridiculous amount of money. Yet it didn't feel right. I felt like I was doing a disservice to myself and the world. A lot of thinking and praying was done. A lot of people were consulted.

The decision I made is obviously clear. I deferred the offer from Vandy for two years (and maybe several more depending on how this turns out) and decided to take the chance.

Now that I am fairly settled down I have to once again ask myself a huge question. What do I expect from the MTC and teaching in particular? This question has been swirling around in my head and I still can't settle on an answer. I should just list the big ones.

1) I expect it to be hard work
2) I expect to cry at least once
3) I expect to overexert myself trying to move mountains
4) I expect to fall short of perfection
5) I expect to move my class forward academically
6) I expect to do at least a reasonable job
7) I expect the first few weeks to be disasterous

At no point did I really expect a walk in the roses (or maybe the Magnolia). I have read too many blogs and heard to many horrific teaching stories for that to be the case. It is a minor miracle that nobody has scared me out of teaching. Because for all the bad things I have heard I also have heard a lot of amazing things: the kid who finally got something, a class that made some academic strides, or maybe a teacher who learned something about himself.

It is clear that I am not a natural teacher. I am prone to being nervous and awkward moments while in front of people for the very first time. There are so many reasons I could fail. But there is one reason I plan to succeed: I willing to do whatever it takes to be a successful teacher. In my case, that will be a ton of work. That's OK. Work builds character. I have a ton of it.

I think it is pretty clear that they need me here. My biggest hope and fear is that I will fall in love with this place and need them even more.