Poverty

Is poverty curable in the classroom?

This is one of the big issues introduced in the book "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" by Ruby Payne. After explaining the social differences between the poor, the wealthy, and the beloved middle class she goes on to explain how teachers (presumably from the middle class) should cope with such issues in the classroom (which I have seen way too many of and will probably hit on in many future blog posts).

Beyond that explanation of social class (which I have problems with), the big point she seems to be getting at is that if we teach our children "middle class values" that they will become middle class. If this is not the case, the only other reasons I can think of for teaching "them" "our" values would be to:

1) We want to make students more controllable
2) We see our lifestyles as the only ones in which success and happiness can occur

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that American poverty is good. I think is disgusting. But at the same time I don't think it is necessarily a world outlook. It is often the result of huge structural factors (racism, economic displacement, et cetera) and it is often not accidental. In a contemporary sense it is not necessarily accidental either.

She does end on a point that I can agree with: all children (and people in general) should be given the option to embrace middle class values. As a teacher I will try to implement some of her suggestions for no other reason than give some of my students that choice. I will be a resource to those who want it. At the same time I'm not fooling myself into believing that these values will save them. The only thing that can get them out of poverty is them, with or without those vales and "hidden rules".

The First Long Day

During second block, I got a nearly perfect evaluation from my principal.

During fourth block, I had to call in the assistant principal because the class was totally out of control, a kid threw a bag full of some unknown food item across the room, and it broke open, leaving a mess across the entire room. This was in addition to the talking, the disrespect, and the walking around that doesn't seem to be deterred by mere detentions.

I walked out my room at the end of the day at the verge of tears.

I learned a few lessons.

1) I am being an awful teacher.

2) My classroom management suffers when I am really tired.

3) I need to go back to laying down the law.

4) I need to stay calmer in these situations. Raising my voice wasn't productive.

5) When these situations do occur, I know that I can make it through.

6) Tomorrow is a new day. I need to make it better.

It is ironically on "pay day" that I was reminded that I am not doing this job for the money. I am clearly doing the job because I love these kids (even though they are testing my last nerve) and I am insane.

A New Start

I am now eight days into my illustrious teaching career and I have a few observations.

The Good
- The students (they don't know it but I actually like them)
- The administration (they actually have my back)
- Cross Country (running is great and so are the kids)

The Bad
- The students (they WEAR ME OUT)
- The bureaucracy (too many layers, too little useful help)
- The school lunch

A day doesn't seem to pass now where I don't give a detention (yesterday I have five detentions in a ten-minute stretch), a student doesn't make fun of my voice (it's not even funny anymore), and students don't seem to be able to do something as simple as remaining quiet for five minutes. They also feel like it is OK to disrespect me because I look young. It seems like each day I have remind them that disrespect will not fly in my classroom.

Thankfully out of the six classes I teach, only two of them consistently generate problems. I never realized the extent to which the students influence my behavior. With the better classes I feel more comfortable cutting up (in an appropriate way) and having more group activities. With my other classes I feel this need to keep control ALL THE TIME to make sure the something gets done.

I have made a few rookie mistakes. I accidentally escalated a confrontation (which I thankfully "won") over something that could have been dealt with quietly. My kids don't think I respect them because I use consequences so liberally for things they think are minor (talking in class and not staying on task).

I also need to be more consistent, especially with my problematic classes. When I give a student a consequence I find myself questioned about what I did for other students. I often just respond by giving the other student in question the same consequence. Really, I should just be more liberal with the consequences until they realize that I actually do mean business.

I have also held my ground as well as I know how. I won't be disrespected in my classroom. If a student makes fun of me they earn the reward of having to spend Friday afternoon with me in detention and doing a copying assignment.

I learned that my seating arrangement sucks and that my seating chart/arrangement needs to be fixed. That will happen this weekend when I have time to think about the optimal solution.

Things could be worse.

Things could be better.

But I'm OK with the way things are for the most part. There's still plenty of fuel in the tank.

Another Video

Stop pacing!!! For the love of all that is good, stop pacing!!!

This is the only thought that goes through my head I watch myself teach. I think I was actually more nervous teaching my fellow teachers than actual students. It seems apparent, especially since I faced the wrath of the camera on my first day of TEAM.

I also notice myself ending sentences in the middle. My mind will jump from one thought to another in such rapid succession (in case I forget it) that my mouth abandons the earlier thought. It is almost painful to watch.

I am so eager and energetic that it almost sickens me. I so want to impress everyone in the room and I think I went a little overboard. My mind drifted from delivering the lesson I wanted to deliver to getting evaluation points.

In a lot of ways I look worse than the last video. I am clearly uncomfortable with my surroundings, overtly conscious of the time, and not as confident as I should be with the lesson as planned, which is weird because the lesson was pretty good. It would be even better if I worked on tying the whole thing together in a more coherent way and merged in a lesson on similes and metaphors into it (something that will be made possible with a 90-minute block).

I also need to rehearse more. I think a lot of things (set, closure, transitions) would sound more natural if they were practiced. It is something I started doing later in the week and things got way better.

In some ways I am getting better. Despite my presence issues, I felt more prepared than ever. I know what to expect. I am on top of a lot of issues. I actually felt more like a teacher (the tie is so necessary for me to look the part).

It was a pretty harsh reminder that I am very much a work in progress. I am a little scared looking at this going into the fall.

TEAM Teaching

I guess it has been a while since I did a self-assigned blog. Things have been mildly crazy with that whole learning how to teach thing and dealing with a whole slew of other things happening around me that are all out of my control.

For some reason it surprises me that I still get nervous every time I teach (it just reminds me that Andy Mullins was saying he was supernervous his entire first year--something that terrifies me a little). It scares me that I can't always communicate clearly with my classes. It terrifies me every time I pace the room and potentially distract my students.

TEAM teaching strikes me as mildly ridiculous. Five different teachers all watching me teach to people who already have college diplomas and giving me sometimes contradictory advice. Some teachers think I walk around too much. Others think I don't walk around enough. I don't really care at the end of the day if I always hit all four parts of my set and closure. I don't always care if my transitions are smooth. I don't always care that my assessment is clearly written down in my lesson plan.

I know it matters but right now a lot of things matter more. It matters more that this guy who has never given out a warning (downside of having six amazing summer school students) is somehow going to be able to lay down the law the moment the students walk through my door on August 7. It matters more that I have good content. It matters more that I know what to do when it hits the fan. It matters more that I remain upbeat and positive under pressure.

The whole evaluation thing makes me needlessly tense and often dramatically less confident in my teaching ability. I have all these problems (nervous walking/pacing, talking too fast at times, and my apparent inability to finish a sentence) and I am asked to solve these issues in 40-minute increments in front of people that often don't want to be there. It leads up to me standing in front of the class making myself more nervous, focusing on my problems instead of my content (or the many good things about my teaching style), and typically exacerbating the original problem instead of fixing it.

I don't know if I can be a good teacher until I actually do it. Until I actually am in a room with just my students. I will have to teach a class with no second years in the back, none of my peers in the midst, and nobody there watching my every move and evaluating me.

I know enough now where I can sink or swim. I just want to get the chance to do it. I will probably do a lot more of the former before I can do the latter. I think I can live with that.

The Video

Watching the video of myself teach was one of the most painful experiences ever. As I watched myself talk about comparative and superlative modifiers with my class I felt a level of angst that compares to few others. For the first few minutes I kept asking myself questions about the spectacle that was unfolding in front of me.

Who was that guy pacing as he was talking about an overhead?

Who was that guy doing random arm motions as he spoke?

Who was that guy who used the words "like" and "ummm" way, way too often?

Who was that guy who used the word "rationale" without even thinking about it?

Who was that nerdy guy who was apologizing to the class for something they probably never noticed?

Could it be me? The moment it hit home was the second time I walked in front of the overhead in a nervous pace and then apologized, lost my train of thought, and took what seemed like an eternity to recover. I was waiting for the moment everyone in the room realized how badly I was doing. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

After 20 minutes of me ripping my teaching apart something happened. My kids were able to tell me what comparatives and superlatives were. They were giving me examples of the rules and what to do with them. I turned off the overhead projector, walked over to the board, and started making up examples. I was going by instinct for the first time that day. My speech slowed down and I was in control of the room.

I looked like a teacher.

I started getting teary-eyed. It was the greatest thing I have ever seen.

Now all I have to do is go from 30 minutes of solid teaching to 90 minutes by the fall. Can it be done? I certainly hope so.

Cooperative Learning and Paper Planes

I attempted to do both a cooperative learning and paper folding teaching technique in my summer school class. Neither went off as smoothly as I had planned but both taught be about the capabilities of my students and myself as a teacher.

The cooperative learning technique involved the students reading news articles (one from Time Magazine and one from the NY Times). They were broken into groups, with each person having a different role. They were to summarize and talk about the articles within the groups and then each group would teach each other about the article.

That approach fell flat and I could have seen it coming from a mile away. For some reason the kids didn't feel like talking about the article. A lot of them didn't really understand nor care what it was about until I talked about it (thus ruining the whole cooperative thing). The presentations and the group discussion went OK as long as I prodded the whole thing along.

I am thinking it was my fault for picking such hard content for them to work through. It also stalled because the kids weren't really the whole group structure for some reason. They seem to get a lot more out of it when I am the one doing the interacting with them. Part of me suspects they don't have the academic confidence a lot of the time to just read something and tell me their opinions about it.

This is something I am going to have to work on big time. I need to find approachable stuff and do a better job creating a space where conversations/ideas flow freely.

As I mentioned before, I also tried a paper folding activity. It wasn't really out of the book but it was related to the lesson at hand. After we went over following directions and procedures on the MCT I decided to mix it up and have a paper airplane folding. I gave each student a set of directions for a particular type of paper airplen and had them make them. It was pretty fun and for the most part a productive affair. It was a good end of week treat as well.

I don't think I will doing it in the fall since I will have considerably more than six students and control of the room would be tenous at best. It would take a while before I ever feel confident doing such an activity in my class.

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.

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.

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.

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.