DC Newbie - My First Year Teaching in DC

Starting 2nd Quarter

2007-11-14T21:43:00.000-05:00

The bulk of science fair is now over, grades are in, and second quarter has started. Here's a summary of how it all ended:

The science fair papers were mostly terrible. Like I was mentioning before, it is a struggle to convince these children that the whole point of "research" is to then include what you learn in your paper. Sooo many of them thought that just writing three paragraphs about what they just kind of know because they heard it on TV once counted as good research. I did have several bright students who wrote fantastic research papers, though, and I am so proud of them.

Now my after-school science fair competition club can really get under way since only those students who are truly participating, about 15 of which are my students, will be completing the science fair projects. That is a huge weight off of me now.

Grades were due last week and we had a teacher work day that was supposed to re-vive me, but totally did not. Grades were due at 2:30. I finished grading at 6:00. I also failed about half of my students, so I had to figure out how to write comments other than, "Your child is smart, but LAZY."

Which brings me to what I'm very disappointed about now. I feel like I am doing a pretty great job teaching this year. I could improve still, especially in making my notes more accessible to 14 year olds and generally making the class more fun, but overall, I really do believe I am a good teacher this year. So why has there been such a minimal shift in my class average? I thought I failed about 75% of my students last year in DC because I was an unpracticed first year teacher and it was the ghetto, basically. Failure was the norm at the school. It really wasn't odd to fail that many kids.

Now I'm in a very diverse community where maybe half of my kids are still in poverty and living in broken homes (or homeless as is the case with one of my students). The other half of my kids are in stable households, though. Add that to the fact I am a better teacher in a school system that actually works and I thought it was inevitable that I would only be failing a handful of my students. The only thing I can hope right now is that it was science fair that brought all of these grades down and that it'll be different this quarter. So far, though, it's not.

We've got two grades in the gradebook right now and the class average is already super low. I collected one homework and maybe 40% didn't do it. Then we took a post-quiz with a class average score of 63%. Now, this was a post-quiz, which in my class this year means that it is the second time the students took this quiz in class. Also, it means students had full access to the pre-quiz, which is the exact same quiz, on our class website. Students were supposed to go back and practice the pre-quiz and essentially memorize the answers. And a few students in each class did. The rest didn't even study or look at the pre-quiz once. I mean, seriously. Is there any other way to pump up the grades in my classes? I am literally giving them the answers to the quizzes and most are still failing.

They'z Lazy!

Anyway, it doesn't help to focus on the negative. I'm actively looking for solutions. I'm going to be changing the way students take notes in my class and have them type them up now. I sort of hate that idea because I think that the physical act of writing notes helps it stick in your brain, but the kids are begging me to type up their notes on the laptops instead of writing them by hand, so I'll give it a shot. They all told me in a survey that the class needs to be more fun, so I'm trying to make it more fun for them. At the same time, I am working hard to also instill a sense of needing to study on their own. They are far too reliant on Jeopardy games and study sessions after school. It's time they mature to actually doing the studying their own selves.

Oh, and my field trip. I was talking about how difficult it has been to get my old school in DC to actually run the field trip that I set up for them. Long story short I heard back from the science teacher there and she seems amenable to rescheduling, but is afraid to take the students on a field trip. I explained that I know exactly where she is coming from, and that's why I set up for guest speakers to come in first to introduce the idea. Then, I suggested, only the students who were respectful to the guest speakers would be allowed on the field trip the following week. I think that's reasonable, right? Hopefully she'll think so, too. I tried to make it very clear to her that the last thing I want to do is put extra work on her plate and that I am willing to do all the ground work on this. I hope it works out.

That's where we're at now. The past few days, though, my mind has been stuck on Thanksgiving break and is not focused on school. I am so looking forward to seeing my family in Florida next weekend :-) I'll have much happier stories to tell them all, this year. Last Thanksgiving, I was clinically depressed thanks to working in DC public schools. This year, despite me complaining about things this whole blog, I actually do love my job. I love my kids, my school, my profession, everything. I think my family will be relieved to see how much better I am doing, too. It's continually amazing to me what just 10 miles can do.

Have a Super Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Is there anything happening on Earth besides science fair right now?

2007-10-25T19:51:00.000-04:00

I'm am so bogged down with science fair grading and stressed out kids crying out for help every time they see me. I wish I could run up to my kids and be like, "but I couldn't grade your papers last night because I just didn't get it!!" Or better yet, "I didn't know it was due today!" They seem to think I'll be persuaded by that, so maybe they actually would be.

Science fair is a whole different game for me this year. Since my students all have laptops, there is not issue with typing or being able to access the internet to research. The problems this year are that these kids seem to have no concept whatsoever what research actually is. Like what is source? What's a bibliography? You mean I need to put my research notes in my paper?!? Also, I have far more to grade this year because instead of having like 50% of my students doing the work, I've got more like 80%. This time around, they are real honest-to-goodness papers, too. It's not all just an exercise in identifying variables and hypotheses. They've kind of got that figured out.

The good news is it's almost over. In a week or two, they will be done designing their experiments. At that point, I will invite about 30 of my students to actually conduct their experiments, so that's only 30 papers to grade.

Really what I wanted to post about was my old school, or more to the point, my old principal. There are a couple of inappropriate words that I feel best describe him right now. You may recall that last year in DC, I (or rather my students) won $500 for the school to go towards our non-existent environmental education program for doing so well in the Fairchild Competition at the US Botanic Garden. Knowing that I was leaving that school, I completely set up a series of guest speakers and field trips with the Anacostia Watershed Society. I even picked out dates in October and everything. In June, after school was out, I even went back to school and met with the principal who gave his approval to the plan. Being the principal in charge, his job, and his only job, was to call the Anacostia Watershed Society and give them final approval. All the work was already done.

Well it is now almost November and this principal has been ignoring mine and the Anacostia Watershed Society's emails and not returning my phone calls. I finally got hold of him on the phone today and was promptly given a mountain of attitude since I left this project behind for "others to do" who weren't as "enthusiastic" about it as I was. So, he's either blaming me or his new science teachers as if this has nothing to do with him. I'll have to let you guys know if he ever actually does give my contact information to the new science teachers. Meanwhile, I will be in touch with the US Botanic Garden and the Anacostia Watershed Society.

In other news, my teen mom student that I taught last year and have again this year is not doing well at all. I think there must be something more serious than her baby going on at home because she is missing a lot of school and a lot of her work. She is still showing the same desire to do well as she did last year, even after giving birth, but the follow through is gone. I'm trying to help her out now without invading her privacy, but it's hard when she misses so much school. I'll keep you all updated.

Overall, though, still a great school. My coworkers are fun and dedicated. We hang out with administrators on Friday's after work. I genuinely like 99% of my students. It's awesome.

I'll be posting in a couple weeks I'm sure. Until then - adios!

The work load doesn't seem to be getting any smaller

2007-09-24T19:04:00.000-04:00

I'm a little disappointed. I was certain that I wouldn't be working quite as hard this year, but instead, I'm really putting in the same hours. I'm staying at work late every day and still bringing work home which I was not supposed to ever do! And again this year, it's not like I'm doing anything super extraordinary or time-consuming. I'm really just fulfilling my basic job requirements. It seems to be just the fact I'm teaching a new course at a new school. My mentor teacher says that the first year at a new school is always like your first year all over again in terms of how much time you put into it.

But, you know, I don't really mind all that much. Last night (Sunday), I kind of had a panic attack flash back from last year. I suddenly got kind of freaked out thinking about how I wasn't ready for Monday morning. This time, though, I truly wasn't. I went to work about an hour early today to get stuff done I was planning on doing Sunday night. The point, though, is that now that the day is over, I feel fine again. Sure my lesson plan went totally bust, but I remembered that I like these kids a lot more than the ones I had last year, as a whole. Not that they are better kids individually, but that their behavior is at a place where even if my lesson plan falls apart, they don't start running around in circles, fighting, cussing, or yelling at me. They wait patiently until the rest of the class has caught up.

Today fell apart because it took way longer to teach the kids how to do stuff on their laptops than I had anticipated. It was very confusing showing them how to back up files to the server and turn stuff in to me online. But having trouble showing kids how to use laptops is the kind of problem I enjoy having. It's better than figuring out a way to get 50 students to type up papers when you don't have a single computer in the room.

On a more personal note, the reason I didn't do any work this weekend is I went camping. How fun is that? I had a great time and wasn't thinking about work-stress at all.

In class, we've wrapped up learning about the scientific method and the characteristics of living things. This week, we'll be doing a a sort of scientific method-cumulative lab with pill bugs (a.k.a. roly polies) and taking our first test. The first test I gave last year was a disaster. I sure hope this year some kids pass my test.

Talk to y'all later

My students are following me!

2007-09-12T19:34:00.000-04:00

Today, when I logged into the attendance, a little window popped up and told me a new student would be joining my class tomorrow. When I read the name, I actually let out a little scream briefly distracting my mentor teacher's class. Could this really be the same student I taught last year? Her last name is really common, but her first it totally unique. I liked this girl last year in my class in DC. She gave birth to a baby boy in, I don't know, like January? She did the home-school thing for about two months and then returned to my class. When she came back she was really good about taking responsibility for herself. We were in the middle of a project and she asked me for some extra time to do it. I asked her why and she said, "I'm raising a baby and going to school Ms. Newbie - this stuff is hard!" I had to laugh because it was so true. About a week later she had all the work she needed and she earned a B that quarter. So I actually find it really funny and nice that I'm getting this same girl again!

I stopped by the counselor's office to see if this really was the same girl when it occurred to me that the best way to check would be to see if her brother was coming too. This brought forth a whole different set of emotions. The girl I like, the brother, well, not so much. And it turns out he is coming, but he won't be in my classes. So here's the story of this boy:

I mentioned a couple posts ago how half way through the year I acquired a new class. Well this student was in that troublesome class. He didn't really stand out, at first, though. He was one of three boys who literally did nothing. They didn't even write their names on papers. They just leaned back in their chair and watched the class happen, but not in a rude way. You know how some kids lean back and it's like, "What makes you think I'm going to do any work for you?" These kids were more like, "Why work when you can just vegitate?" So I concerned myself more with teaching the 8 students who wanted to learn. On a regular basis I would call the students who wanted to learn forward and give them the lesson while the other 12 kids went to the back and rolled dice. That's all that could be done with this particular class. And even with those 8 kids it was a struggle to get them to focus.

So anyway, not long after I receive this class, the school was broken into in a big way. Over a three day weekend, a group of students walked into the apparently unlocked back door, broke the windows of nearly every classroom in the building and stole items from almost all of those rooms. (My room went untouched). They stole one of my colleague's personal laptop, another's stereo, some computers, etc. Well, we do have cameras in the school, so a few days later it's common knowledge amongst the staff in the building that this boy was the only one of the group that was a student here. The others were friends he must have brought along. For weeks this boy was absent, but we heard no kind of news about what was to happen to him. My colleagues said nothing was ever done about their personal possessions being stolen, so my guess is a police report was never even filed. A little later, I am asked to sign a letter acknowledging the boy is to be transferred to Choice Academy, the alternative school in DC. Despite this, for the last few weeks of school, this boy continues coming here. He never actually went to Choice.

Of course this kid failed big time. During the last days of school, the principal and the school secretary asked me if I could change his grade to a D. Apparently my F would have been the only thing holding him back. So I did. Under any other circumstances I would not give a student a grade they didn't deserve, but at the time it seemed to serve everyone's interests to get this kid out of the building. Plus I was leaving and it was the principal asking me. Was it really worth it to put up a fight in the interest of academic integrity?

Ha, well, here it came right back to bite me and I couldn't feel more guilty about it. Of course I shouldn't have changed his grade. And you know, I wouldn't feel so bad about it if I was teaching him myself, but I feel like I have unfairly brought a bad element to this good school and thrown a dangerous case on my fellow teachers.

I told the guidance counselor and she said both the brother and sister are listed as homeless. I'm going to email one of the students I'm still in contact with now and ask if he can find out if they really are out of their mom's house or what. It's a common thing in SE DC to lie about your address so you can go to a better school.

On a different note, I broke one of my own rules and brought work home with me. I should get to that. Later peeps!

Back-to-School Night

2007-09-11T22:47:00.000-04:00

Hello again! It's late and I'm tired, but I really wanted to document how happy I am right now. I got back a short time ago from Back-To-School Night which was a success. I'd say I had about 6 parents per class and they all seemed to like me - and that's the whole point, right? Seriously, though, I can hear how much more confident I sound, not just because I'm better at public speaking, but because I know my class is just organized better this year.

For instance, last year when let students re-take quizzes, they kept the highest score. That ended up in a lot of students re-taking quizzes hoping they'd get lucky and score better. There was no connection in their mind between studying and succeeding, so it kind of defeated the whole purpose. This year, they keep the re-take score better or not.

I'm starting a club this year that I'm really excited about. It's going to be based on the eCyberMission competition hosted by the US Army. I couldn't come up with a non-nerdy name for it, so my homeroom students named it for me: Mi$$ion Impossible - win cash with your science fair project. Basically, its a separate competition but similar enough to the science fair that I can help students tailor their projects so they can submit the same work to both competitions. I think science fair is a huge waste of time, but I really like this eCyberMission thing. Instead of focusing on things that students find so boring, it focuses on asking the students to propose a real solution to a real problem in their community. Talk about relevance.

And the rest of my first week and the beginning of this week have been great. I'm not going to say easy or stress-free. I was at work until 6:00 every day and until 7:30 on Friday. I'm still a slow lesson planner. But it occurred to me today that I haven;t put a single check on my clipboard yet. I have not once had to move past just asking a student to stop. They always did the first time! Glory Glory Hallelujah! I love these kids! I can't wait until their personalities really come out, because the only down side right now is they are kind of boring. It's like they are too easy to teach. And by the way, I'm not the only teacher at the school who has noticed this. I heard another one saying the same thing; that we must have gotten a really good crop this year.

And I am so missing some of my babies from last year. I'm emailing with one of my favorites and I get phone calls once in a while from another. But some other kids I am just dieing to know how they are doing. I want to ask them how they're doing in school. Basically I'm thinking of my lunch crowd. By the end of the year I had a group of about 15 students who ate lunch with me every day. I miss them. But you know what, of course, there were certainly that many students I hated to see every day in class. I can think of about 5 students I truly hated on a personal level. Hopefully I won't be hating any students this year. That was really the main reason I left. How could I possibly teach if I actually hated some of the kids. That's just so wrong. It's against teacher code, and even my own personal values. I clashed with that culture. I think switching schools will mean that culture is not quite as pervasive.

Tomorrow we stop doing review activites (metric system, latin roots, etc.) and do our first lab. I'm doing the same paper towel lab I did last year. The only thing is I ran out of time to assign lab groups. Oops. Maybe just have them count of by four this time and assign groups next time? We'll see.

So in summary, still love my new school, but can't make any real substantial judgements yet. I'll get back y'all later. Until then, have lovely days.

Out of DC - and on to a brighter future!

2007-09-04T20:53:00.000-04:00

What's this? I'm blogging again? My last post was November 3rd of 2006. It is now September 4th of 2007. Why now? Allow me to first summarize what happened to me over the past almost-year. My first year teaching remained a terrible nightmare and I was so depressed all the time I couldn't ever blog. Then I resigned from that school and things started to get a little better. Then school ended and I was practically born again over the summer. Today I just wrapped up the first day of school at my new, wonderful, not DC Public School and want to share with the world!

I just spent a little bit re-reading what I wrote at the beginning of last year and my last few posts. It's kind of funny and tragic at the same time. It's funny to read what I was thinking about at the beginning of last year and tragic how I was feeling in November of last year. Since I know this year is going to be a hundred times better, I thought it might be interesting to start the blog up again with the purpose of comparing a second year in a great school to a first year in a horrific school.

I may need to hit the highlights of how my first year teaching in DC went in order to put all of this into context. I noticed in October I wrote something along the lines of, "I almost had a nervous breakdown but I didn't". Well, looking back, I actually can remember more than one Sunday when I broke into tears at the prospect of having to go to school on Monday. In retrospect, this seems to resemble a nervous breakdown. Except instead of losing my mind, I lost my personality and happiness. After my last blog, things just continued to get worse and worse for me. The kids were terrible to me, I was overwhelmed, and they weren't learning anything. Meanwhile, I entered a stage of true depression/anxiety disorder - something that was very new and scary to me. Don't worry! I'm totally OK now! I just feel like I can be honest about this only now since it is all over with. Last school was the worst time of my life, and I've dealt with tragedies you'd think were more important before. I am also fairly certain last year will always be the worst year of my life because I will never be depressed or anxious like that again. This explains why I never blogged again.

As for what happened in school, some interesting things did happen that I now wish I had recorded here so I had a better sense of them now. Science Fair turned out not to be so bad after all. Not to say it was fun or anything, but I wasn't up all night grading papers or anything. This is because only half the students actually turned it in, and all of those were under three pages, including titles in 72 point font. But man, we were thrilled just to have the kids be able to identify what a hypothesis and variables were.

"We" reminds me of something. One of the last things I mentioned last year was how we finally got a new teacher to fill the third science vacancy. Sadly, just a few weeks later he quit. He couldn't take it. I couldn't take it either, obviously, but I just didn't quit. The vacancy remained a vacancy until the last day. So I never had planning and was often planning work for the other classes that no student ever did and no teacher ever checked. Also, halfway through the year, they added a fifth class to my schedule. These kids were generally bad. A bunch of 8th graders who had no English teacher for a quarter, no science teacher for two quarters, and no homeroom teacher all year. A recipe for disaster, I'd say. I did get to meet a few more students I fell in love with, but overall, they were a bunch of thugs.

I got through Christmas, which was a major goal of mine. In January, I started helping a couple of the other more energetic teachers at the school start and run an after-school detention program. When this program first rolled out, it was a miracle. For two or three weeks, then entire student body was on better behavior with the threat of detention so imminent. All teachers were in on it. Then word quickly spread how the kids who were getting detention weren't showing up and yet nothing happened to them. Within three weeks, the whole school realized the administration would not suspend or even scold students who skipped detention, so the whole thing fell apart. I kept manning these after-school detention sessions every day for about two months. We kept trying to revamp it, but nothing stuck. Finally, I crashed a adminstrator/team leader meeting in about March or April and set the principal straight. He kept saying things like, "Yea, we need to talk about how to fix that" and I shot back quickly, "No, let's talk now. What are we going to do?" as I put my pen on the paper and got ready to write down everything he said. He still wouldn't volunteer anything, but I came up with some solutions, he kinda nervously would nod, and I wrote it down. I told him I'd have the memo to hand out to the staff by tomorrow. I did. And boy was it good. If he had actually photocopied and gave that memo to all the teachers in the school, and he stuck by his promises of dealing with students who skipped, it would have worked. I know it. Too bad that instead of having a staff meeting the next day, a boy got into a fight and arrested at school, so the principal cancelled the meeting. The memo never went out, and I gave up on it.

Well you know, even that's not true. I tried to do detention in my room for a couple of weeks but that failed just like everything else.

Around this time was an up - I got to take four of my students to the district-wide science fair. None of them won anything there, but it was a really fun experience anyway. I was so proud of them :-)

Seeing how much those students enjoyed going to the science fair dowtown, I decided to allow my students to enter another competition for extra credit. I got this thing in the mail from the US Botanic Garden about how they were starting a new annual competition about plants. Kids could submit entries like a rap song about plants, a comic book about a world with no plants, etc. After exlaining the extra credit opportunity to all my classes, I got a whopping six kids to enter. Amazingly, though, two of them won in their categories! And then I won a prize for being an outstanding teacher! All of this was due largely on the fact so few people entered the competition at all, but still. Combine those prizes and we won $500 for the school to go towards our environmental education program. Say what? Environmental education?

By the time I got this prize, I already had put in my resignation letter. I knew that no matter how much I loved some of these kids, I couldn't keep doing all this to myself. As good as this competition was, it was still a daily struggle to feign happiness. Also, as a side note, I got a $1000 bonus (before taxes) for resigning. Somehow the teacher's union worked it out that if you resigned before March 31st, you'd get a bonus. I guess it was that big a problem to have people resigning the week before school starte. I got that bonus check in the mail just the other day. Niiiiice.

In the classroom, I experimented with a lot of things. I spent about two weeks helping my seventh graders craft the perfect essay on natural selection. That was good. Hard to do, but good I think. Meanwhile, I gave me eighth graders a project where they were given a list of activities and how many points each was worth, and then they spent the next month in class doing the activities on their own to earn enough points. This resulted in much better behavior in class, but somehow more grading. I kind of designed the whole thing with the sole intention of giving me less grading, but it didn't work. Then, by the end, all the kids were just cheating so it became futile. Oh well.

My 8th graders also took the standardized DCCAS science test. This was the very first year they gave it and I still don't have the scores back. I'm guessing they're going to be real low since I found the test pretty hard myself just glancing over it.

Then I spent fully the last week of school cleaning out my room. My classroom was such a nightmare when I came in, that I didn't want to leave it like that for the next person. The last week, it literally took me all day every day, with all of my students hauling trash to the dumpster out back, to get everything out. I realized it wasn't just one or two teachers before that left crap. It was every teacher since 1940. I found newspapers with headlines about the VietCong. I found about 30 bottles in cardboard boxes labeled "poison". I found science equipment that belongs in the Smithsonian. Most sadly, I found out that the microscopes I had in my room the whole time actually do work. I didn't know that there were special lights to shine on to them until that last week. So anyway, everything is labeled and organized now so the new teacher better appreciate it.

The new teacher better also appreciate the program I put together with the Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS) for the entire seventh grade to do this year with the money we won. The AWS is going to give a few workshops at the school, have the kids paint "No Dumping" signs on the drains around the school, and take them on a canoe trip up and down the Anacostia River.

I had every logical reason to stay in DC. If I stayed, I would have become the science department chair (being the most experienced science teacher since the other one moved) and would have been able to spend this money myself. I don't think I have to explain why I still left though.

SUMMER BREAK! is waaaay under-rated by the way. This perk is definitely worth any low pay that teachers are perceived as having. I went to Germany and Paris with my mom for two weeks right after school let out and loved it! I don't know if I can say that enough. Every time I think about that trip, I miss it. What I would give to sit in a cafe in Paris or a Biergarten in Germany for three uninterrupted hours with friends again. Aaahhh....

Then for the rest of the summer, I focused on personal projects I'd been putting off all year. I realized I was doing things for myself and enjoying it again. I was laughing just for the heck of it again. I was happy to be around people again. And I realized I had woken up. Whatever that nightmare of a depression/anxiety disorder that had overcome me a few months earlier was, was now gone. I remembered how I actually did used to be kind of silly and hyper before I started teaching. This was me again, for the first time in months.

I also learned like two days before I went to Europe, that I got my dream job at new school that is still in the DC area. I had actually turned down a job at Roosevelt High School in DC because I was still concerned with DCPS. And god thing I did, because my new job is fantastic. It's still in a city environment but with a small town feel. The student body is incredibly diverse racially and economically. The special ed students get the support they are supposed to. And every student in the school is issued a laptop! Yea, I said it. Every kid has a laptop! Every teacher has a webpage, too. It's a dream come true.

Now, let me talk about the differences between this year so far, and last year up to this point.

Last year, I cried during orientation. This year, I had a great time at happy hour with some other teachers, old and new. This year, I can't get people to stop saying, "You'll love these students - they're great". Last year, we had to chant in unison, "Every child can learn." Last year, the closest thing I had to a mentor commanded me to stop stressing out, and by the way, you need to put more color on the walls. This year, I have a mentor and love her! Actually, I basically have two mentors because I'm switching between two classrooms. My official mentor is a wonderful teache I share the classroom and an office with. She gave me all kinds of great activities for the first few days of school. My unofficial mentor is who I share the other classroom with, and she too gave me lots of ideas. Not to mention these two were basically in charge of decorating their own rooms, so I had very little to do myself. A year ago I didn't want to take a job if I had to be a "cart-teacher" switching from room to room. Now I'm realizing all the benefits of not keeping up a room and being able to spy on other, better teachers all the time. Wahoo!

And my first day of school went really well. Sure, there were parts where everyone was bored and some put their heads down, but I was able to get them up and out of their seats talking to one another for a review Bingo game. The kids were respectful. Most of them were shy, but some of them were quite ready to join in class discussions in all the right ways. I can point out only one student that I think I'll need to get on "my side" before he decides to become a bad student. And get this: I even had one student say, "This is going to be a good class!" after I explained my new and improved class-wide rewards program.

Here's some things I am doing differently this year. We are not going to rehearse procedures just for the heck of it like Harry Wong (very famous teacher-author) says to. We will rehearse those procedures when we need them. I only have 5 rules this year. Not the 30 or so I had last year. What a dumb idea! Though, even when I later narrowed it down to 6 it still didn't work. My rules this year are:

1. Follow directions the first time they are given
2. Be prepared an focused during all instructional time
3. Watch your mouth
4. Hands to yourself
5. Nothing goes airborne

I like them, don't you? (In the spirit of full-disclosure, I stole a lot from an article at teachers.net) My class-wide rewards program is also cool. Instead of deducting time from a set 15 minutes of free-time on Fridays, the class earns Friday Fun-Time. First off, fun-time will mean review games, not chaos. Secondly, time is earned for things like the whole class is in their seat when the bell rings (3 points), turns homework in on time (3 points), passes a test (10 points), or gets A's on a test (30 points). Then, points are lost from the tally for every check on my clipboard. I put a check by a student's name on my clipboard every time they break one of the five rules. So I'll let you all know how this new plan works in reality.

Tomorrow will essentially be the first day of school again. Here's hoping it's not like last year when one of my students poured water all over another's notebook and ripped up their folder.

I won't make the mistake of making any promises on how often I'm going to post this year, so thank you that much more for reading. Talk to you again soon!

First Quarter Grades Are In

2006-11-03T17:32:00.000-05:00

And they do not look good. Like I said, before, most of my students are failing. I have four classes, and the average grade distribution in each would be something like 1 A, 1 B, 2 C's, 2D's, and 15 F's. I even went to the principal's office to ask him if that was OK or if I should alter my grading scale so that like a 50% was passing. Thankfully, though, he said that it was find if I failed most of my students and that sometimes they just need to see that F first quarter to motivate them to try the next quarter. I think I'm failing more students than the average teacher at my school, but not many more. I was hearing very similar comments from all the other teachers while we were in our new "computer lab" (3 P.C.'s) logging grades into the system.

I want to thank those Joe and anonymous for leaving messages again. You are absolutely right that I need to keep my personal and professional life separate and find more joy in the small successes I do have. On that note, I am slowly getting more students coming into my room at lunch, which is such a great sign. That means they like me which means they respect me and the more students in a class who respect me, the better behavior is bound to become. So as irritating as it can be some days to babysit a bunch of kids during my lunch break, the reward outweighs the cost.

I think I last blogged two weeks ago. I felt basically the same way the whole next week, which is why I didn't blog again. Last weekend I must have a hit a low point. I basically did no work and instead just layed around moaning about how I hate my job and hate grading papers and lesson planning. My boyfriend, getting exasperated with having to listen to the same thing over and over told me to just take a day off. Ding! Lightbulb! Take a day off? Why of course! Why didn't I think of that! Then the next day my mom came down to see my new apartment and I spent our entire lunch complaining about everything again and she agreed. Take a day off! So what did I do? First thing on Monday I wrote a letter to the principal explaining how I need an entire day off in order to catch up on grading and on missed sleep because I hadn't slept more than 5 hours a night in two weeks. I was afraid the principal wouldn't go for it, but instead he said something along the lines of, "Oh that's fine, go ahead. We all need a personal day now and then with this job. We appreciate what you do here." So on Halloween, I stayed home.

Playing hooky is one of the best things I have ever done. I slept in, ate a decent breakfast, then graded papers and calculated letter grades from about 10:30 am to 10:30 pm. I only got 75% done, but that was a huge chunk out of my workload. Also, I did not have to chaperone the Halloween dance, which if it was anything like the dances at my high school, must have been mad raunchy.

Wednesday I went in to work refreshed. I may not have seemed any different to my students, but I just felt better overall. I was still yelling at them and everything, but I didn't care so much. I'm getting more used to the constant yelling at children. Almost luckily for me, 3 students in my bad 7th grade class almost immediately broke rules that got them sent out of my room. The emotionally disturbed girl I mentioned last time threatened a boy and sprayed water all over my floor. One boy was punching another. Another girl had a cell phone ring in class. Oddly enough, it was the girl with the cell phone who ended up getting suspended because she yelled at me so bad for trying to take her cell phone from her while the security guard was standing right there. Silly kids. The funniest part was when she came back in my room at the very end of class and was just seething mad at me. She kept saying, "Don't look at me. Don't say my name. I hate you Ms. Newbie I hate this class." Meanwhile, I absolutely could not help but laugh at her. Of course, that just made her more mad. But I got a laugh in during class time and that is a thing to cherish.

Thursday was the Reading in Fundamental kickoff. Every homeroom was given a class set of books to read and a volunteer came into read it to them for about half an hour after talking about why reading in important. Volunteers, you say? How nice! Well, not so much. For the whole school, we could only wrangle 5 volunteers from the community so the rest of our "volunteers" were administrators. My class is reading "Island of the Blue Dolphins" by Scott O'Dell. I like this because it means I have an activity every day for homeroom now. I don't need to hunt for newspaper articles or dream up team-building or citizenship activities anymore.

Next, the students had an assembly, but a handful of my homeroom students lost their minds and could not even be quiet in the hallway on the way down to the auditorium, so I had to keep 6 boys and 1 girl in for 1 hour of silent detention in my room during the assembly. At least it was mostly silent. A couple of boys kept whining. That was irritating as hell. I hate detention more than making phone calls home. It really does punish the teacher more than the student. And on top of that, I missed seeing some of my lunch-time friend/students participate in their speech and debate competition during the assembly. I was even surprised myself how disappointed I was I didn't get to see that. I felt like I was missing my own son's performance or something. I guess I do like kids after all... :-)

So anyway, I only had to teach one class on Thursday (my GT class) and they just did the book work they didn't do with the sub (because they were at the Halloween dance). Then Friday, today, was a half day since teachers needed to log their grades in, so again, I only had one class and they too just did the book work they didn't do with the sub (because they were slackers).

Oh, and notice how I said sub. Yes. A real, honest-to-goodness substitute. The DC central office shifted personnel around the system so my school finally got teachers for our science and english vacancies. This is fantastic for two reasons. One, the subs that were in those spots are now free to sub for sick teachers so I won't have to cover other classes nearly as much as I used to. Two, I don't have to plan lessons for the other 8th grade science classes anymore or plan for 8th grade all by myself. I now have another physical science teacher to collaborate with. The bad news is that this new science teacher is a first-year just like me, so we are both equally inadequate at helping each other. But it's better than nothing, right? (Remember that the third science teacher in my school is just a second year teacher, too. Are we the most inexperienced team of teachers you've ever heard of?)

Now that I going through a not-really-caring-about-bad-behavior phase and a I-did-everything-I-can-do-so-it's-not-my-fault-they-all-failed phase, what can I whine about in my blog from now on? Science fair - that's what. I hate science fairs. EVERYONE hates science fairs. Why must we hold one? Why are science teachers held accountable for planning and assessing this huge undertaking that definitely does not teach kids anything about how science really works and that barely anyone enjoys. Ugh. This 3 month long science fair period is going to get underway in just a week or two and I am just frightened. I would so much rather just teach science content than coddle a bunch of kids who can't read or write or operate a keyboard and don't care into doing lame fake experiments and writing massive reports about them. Meanwhile, I'll have the kids who can read and write and can type 100 words a minute who will have finished weeks ago. What am I supposed to do with them? I'll let you know how it goes.

Anyway, I think that's really all for now. I plan to relax a bit this weekend guilt-free and then develop independent projects my students can do in class that will take them several days. I think their behavior will be much better if they are just working on some kind of project. I'm basing this on the fact the days when my 7th graders were making posters were always the ones when the most students participated and behaved well. Have a good weekend all!

Still going

2006-10-22T12:31:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to only blog when I'm in a good mood, but I haven't been in a good mood since last Wednesday. I don't want to use this public space just to whine and moan. My purpose here is more to inform my friends and family of my progress in life and to inform anyone else just what this is like. I'm discovering what it's like to teach for the first time, and seeing how I find it extremely dramatic and interesting, I thought others might like to discover it with me.

I just watched the movie, "Papillon" last night starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. The whole movie is about their attempted escapes from prison in French New Guinea. In the movie, there are scenes of Steve McQueen, or Papillon, in solitary confinement that are just torturous. When Papillon goes through similar experences again, the audience is simply told of the ordeal. We aren't asked to watch it over and over again. In the same way, I don't want to burden my audience with reading the same depressing story over and over again. I should just be able to tell you that everything is the same as always and you'll understand.

I should also point out that solitary confinement in French New Guinea prison circa World War II does, in fact, seem much worse than teaching in SE DC. So at least there's that.

But I don't even know what to say. The end of the advisory period is on Friday and almost all of my students are failing. I was at work hours longer than usual on Thursday making up packets of all the worksheets all my students needed to still turn in knowing full well that even when I hand them each what they need personally, they are still not going to do it. I've been dealing with lots of parents lately coming to realize that they all either have no effect on their children, or talk a big game but really don't mean it. Look at my grade book and you'll see that I've only assigned a few real homework assignments all quarter, and it's those assignments I'm lucky to have 3 students that have turned it in. I try to play jeopardy review on the days before the tests I've given, but none of the students pay attention. I repeatedly tell them that about 80% of the test is exactly the same as the questions in Jeopardy, and they still don't pay attention. Instead, I hear whines of, "I don't get it" and then the second I try to explain it to them in a new way, they turn around and talk to a friend.

I was talking to another teacher and he was saying this job is the fastest and cheapest psychotherapy you can get. It makes you evaluate your life's purpose and worth very fast. I have never felt so ineffectual and pointless in my life. I have four students that eat lunch with me everyday. For all I can see, those four students are the only ones who care if I come in to work everyday. Now I know that that's not true. I know that in these kids lives, the fact that I am a consistent presence in their life may be more important than I can understand. Maybe I really am reaching some of the shy kids. Maybe I really am challenging some of the problem kids to evaulate what they want out of life. Because at this point I've stopped caring how much science the kids know when they leave my class - I just want these students to leave with some sort of life goal, or at least an understanding of the fact that they need goals. Right now I see a culture of defeatism. Everyone believes they will fail so much, and cares so little that they will because failure is all they've ever known, that they only hope to have a lot of fun and excitement on the way down. They don't even recognize the connection between studying and learning, or learning and succeeding. Was I this blind to the consequences of my actions when I was 13, or is it their culture? I probably was short-sighted in middle school as well, but my parents certainly weren't. They made sure I worked hard so I could get to where I am today. But these kids I'm teaching are being raised by kids who were raised by kids. This is a whole generation of children raised by un-wed teenage moms who are still living with Grandma if their lucky. You can pick the kids with fathers out of the crowd - they are the ones who are dressed decently and act politely around adults. The majority of these kids have no idea what proper manners are because their mothers and grandmothers have never modelled them before.

I mean just the other day I walk into the front office and see the mother of a girl who must be emotionally disturbed. I called home a couple nights in a row leaving messages about all the profanity and threats her daughter had been using in my classroom. When I tried to apologize to this mom for not returning her latest call, she says to me without ever even turning to face me, "I can't even talk to teachers right now. The only person I want to talk to is the principal. I am so mad." The more I think about this encounter, the more mad I get. How dare you show your daughter (who was standing right there) that it is expected and ok to show such aggression toward a teacher or lack of manners toward any adult. Especially an adult who has been suffering the presence of your daughter and meanwhile trying her hardest to teach the 23 other students in the room, nevermind this disturbed girl, too. How can we expect children coming out of households like these to ever succeed in school or the workforce? They've been taught to be rude and selfish and aggressive since birth. How can I be expected to teach children like this? When I see these kids only 2 or 3 times a week for 90 minutes, am I really supposed to revolutionize the way they approach other human beings and their own lives??

This is why I shouldn't blog when I'm upset...

But it is really catching up to me just how upset I am. I've past the point of nervous breakdown. I almost had one a few weeks ago but I didn't. I survived that. Now I'm just unhappy. I can barely remember what it is to have fun. I am never relaxed. When I get home and during the weekends, I am so drained and feeling down that all I want to do lay on the couch and watch tv allll day. And as I do this, I am feeling immense guilt and dread because I know that I have 6 hours of grading ahead of me and I don't have a clue what my classes are doing on Monday.

With that in mind, I need to go do that grading now. Oh but there is some good news. I got my DC driver's license, tags, parking permit and car title. And it only took like 45 minutes yesterday, too. I just waited until 2:00 in the afternoon to go, and it was fine. No line at all. So keep that in mind anyone who's moving to DC. Don't got to the DMV in the morning.

I'd also like to respond to the comment I got. I did call all of my 8th graders at the beginning of the year to introduce myself, so I figure that was kind of a positive phone call. I also called 7 parents last week and asked the parents to reward their children at home with a tasty dinner since their children were so great in my class. You had suggested I should call all parents with a positive message, and I do agree. But I just don't think I can. I hate calling home and it takes sooo much time. For every phone call I make, there's like 5 to 10 minutes of paperwork. Plus, I've made so many negative phone calls to some families already, it'd be hard to make a positive one. I might adapt your method and make a point of calling home to the typically bad kids on any one day they are good. Will they ever be good... I also wanted to call home everyone at least once a quarter, but again, I just don't want to take the time. When the day ends, calling parents is always the last thing I want to do.

Listen to me - I'm already a burned out teacher. This is so dissappointing. A few months ago, I loved kids and wanted to make a difference and loved teaching. Now it's the opposite. I gotta go grade now, though. Hopefully, I'll feel better soon and leave a more pleasant post.

Down again and up again

2006-10-11T14:42:00.000-04:00

I don't have much to say, but I have a little bit of "free" (stalling) time now so I'm going to seize it to update. Who know when I'll find the time to do so again.

Tuesday, my homeroom came in to see their mural on the wall. The girls who did most of the work seemed almost embarassed they were so quiet. The boys on the other hand, when I asked them how they liked their mural, replied, "That's gangsta! That's gangsta!" So, they were thrilled.

I briefly went to the Anacostia Watershed Society homepage to look for teaching resources and it looks like I've missed all the teacher trainings and stuff. I haven't contacted them or anything yet - I want to research a bit more, first - but I may have to do this on my own.

My 8th graders were horrible on Tuesday. Absolutely horrible. They would not be quiet! I know, this is the same problem I talk about all the time. Believe me, I'm even saying to myself that this is getting boring. But every time I think I've got the problem licked, it starts again. Yelling doesn't work. Nice only works sometimes. I try to do fun stuff, but they are usually so bad right from the start of class I can't do the fun things.

So I'm yelling at the class about how I'm not going to shout over them and how if they missed my explanation of density the first three times, I'm not going to go over it again. One girl in the back says quietly to herself, "Cuz you don't care". Oh that touched a nerve. I really actually got mad then. I immediately tore into this angry emotional speech about how I spend every minute I am awake from 5:30 in the morning to 11:00 at night grading and planning and worrying about whether or not I am ready for my classes the next day. I was shouting stuff like, "I take that as a personal insult" and, "Don't you dare say I don't care" and bla bla bla for a couple minutes. Finally the girl says, "I didn't it mean it that way, Ms. Newbie". "Are you apologizing?" "Yes" "Alright, thank you, apology accepted" and I moved on for about 30 more seconds before the class acted up again.

I went home that night hating my job. Hating kids and hating my job. And with this job which takes up every minute of every day, hating my job is equivalent to hating my life.

Finally, after dinner, some Seinfeld, and a beer, I was ready to get back to work and plan for Wednesday. Since the cell city posted went so well, I decided to give my 7th graders a cut-and-paste activity about the photosynthesis/respiration cycle. My homeroom did that today and it went great! I need to find things like this for my 8th graders to do.

My bad 7th grade class never had a chance to start because their was an assembly - once again a total surprise to me. It was this whole thing about peer pressure put on by Kaiser Permanente. It was really well done and entertaining, but I'm sure had no lasting impression on them. But, it is really nice to see these corporations and non-profits paying for these assemblies and field trips, because even if the kids can afford to go, they won't pay a dollar if they have to. Seven students refused to even go on the free field trip.

And then I left early to come wait for the cable guy. So today was great! After I grade all this work I have to give back tomorrow, I'll have to think of some kind of lab to do with my 8th graders tomorrow or I might just have to bang my head into a wall during class.

I'm Back on the Internet!

2006-10-08T12:49:00.000-04:00

Hey Hey! My internet randomly started working in my apartment so now I can get on and gush about everything in my life again. But don't tell my school that - I still want to take off early on Wednesday to take care of the television cable. Otherwise it'll be like two weeks before they can come out. Plus, I won't be missing any of my classes because my last period on Wednesday is set aside for me to sub other classes. So all I'm missing is the chance to cover a class.

So I'm sitting here with my grade book/lesson plan book so I can remember what happened the last three weeks. I'm going to try and keep each point I make very short. Let's see how this goes. This is going to be a very random collection of facts.

My homeroom is great. I only have 19 kids and only 2 of them are bad. One of them has only been to my class three times she is such a truant so she doesn't even really count. I really know nothing about here except she can be a real brat when she's in a bad mood and lies all the time. I caught her in the hall with a cell phone which is not permitted. She lied and said she had permission to have it. I asked her to return to my class after school for detention since she ran out of the room for detention the day before (I was subbing my homeroom as they were in another class). She told me to go ahead and write a referral because she already told the assistant principal to "Kiss My" butt (in harsher words). Again, not true.

The other kid who is bad is really more of a class clown. It's nothing I can't handle given he's the only one. Plus, he has started dating the smartest girl in the room so he's doing a LOT more work than he used to. It's fantastic. They goof around a flirt a lot which is annoying, but it's better than him not doing any work. I just hope his girlfriend's acting all goofy and ghetto is a temporary thing to try and impress him. A few weeks ago she was proper and sweet. Now she comes to class late a lot and is wailing in the hallway in that high-pitched whining scream thing these ghetto girls do.

I also found in the bathroom outside my room that someone had scratched my homeroom's number (each class has a number) into a bunch of the stall doors. So of course I do not condone graffiti, but I was actually kind of pleased that my homeroom was showing signs of pride and identity. So I am now trying to direct this pride to a more productive cause. A few days ago I had them brainstorm ways to revise the school motto to reflect something about science (since we are in the science hallway). They came up with "Working Together to Save the Environment: A Sense of Community". Isn't that great? We've got science, civic pride, building community which is like social studies. The next day they colored in a mural that I hung in the hallway Friday night. I'm really looking forward to seeing their reactions on Tuesday when they see their mural hanging proudly in our hallway.

This is all winding up to what I realized our theme for the rest of the year will be: Cleaning up the Anacostia River. The whole point of homeroom is to be interdisciplinary and to build study skills, especially in math and reading, and also to build citizenship or something like that. So I've got citizenship with us working together to improve our community. I've got literacy with us reading newspaper articles related to our theme and writing a monthly newsletter to the rest of the school informing them of our progress and our mission. We can bring in social studies by talking about how this relates to our community and science with the actual cleaning and improving of water quality. We can make graphs of how financial savings by switching to energy saving lightbulbs and stuff. We got it all!

I already have a bit of a relationship with the Anacostia Watershed Society since I wrote a large research paper on how to clean up the Anacostia River. I'm hoping I can rekindle this relationship and have my students volunteer for clean-up projects and take field trips touring the River. Basically, I don't know exactly what we're going to do, but there are so many possibilities, I think this could be really great and exciting. Plus, it'll make me look a lot better to my administration because I've been really wearing them thin lately.

The week before last was just terrible all around. I kept screwing up. I think this is how it went: On Monday, my car got something stuck in the wheel well and was making a horrific noise. I'm going to skip the whole dramatic story of me freaking out and nearly crying in the ghetto and sum it up by saying I had to have my car towed and spend the night at my boyfriend's without ever going home. I was wearing the same clothes I had on the day before on Tuesday. Then, Tuesday night, I was up until 1:30 planning. On Wednesday, I went to school, but forgot all the paperwork I had at home, so I had to leave school during my planning period and drive all the way back into Maryland to get my stuff before my next class. Then, I was covering for the art teacher and the class was out of control. Oh right! On top of all this I was very sick and praactically lost my voice. I couldn't raise my voice about normal talking level. So as all these kids I don't know are screaming out the window and walking out of class and throwing papers, I couldn't get any of their attention because I couldn't do more than whisper. Several administrators came by bringing back students I gave passes to go to the bathroom 20 minutes earlier and trying to figure out who was screaming out the window because the neighbors complained. At the staff meeting after school, I was anonymously called out for letting students go to the bathroom in groups. Thursday was back to school night, and I was all ready to stay afer school until it was over, but then I learned I had to drive to Adams Morgan to sign my lease. Not only did I get lost and stuck in regular rush-hour traffic, but there was also a torrential rainstorm, so I ended up being 30 minutes late to back-to school night. Now, it wasn't that big a deal because all the parents (all 50 or so of them) were still in the auditorium, but it looks bad none-the-less. Only about 4 or 5 parents of my students came to back-to-school night. How sad is that? Then finally, on Friday, I was covering again and it was chaos again. This time I was in the room next to the front office so the principal could see even more how little control I had. Even worse, the students noticed, too. During this time, I took an ipod from a student promising to return it to him after class. Then later, the principal came in and was checking this same student's pockets on suspicions he may have stolen money from someone else, so I handed him the ipod. Now this student has a personal vendetta against me, because as he sees it, I'm a snitch. I was afraid this would mean the kid would vandalize my room and such, but instead he's decided to lash out by hollering down the hallways whenever he sees me, "You're Hot! You're Hot! Hot like a firecracker!" So, I guess he's trying to make me feel violated or something, but he's overestimating how much I care. He may look mature, but he's still an 8th grader. I'm just glad he isn't breaking into my room and stealing stuff.

So after that week, I spent the whole weekend furniture shopping and such and got barely any work done. For those two weeks, I was practically winging it in every class because I had no time to plan meaningful lessons. Then I had another terrible Monday with my kicking and screaming 7th graders followed by moving boxes into my apartment until 2:00 am.

But then the light came back out! I assigned a cell city project to my 7th graders (where they make a poster of a city where the mayor's office is the nucleus and so forth) and it went really really well. Almost every student was working and learning. I had been practicing these vocabulary words with them for days and they still weren't remembering any of it. Then all of a sudden with making this poster, they were actually using names of cell structures in conversation with each other! Learning! And also in my 8th grade classes they were learning! I remembered what teaching is supposed to be - I'm supposed to teach and they are supposed to learn. Oh man I can just keep doing that and they can keep learning. Because being one of those police officers in charge of restoring order to an angry mob is an entirely different job.

I also changed my whole behavior plan, again. Remember how excited I was about teaching my kids manners and having like 25 rules? Yea... that didn't work. I know, I know. You told me so. I remember. You all told me before I started that that was a bad idea. You were right. I only see these kids every other day for 90 minutes. Maybe if they were younger and I had them all day, I'd have them time to teach manners. Instead, I need to focus on science. Here's what I've been doing lately. Every time a student breaks one of my "Big Six" rules, they get a check on my clipboard. If they get four checks, they have to complete a behavior journal which is basically a letter of apology to me already formatted for them. They just fill in spaces where they explain what they were doing, why it was wrong, what they need to do from now on, how they'll do that, and how I can help them. I like this plan better because it keeps problem students quiet for 10 minutes while they finish the letter (they can't leave my room until they do, so they finish it fast), it is more immediate than detention, so the students respond more to my warnings, and it means I'm only after class a couple minutes with kids instead of 15 minutes every day. Those lunch and after-school detentions were only punishing me before. The kids barely cared. My Big Six Rules are:

1. Always come to class fully prepared
2. Always work diligently on the task at hand
3. Always raise your hand quietly and wait for permission to speak or leave your seat for any reason
4. Always keep your hands and materials to yourself - no throwing stuff!
5. Always listen carefully when I am talking
6. Never argue with my over classroom procedures

Parent-teacher conferences - only 7 parents came. So there's really nothing to say except that I spent those full 7 hours grading and I still have more to do. Thank goodness I've got Monday off.

I mentioned I found the fathers of two of my students on the sex-offender registry. Both of the offenses were from the 80's so the kids weren't even born. And both sounded mostly like taking advantage of women who were intoxicated. Deplorable, but not outright violent. Though, both of these clearly have problems at home or emotional issues. One is the boy I named Sleepy-Head and the other is a boy who throws full out temper tantrums in my class when I ask him to move to his assigned seat so he'll quit fighting with another boy.

I moved myself into my new amazing apartment and Friday and we basically finished making the place look like a home last night. Not to brag, but it really is the best apartment ever. Adam's Morgan is so cool, the apartment is completely noise-free, our decorating job is super-cool, the rent is controlled, it's just great all around. You should come visit!

How about "The Wire", huh? Fantastic television. You should all be watching it. My review is that my kids are not nearly as hard-core as the kids in that show, but mine are much more playful/disruptive. Raising my voice once has never gotten them to be quiet. One student yelling, "Shut Up!" has never worked either (10 other kids just yell the same thing back). Also, the principal never magically appears when my class is rowdy. He has come by conveniently before, but not every single time, of course. But, if you watch the show, you know when I mean be hard-core. My kids, though more bratty, are far less scary.

And "Lost"? Great! You should all watch that, too. Not that it is related to my job or anything. It's just good.

And one final question to the public: has anyone seen "Half Nelson" with Ryan Gosling? I need to catch that. He's a teacher addicted to cocaine in Harlem. Looks really well-done.

I guess I should be grade or lesson plan now. Ugh. I really miss having a life. I think I'm seeing "The Departed" tonight, so that's something. I hope you all have a fantastic Columbus Day. Byebye!

Sorry, can't talk long...

2006-10-07T16:49:00.000-04:00

I am so sorry it has been about 3 weeks since I last updated. I have soooo much to say, but that's because I've been so busy. I mentioed I had back-to-school night, furniture shopping, painting, moving, progress reports, substitute folder, parent-teacher conferences, and more moving coming up. Well all of that happened and I am moving the very last of my stuff into my new (spectacular!) apartment in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC very shortly. I was planning on telling you about all this important stuff plus things like almost have a nervous breakdown last week before feeling revitalized this week, my new amazing plan for my homeroom class, finding two of my students' fathers on the sex offender registry, and how my school compares to "The Wire" on HBO this weekend (because I have Monday off - weeeeee!). But, as it turns out, the cable for TVand internet is not working in my new apartment. I need my internet so badly (and my fix of "Lost") that I'm actually going to take off work early on Wednesday to be there for the technicians. So hopefully I can fill you all in on my most eventful last 3 weeks by next Wednesday. The only reason I can talk now is because I am back at my home in Maryland picking up my last car-load full of stuff. I'm a real honest-to-goodness DC resident now. Which unfortunately also means I need to spend all next weekend at the DMV. Surely that will be an exciting blog to read - my adventures waiting in line all day.

Anyway, I seriously have to go. I'm supposed to be buying food for dinner for my boyfriend and I right now. I can't leave the man hungry. Talk to you all again soon, I promise.

I got Paid!

2006-09-17T10:58:00.000-04:00

Friday was pay day! My very first pay day! And I have never seen a paycheck that large in my life. This is so crucial because I'm moving from Maryland to DC to two weeks and need the extra cash to buy furniture and stuff, not to mention food. On that note, by the way, the next three weeks are going to be so stressful dealing with school, back-to-school night, progress reports, and moving all at once. You'll see. It's going to be awful. I just have to keep reminding myself that that which does not kill you makes you stronger and that once I survive this, I can do anything.

Before I tell you how Thursday and Friday went, I wanted to mention something I forgot last time. I had told you I got two new students on Wednesday. One of them was only in my class for one day before they switched him to another room, but I need to mention him because of this: he'd been shot. This boy walked into my cast with his arm in a sling, so I'm thinking he broke it playing basketball or skateboarding or something. During class, he raises his left hand and says, "What am I supposed to do? I can't write because I got shot." All the sudden I'm stunned because one, it had slipped my mind that the boy wouldn't be able to write without his right arm, and two, he got shot?! What?! Of course, as the teacher, though, I need to remain calm even when I'm panicking inside, because if I show signs of panic or confusion, the class will immediately pick up on t and start acting up. So I just calmly asked another student to volunteer to copy down notes for the boy and then got his phone number so I could call his house and discuss what we would do about his school work.

All day I was anxious about calling his home to discuss this. I did reach his mother and it turns out he was hit by a stray bullet from a drive-by. He was not the target. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So that's kind of a relief and a tragedy at the same time. It's a relief that he's not in any kind of trouble and it shouldn't happen again and a tragedy because the boy was lucky he got shot in the arm and not somewhere else. Oy - the ghetto. It's too much, too much.

Back to school, though. Thursday with the 8th graders went all right. It took them way longer to do the activities I had planned than I thought, though. As usual, readings I give them that I thought were at grade level were not and they still don't know the vocabulary words we've been practicing for two weeks. A whole lot of students didn't even turn their classwork in and that is going to seriously hurt their grades. I hope they will finish it as homework and turn it in next time I see them, but I highly doubt that's going to happen. On the behavior front, my regular 8th graders are still behaving fine which is fantastic news, but my GT class is still acting up just like they do with all their teachers. It's like a school-wide dilemma. All of us are dumb-founded as to how to handle this group of kids who is clearly grade-levels above the rest of the school but whose behavior makes it so difficult to give them the more challenging work they deserve.

Friday with the 7th graders was kind of odd. My homeroom went fine and I gave the quiz. 3rd period, though - shoot. Those kids still haven't found their minds from when they lost them on Monday. For four days I had managed to yell at any of my classes, but that class got me yelling and screaming again like I couldn't believe. They were sooo bad. They wasted so much time that they only had 10 minutes to take the 25 minute quiz. I've been implementing this new system where as many checks the students get on my clipboard, that's how many minutes they stay after class with me. Well, only 4 students were allowed to leave when the bell rang. Meanwhile, I'm telling the kids they can stay in to lunch as long as they need to to finish the quiz, but not a single one of them stayed longer than I made them. Not a single kid in the room finished the quiz. They just stopped working and turned it in. So not only did only half the quiz not turn in their classwork, but the whole class failed the quiz again.

Now, to add insult to injury, I realized when I went to grade the quizzes that I forgot to rearrange the order on the matching portion. So the answers to numbers 1 through 9 went ABCDEFGHI. At first I was like, "Oh my god! I can't believe I did that! Now I'm never going to know if the kids actually know this stuff." On the contrary. I now know very clearly that the classes didn't learn much of anything at all, because even with the answers spelled out for them like that, only 2 kids got all of them right. Only 2! At some point I have to stop blaming myself and blame the kids for not studying. This was the second time they took this quiz and I re-wrote it so it was easier than last time. Now I'll take this as a teachable moment to tell the kids that I will do everything I can to make sure you succeed in my class, but I can't make you learn. You need to put forth some effort. We did five separate activities surrounding these vocabulary words, so it's not like I didn't give you enough opportunities to learn them. You chose not to study. Hopefully this will wake them up to the fact they will be held to high expectations in my class.

Another teacher told me that if I need to fail every student in my class first quarter, then I should do it. I shouldn't go back and make their grades better for the sake of having a more palatable class record. Failing them may be the strong message they need. Oh man I hope I don't have to do that, though. We'll see.

I'm going to go now. I have more to do than can ever be done, so I should get started. See ya later alligators.

Half way through my third week

2006-09-13T17:58:00.000-04:00

I'm so sorry it takes me so long to post. I really don't mean to leave you like that. I love you! I have really just barely had a minute to myself since the last time we spoke. You say, "But what about the weekend, DC Newbie? I know you frittered your whole Labor Day weekend away. Surely you did the same this weekend." I answer, "No, I did not, actually. I worked a lot."

Friday night I was dealing with more attendance issues (even now, halfway through week 3 of school, I got two new students today and a couple more were moved to another class). I also managed to grade a few papers. I didn't get very far at all through grading those quizzes before I saw that every single student failed. Not like, oh no, they got a C. I mean like, jeezy peezy, will anyone get at least 5 out of 12 on this? Everyone, 7th and 8th graders, failed the quiz except for two students. One genius boy in my GT class got 100% on one side of the quiz (the memorization side) and the monster boy from my other 8th grade class got 100% on the other side that was more application.

I was talking to another teacher earlier that day and he told me that although monster boy is, well, a monster in class behavior-wise, he is one of, if not the, naturally smartest kids in school. And he's not ashamed of it either. He's not a poor soul who wants to be accepted by his peers and so acts dumb. This boy, who I will stop calling monster boy from now on and start calling... ummm... Sleepyhead, is a leader and likes to brag when he gets things right. I know this because I made a point to announce to the class how smart Sleepyhead is. I didn't just come right out and say it, though. I had a plan.

I don't think I ever mentioned the spelling test I gave to all my classes. It's this "Morrison McCall Spelling Test" the other science teacher gave me. There are 50 words that start off easy like sea and far and end up harder like endeavor and villain. If you get all 50 right, then you are reading on a 14th grade level or something like that. A score of 32 means 7th grade, and a score of 37 means 8th grade. I highly highly recommend this tool to all teachers. I think this is the only thing I've done so far that I feel very good about. All the sudden I have what appears to fairly accurate predictions of the reading abilities of my students. After grading them, I realize that student A never does their work because they clearly never understand it, or that student B is always so bored because they are reading at a high school level. It's mad helpful to say the least.

Back to Sleepyhead. Turns out he's reading at a mid-9th grade level (which is expected since he's repeating 8th grade). In class, he started talking over my and all and saying some ridiculous things, so I said, "Sleepyhead, don't act stupid and do..." whatever it was he was doing. He, of course, goes, "You can't call me stupid!!" in his high-pitched yell. I then got to what I wanted to say the whole time. "I did not call you stupid and I never would. I know you are smart, Sleepyhead. You know, how? Because you got one of the highest scores on that spelling test out of all the students I teach. I know that you are one of the brightest students in the school, but you act stupid and waste that talent. I know you can do better and I'm trying to get you to do that now." Well, I don't know if those were my exact words but it was something like that. That shut him up real fast and put a genuine smile on his face, too. Since then, he's not been the worst student in my class at all. And neither has the monster girl that came in with him (who I'll start calling Freaker because she can't stop shaking her butt all over the school - it's sick). She scored really high, too, and I told her so after class. I've enlisted her as my friend, and although she's far from perfect, she has stepped down from being a terror in my class and let a new girl take her place.

So that's a lot of information that would lead you to believe my job is going great, right? Wrong. Thursday, Friday, and Monday were terrible behavior wise. I don't even want to get into specifics because it puts me in a bad mood. I'll just summarize. Every class but my homeroom has at least 1 if not 5 students in it that will yell and scream at me and walk out of the room without permission when I tell them to do something. I've written so many referrals already. Every class I taught (but my homeroom, thank God) had at least one student make it nearly impossible for me to teach. It was awful awful awful. All weekend I was trying to pick a new profession. I kept telling my boyfriend that I'm clearly bad at my job so I need to pick a new one. Except that there's really nothing else I can see myself doing. I told him I think I'd be a good secretary, but then he told me that at his office, almost all the secretaries have affairs with their bosses. So scratch that.

After my all work and very little play weekend (I graded papers while my boyfriend watched the US Open), Monday was even worse than Friday. My 3rd period lost their minds. Absolutely lost them. I kept 7 of them in for what was supposed to be 10 minutes and turned into 30 minutes lunch detention because they could not shut their mouths. Then, joy of joys, I realized the class I was assigned to cover 5th period - was the same one I just had! AHHHH!!! And it was terrible again. Only slightly better because I sent two of the kids to the office. But that defiant behavior was quickly replaced by fighting. Remember the "sweet" kid who so unjustly was punched in the bathroom. Ha. Turns out he's not exactly an emotionally fit child and picks fights with everyone he sees quietly. He mumbles insults at everyone he sees. So he kept doing that all class until another girl starting fighting him and I had to hold her back. Sent them to the office, too.

I was very afraid the administration was catching on to how bad I am at my job, but actually, they seem to expect me to be this bad because I'm new and in the ghetto and they really want to help even if they don't really have the time. So that's good news.

I knew something had to change. So Tuesday I had a new seating chart. Instead of rows I made groups of 4. This actually worked well during one class as long as a handful of the students stayed out of their assigned seats and sat in the back by themselves. I realize that went against my authority, but these kids either love or hate each other and I can never tell until they are right next to each other. I'd rather them not sit where I told them to than fight. I'm going to try and fix the seating chart tonight so that everyone will be able to sit in their assigned seats, though. I also gave a little speech like, "Last week was bad for everyone. I was yelling, you were yelling, everyone was angry. That's not how this class should be. I got some rest and I'm coming to you with a blank slate. Let's just start over. I don't want to yell at you guys anymore. Can we start over. Let's cooperate so science class is fun and not maddening." Third period liked this and they were much better behaved over all. It's was a miracle, really. Clearly a lot of the management problems I was having stem from me yelling at them. Everyone was wrong. Yelling is not the answer. I was right before. (I think). My GT class on the other hand behaved the same as ever. Ugh. I think they have a stronger group mentality and are very good at ganging up on me.

New seats with my 7th graders today also went ok minus all the kids not sitting where I told them to. But again, I'll try to fix that. Tomorrow my goal is no negotiate with the kids. They had their chance to write me a letter explaining why I should change their seats and if they didn't, too bad. I will not negotiate! Note: that's what I should say. Just watch as that turns into an all out brawl with the teacher.

Since everyone bombed the quiz, I've been reviewing all the information for two days and they'll re-take the quiz Friday and Tuesday. I'll let you know how it goes.

Meanwhile, I have GOT to go. I still don't know what I'm doing with my 8th graders tomorrow! Something about picking apart a lab report, I know that much. Oy. Talk to you later!

Holding on for Week 2

2006-09-06T17:41:00.000-04:00

Hey everybody. How are you? Good? Good. I'm glad. I'm doing pretty well myself, thanks. You probably read my extremely long post summarizing my first week of school. You may remember it started off good, was three days of torture, then ended ok. Well the last two days have been pretty ok, too, so I'm feeling ok. Let me fill you in.

Monday was Labor Day of course so as could have been expected, I wasted practically the whole day. I told you guys I was gonna go work on Sunday... Yea, that didn't happen. I spent the day with my boyfriend again. I didn't come home until Monday around noon where I spent two hours eating lunch before looking at work. Then I kind of looked at work for another couple hours. I'm having a really hard time planning. I think maybe I'm getting better at it, but I'm still not even a single day ahead. I need to figure out what my 8th graders are doing tomorrow and Friday after I finish this post. Then dealing with the ever changing attendance in my classes takes hours, too.

I was warned before school started that my class list may be completely different in two weeks than it is the first day of school. Well that wasn't a lie. Every single day I come to work about 1 to 3 kids are gone from a class and 3 to 5 kids are new. It is near impossible to keep track of, especially when the computer system at the school is completely off track. I have to keep these ever changing records in three different places while the office is sending my attendance sheets that are 50% wrong to fill out every day. It's a hassle to say the least. Then put on top of that the fact I've been teaching science for a few days now and new kids roll in days behind in work. Seriously, how are these parents taking so dang long to sign up their kids for school? "Oh I'm tired today John. I'll send you to school next week." Come on! That's not even asking for you to support your kid. That's just asking you to abide by the basic laws of guardianship. Sheesh. The ghetto sucks.

Anyway, on Tuesday, I kind of re-taught the whole lesson I did with them on Thursday that failed. We went through the worksheets as a class mostly since they were getting all the wrong answers. And those two kids that are hell on Earth? Well, they were almost alright. I was shocked. In the morning, one of them said "Hi, Ms. Newbie" in the hallway so I wished her a good morning. I made sure to do the same with a smile to the other one, too. Though they were still out of their seats, and the boy checked out 2/3 through class and went to the back to sleep, they weren't causing chaos. I finished the lesson. Yay! I just hope and hope and hope some more that they keep having good days like that.

I did come across another problem child in my GT class. He was new and was talking talking talking the whole time. The class added up 4:30 minutes of wasted time, so I was going to keep the class that long after school. I also wanted to let the kids I gave good behavior tickets to go, though, because I hate punishing those who did nothing wrong. Well when I tried to let sweet kids out, this problem child starts pushing my arm to let him past. We argued for a minute, then he finally did push through and run down the hall. As I leaned out to yell, the entire rest of my class ran out behind me. So that bombed.

I tried to call his house several times but the number didn't work, I guess. No one picked up. I wrote a referral to the office, though, to document it. But good news to me! Another teacher in the school was treated exactly the same way today by the same kid, so he demanded the principal remove him from the GT class. Score! Problem child is not in GT anymore! But what if he is transferred into my other 8th grade class... ohhhh... that would be too much to handle. Three monsters? No. I won't let that happen. Well, I'll try not to at least. (It's not like I have much of a say).

Today, my 7th graders reviewed scientific method stuff and took a quiz. I explained to them my policy with exams is you can always re-take it at lunch time to improve your score. I student taught in a county where that was a county-wide rule. Mostly the smart kids just re-take quizzes over and over again until they get 100%. Kids who score poorly don't usually take advantage of it, unfortunately. But I like the idea that it's more important they learn it sometime than prove to me they know it now. I'll hound kids to get them to actually come in at lunch, too. I'll let you know how that goes. I'm hoping it will instill some confidence in these kids who feel like they can't succeed.

A horrible thing happened, though. One new boy who I let go to the bathroom came back with a bloody nose. He said a boy in the bathroom just randomly punched him in the face. I asked if they got in a fight and he said, "No, I don't know anyone here. This is just my second day at this school!" Even for this school in Southeast I think that's bad. Fights, sure, but random acts of violence against perfectly sweet kids? That's insane! I feel so bad for this boy and I hope he isn't scarred for the rest of the year. I also hope someone comes forward with information on who did it, but I know that will never happen. The thug gets off free. Again, the ghetto sucks.

Anyway, I should really focus on figuring out what I'm doing tomorrow so I'm not up until 11:00pm again. Goodnight all!

First Week of School is Over

2006-09-02T14:41:00.000-04:00

Oh readers - how I have missed you! Since my last post I have not had a single minute to myself until school let out Friday. And I mean that totally seriously. I get up at 5:30, drive an hour to work, am at school until 4:45, get home at 6:00, eat dinner, then work until I go to bed. That schedule needs to change if I'm going to keep my sanity. I'm hoping that this will only be this time consuming the first few weeks. I can't push myself this hard for an entire year.

But I have so much to say! So much happened this week. Was it the longest week EVER for you guys, too? Like did you wake up on Tuesday and think it was already Friday before realizing, no, you have 4 more days! I really think I got stuck in some kind of time warp. So let me start off by saying that right now, I'm in a pretty good place emotionally. I just don't want you to worry too much when I tell you how my week went because it was really terrible. But Friday was a good day, so I'm ok now. Let me start at the beginning.

So I last posted after the second day of staff development before school started. Unfortunately, I can barely remember what happened those second two days. I know I spent hours and hours trying to decorate my room which apparently wasn't decorated up to par. We also went to more meetings about teaching to the standards and stuff like that. Nothing interesting enough to write about here. Then, I spent the entire weekend preparing for the first day of school. Making the letter I sent home to parents, student surveys, parent surveys, etc. In order to make all the photocopies I needed (about 550 copies) I needed to go to my boyfriend's work. Without revealing too much, I'll say he works at a place that uses a lot of paper so no one would notice a missing ream of paper. This is great connection to have since I have to buy my own paper in DC. There is no school supply of paper. Isn't that ridiculous? DC spends so much money per student but that can't include the cost of paper? Oh - and the photocopier in my school barely works. It jams everytime you use it, prints in shades of gray, and is often broken. Shall I continue with how materials are lacking in the school? The overhead projector I found in my room doesn't work. The staff lounge has no air conditioning. I have no basic art supplies like colored pencils or markers or big paper. The four computers sitting in my room aren't hooked up to anything and so are completely useless. That includes no computer for me as the teacher. I can keep going, but I get angry and upset when I do, so I'll stop.

First day of school was pretty ok. Nothing of incident happened. The student body was assembled in the auditorium, yelled at for a while, and then every teacher called the names of their homeroom students off the role. I think only about 8 of my students were there on day 1. I explained some of the procedures of my room, had them fill out some paper work, come up with some classroom rules, make nametags, and then took pictures of them holding ther nametags to help me memorize their names. This ended up looking a lot more like mugshots than I had intended, but I highly recommend it to all teachers. I did this student teeaching, too, and it helped immensely in learning names. I just load the pictures on my computer and flip through them like flash cards. Anyway, homeroom and 3rd period went fine without incident like I said, and then I had a free period before the school day ended. I worked until bedtime and then it was day 2.

Day two went very badly. On even days (periods 2, 4, and 6), I have 8th graders which are an entirely different breed. I did all the same activities, but the classes talked over me the whole time. I'd get them quiet, talk for 5 seconds, then they'd talk again. I'd wait, run my timer deducting time from their 15 minutes of free time on Fridays, and a while later they'd finally shut up. They just totally didn't care about the Friday time. 4th period had two students that were talking and defiant so I asked one of them to go to the time-out/behavior corner, and he wouldn't go. So I said he'd have lunch detention. Then I said that if he finished he work quietly, he could go to lunch. This worked at the time, but I realized later I should not have done that. I undermined my own authority. 6th period is a GT (gifted and talented) class that is being piloted this year and they were just as bad. I was so dissappointed and discouraged. Very very discouraged. I felt terrible.

Over the next two nights, I called the homes of all my 8th grade students introducing myself, making sure the kids gave their guardians the stuff they were supposed to, and that they would have the materials they would need. I left messages at most homes, and a few numbers were disconnected. I can say that I didn't notice any difference in the behavior of those classes on Thursday.

Wednesday's 7th grade classes were behaved ok, but were bored out of their minds. I explained all the manners and had them break off into pairs to perform little skits modelling most of the classroom expectations. (By the way, I changed my rules a bit before I gave them to the kids. I got rid of the ma'am thing, deodorant thing, added a hands-to-yourself thing, and some more I can't recall.) Getting these kids to participate in this activity was harder than pulling teeth. Meanwhile, I was being observed by one of my administrators. I can only imagine what kind of negative comments she was writing about my teaching watching this. The kids barely had a pulse!

I realized that if 7th graders couldn't model these expectations, this activity would definitely not fly with the 8th graders. I made the executive decision to scrap my entire plan to model expectations with them the next day and to instead load them up with busy work. This was on the advice of other teachers in the school. They told me that the 8th graders are too grown to model rules and that they will only behavve if they are busy 100% of the time. They said the best thing you can do is give them a list of vocabulary words to define. So I went against all previous advice and skipped the day of modelling expectations with them and decided to go straight into reviewing the scientific method.

Oh, but how that failed, too. I went home Wednesday night and stayed up late putting together some worksheets that were intended to review the scientific method and challenge them a bit. Review scientific method? How about these kids don't even remember anything called the scientific method. They don't know what cause and effect means (every single kid in the class said that a rooster crowing causes the sun to rise in the morning). They've never heard the word bias before. They've never heard the word logic before. And to top it all off - they can't read! Good god these poor kids can't read. The ones who can read sentences still can't understand what the sentences actually mean.

So mix this total failure of a lesson plan with terrible behavior. In my 4th period class, the two boys who were defiant last class were replaced by three new little monsters. And I don't mean that lightly. These kids frighten me. I think chaos is the only word I can use for that class. They were shouting and out of their seat the whole time. One girl, I'll call her Cruella, took the boy's notebook and run water over it in the sink. She wrote the F-word on his portfolio. The boy, I'll call him DeVil, ripped up this portfolio (which I had given to him only minutes ago) in front of me and told all the other teachers in the school that I ran water over his notebook. I was totally helpless! I opted to remain calm for fear of showing weakness by flipping out without any effect. I kept thinking to myself that I need to call the front office and have these two escorted out, but I didn't. I was too afraid to look weak to the administration, too. So instead I kept the two in for lunch detention. This essentially punishes me. I can keep them n for 30 minutes then I have to let them go eat. But, instead of leaving to eat, the two of them proceeded to roam the hallways and follow me around asking me why I was going to call their families and how that wouldnt work and bla, bla, bla. I eventually resorted to locking myself in my room as they shouted at me through the door. I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do about this?! I see these two again on Tuesday and I have no idea what to do about it! I know I'll have referrals to the office written up ahead of time since I'm sure I'll need to send them, but that's not enough. I can't teach this class with these two monsters in there. Ughhh...

Friday, thankfully, was incident free again. I dumbed down the worksheets on the scientific method about 10-fold before giving it to the 7th graders and it kind of worked. I also didn't have them work on their own. We went through the worksheets together as a class. Actually, let me be more accurate about that. I tried to get them to come up with the answers, but minus 3 or 4 bright students in the classes, most of the kids either tired really hard and still didn't get it or were just staring blankly at me like, "what is taking you so long to give me the answers, Ms. Newbie?" So, behavior, good. Getting these kids to learn anything, not so good. How do you teach 20 or 25 kids to read? Especially when they are on totally different levels. People will say "differentiated instruction, of course". Much easier said than done. I'll be working on this all year I'm sure.

Oh, and science labs? Psh... yea right. As if I can give things to these kids. The DC curriculum suggests 8th graders drop balls from different heights to find f=ma and make graphs and stuff. Ha! You want me to hand balls to these kids? I can't think of anything I can give them that won't immediately be a weapon. The other science teacher agreed with me. She said that she only did one lab last year. Oh, so sad. So sad.

Oh and speaking of science teachers... Did mention that there's three of us? There's me with 7th and 8th grade, a second year teacher with 6th and 7th, and the department chair with 6th and 8th. The department chair was science teacher of the year last year. She's great. But she's also gone. She quit to take a job somewhere else. As of Tuesday, the school is short one science teacher. Other teachers in the school, including myself, are covering all those classes until a new teacher is hired. Poor other-science-teacher is forced to come up with stuff for them to do. I feel like I should be doing some of this but I'm barely keeping my head above water as it is.

Alright, so talking about all of this just stresses me out. I spent Friday night and all of Saturday relaxing with my boyfriend, but I've got to get back to work. I need to find about five different ways to teach the scientific method. I loved that paper towel idea by the way. I can afford that and it shouldn't result in weapons like I was saying earlier. So thank you so much for that idea! The blog is helping! I'll try to post during the week this week, but if not, I'll definitely update you all come next weekend. Have a great week, everyone!

Four days until school starts

2006-08-23T21:11:00.000-04:00

And I am soooo worried about so many things. Before I get into that, let me tell you about the last two days of staff development at my school.

Yesterday was the first time I met the rest of the staff. Everyone seems really nice, really. Everyone was offering to help me and especially the younger teachers practically took me under their wing socially. For instance, inviting me out to lunch with them even though, being seriously strapped for cash right now, I had brought mine. How do these young teachers afford buying 7 dollar sandwiches everyday? The only problem was, when I went out with them, they kept telling me how horrible the students are and how I'm going to be cussed out and how the kids are going to throw things out the windows and stuff. They were all saying, "I don't mean to scare you, I'm just trying to be real with you." I know, and I appreciate that, but it totally didn't help. I kind of knew all of that already, but it being my first day in a real job with real coworkers and all of them setting me up to expect failure - it ruined my day to say the least. My mom compared it to being pregnant and telling all your friends, but all they can do is tell you stories about how horrible labor is. Never having been pregnant, I'll take her word on that.

For me, I realized I basically felt homesick. I don't about you all, but sometimes when I am away from home for the first few nights of an extended stay, I get really sad and nervous and scared. I travelled to India once for a month (it was great, by the way), and I can still remember my first night there being one of the worst days of my life. I kept saying to myself, "What the hell was I thinking coming here for a month? I'm going to hate this so much." Well, that's exactly what I was saying to myself last night, except instead of fearing the next month, I was fearing the next year. Everyone keeps saying, "Just don't let the kids see you cry" and I would respond, "Oh yea, that won't be a problem." Meanwhile, I got home and I cried. I was holding back throwing up and crying all day. I couldn't eat and I couldn't look anyone in the eye. I got home and my mom asked me excitedly how my day went, and I cried. I'm very glad that I cried to her and not on this blog because I feel much better today.

Not to say I'm not still worried, because I am. Today I really came to understand that these children don't just have no support at home and haven't had a great education up until now, and even that many aren't just abused or witness abuse at home (if they aren't too busy raising themselves). I learned that a lot of the kids may have fetal alcohol syndrome or have been crack babies or maybe even have lead poisoning. So on top of being emotional disturbed by the troubling lives they are living in the ghetto, they may also have their very own minds working against them. I asked if I should expect to have emotionally disturbed kids in my class and was told I most certainly should. What can I say? I have no training for this. I have zero training on discipline, management, special education, inclusion, or anything of the sort. Hence, the constant worry.

But, as far as my mood goes, I am feeling better. It's becoming abundantly clear that despite all of these obstacles, every teacher in the school is really committed to the students. This isn't just a job - they really want to make a difference. I came into this profession not out of charity or wanting to better the world. I became a teacher because I love teaching. But now I'm seeing that I should really start to embrace this idea of changing the world one child at a time. I want to improve this school and work hard for these kids just like the rest of my coworkers. They are an inspiration, really. I should take the time to say again how great they are. I was fully prepared to write this blog without ever mentioning my administration for fear that they may discover my blog and I could get in trouble. But, as it turns out, I think I'll have nothing but good things to say about them. Of course, I've only been there two days. Maybe I shouldn't speak too soon ;-)

As far as my classroom, I've barely made a dent in the mess the previous teacher left behind. On the up side, I have discovered all sorts of school supplies like tape, chalk, staples, and even 2 boxes of printer paper (which teachers have to buy for themselves here). I also found an overhead projector (phew). I got keys to the classroom and storage room, too. So, I've found school supplies and I've started to organize the room in an orderly way, but I still don't know what I'm doing on the 5th day of school or beyond! I'm thinking of having a philosophical discussion about what is science and then having the kids do a free-write, mainly so I can see what their writing skills look like. I should probably get my hand on some other diagnostic tests as well to see just how much I'll need to differentiate (please, not much, please, please!).

I'm going to bed now like I should have done 45 minutes ago at 9:00pm (so lame). I'm going out tomorrow night with my boyfriend and his buddies to see Dave Chappelle in DC. Watch his bit be all about southeast schools or something. I'm totally looking forward to having a social life tomorrow, but I need to sleep a lot tonight if I'm going to last on 5 hours of sleep on Friday. I am oh so overwhelmed. Oh well - I'll get through it soon enough and forget I was ever worried in the first place. On that thought - Goodnight!

I met my classroom today

2006-08-21T20:11:00.001-04:00

Thank you so much for posting everyone. I love to hear from you and get such good advice. For instance, I'm using the black construction paper for border now. Alaska had mentioned being interested in seeing my behavior management plan. You will find my entire management plan below after a news about what I did today (I actually typed out a whole long description of the whole thing a minute ago and tried to post it, then my internet froze and I lost the whole thing! So I'm going to try and make this brief because I have things to do tonight.)

Today, I went into my school and spent a lot of time in my classroom. Seeing how school starts in exactly one week, I expected all the teachers to be there setting up, but as it turned out, it was just me and one of the other science teachers. I'm so glad she was there because if it weren't for her, I'd have just left. She showed me where the one old, often-broken copy machine was and the big rolls of butcher paper. She also informed me that I may need to bring in my own printer and that I'll be lucky if I get a computer. There are 4 monitors in my room but no computers. I'll need to suck it up and spend a lot of my own money and supplies like paper, printer ink, staplers, etc. The copy machine doesn't blow up images so I can't print up neat posters. This goes on and on and on. This is going to be a lot harder than I thought. My student teaching lessons absolutely depended on handouts, the internet, and an LCD projector. My lessons were so interactive. But with limited handouts, no internet, and not even an overhead projector in sight, I'm at a loss. I'm going to have to get my hands on an overhead projector at least. It's hard to say how I feel right now. I'm not overwhelmed or defeated. Maybe more like frustrated and disturbed in a sad kind of way. I am going to have to completely re-vamp my teaching style for low-level learners without all the wonderful tools tailored for low-level learners I'm used to.

What did I accomplish today? I arranged the tables in my awkwardly set up room in a surprisingly functional way and covered some corkboard with butcher paper. Yea - that's it. Tomorrow, besides from whatever the administration has planned for us, I'll have to fill up many a trash bag with stuff left behind from the teacher who used to be in my room and organize whatever is left. If the person before me had organized the stuff in the classroom, it would probably save me two days worth of work. Two days I NEED because I only have lesson plans lasting me until Thursday next week. Only 4 days! Gahh! With that in mind, let me hurry up and post my management plan, then run to make some poster for my classroom.

I created this plan so that it would probably work with any school-wide discipline policy and rules. I have not yet seen what my school's policy is, so I can't tell you how much I need to adapt this to my specific placement or not. Hopefully, I'll learn that kind of thing tomorrow when school starts for teachers. I also created this plan for myself. I think for where I am at right now, in order for me to be the great teacher I want to be, I need a plan as specific as mine is. I don't want to and can't afford to argue with students about whether or not they broke a rule. The idea is that my plan is specific enough and easy enough that a student should recognize instantly when they have broken a rule and accept the consequence without much argument.

Every other Friday I will give the class 15-minute Friday Free-Time. When the class does not quiet down after I raise my hand and say, ""5,4,3,2,1 Quiet", then I will run a timer and deduct time from their 15 minutes. I will also deduct 1 minute for every homework assignment not turned in. I'm going to ask the kids to bring my some of their CD's for me to screen at home and then I'll play the school-appropriate ones during their free time.

With that all said, here I present my rules for life in and out of the classroom - "Mind your Manners", my classroom expectations, my negative consequences, and my "Menu of Rewards". Notice that the consequences are predictable and simple, yet flexible enough for me not to use the same punishment on a kid over and over again who does not respond to that particular punishment. FYI: tickets for trinkets is pulling a filled-out good behavior ticket out of a hat and pulling a useless silly trinket out of another bag. Random give-away of random prize.

Mind Your Manners

1. When responding to an adult, you must answer by saying “Yes, ma’am” or “No, sir.” Just nodding your head or saying any other form of yes or no is not acceptable.

2. Make eye contact. When someone is speaking, keep your eyes on them. If someone makes a comment, turn and face that person.

3. If someone does something well, congratulate that person. (In class, we will applaud.)

4. During discussions, respect everyone’s comments, opinions, and ideas. Always acknowledge what someone said before you.

5. If you win or do something well, do not brag. If you lose, do not show anger.

6. Do not smack your lips, tsk, roll your eyes, or show disrespect with gestures.

7. Do not use curse words.

8. Always say thank you when someone gives you something or helps you in any way.

9. It is rude to ask for a reward for good behavior or a good performance.

10. Do not whine, moan, or complain when assigned a task. If you do not like something about the task, politely explain your reasoning.

11. Do not watch while other people are being reprimanded. It makes them very uncomfortable.

12. Do not litter and clean up any other trash you see.

13. If someone else drops something, pick it up for them even if they are closer.

14. Hold doors open for those behind you.

15. If someone bumps into you, even if it was not your fault, say, “Excuse me.”

Classroom Expectations

All school-wide rules are in effect.

2. Always respect others and their property.

3. Support a safe learning environment for all.

4. Be prepared for class on time.

5. Homework will be turned in by all students everyday, no exceptions.

6. Transitions in class will be swift, quiet, and orderly.

7. The class will be silent during any school announcements.

8. All paperwork will remain organized.

9. You may only speak or leave your seat when given permission.

10. When we read together as a class, you will follow along. If I call on you to read, you must know exactly where we are and begin reading immediately.

11. If you have a dispute with another student, do not fuss or argue. Tell me and I will handle the situation.

12. Always be honest.

13. Follow all rules and display your best manners with a substitute just as you do with me.

14. Deodorant is for armpits only. Not for body sprays.

15. Be the person you want to be.

Consequences for Misbehavior

1^st Offense	· Verbal warning
2^nd Offense	· Time-out corner · “See me after class” · Conference in the hall
3^rd Offense	· Sit in the hall and copy classroom rules or “rephrase that” · Silent lunch with Ms. DC Newbie · Morning detention where you must: Ø Write about alternative ways to handle the situation that got you there, Ø Clean desks, or Ø Time for reflection (clean bathroom mirrors)
4^th Offense	· Bounce pass · After-school detention · Three-part form sent home to be signed by parent/guardian · Written apology to offended student OR behavior improvement plan · Reading a story from The Book of Virtues and writing a 1-2 page essay on how it relates to your situation, how you mishandled it, and how you will handle it next time.
5^th Offense	· Parent/Teacher Conference

Rewards Menu

Appetizer
- Good behavior ticket
Main Course
- Drawing tickets for trinkets
- +2 points on classwork
Dessert
- Thank you note home
- Thank you phone call home

Alright - that's it. Hopefully I'll have good news tomorrow. It should be since I'll finally learn how my school actually runs. Right now I'm flying blind. Goodnight!

Done with Orientation

2006-08-18T17:23:00.000-04:00

I just got back from the last day of New Teacher Orientation. The pros of orientation were:

Meeting lots of new teachers who are a lot like me - I'm not alone!
Meeting lots of new teachers who aren't like me - like the Teach for America kids and the DC Fellows (a program run through American University to get certified)
Meeting veteran teachers who have decided to switch into the DCPS system from other places like post-Katrina New Orleans
A session about how to prevent and handle aggressive behavior
The food was surprisingly good, and free!
Free stuff like Harry and Rosemary Wongs' "The First Days of School", "501 Tips for Teachers" by Edward Ramsey, and some school supplies

The cons of orientation were:

My free school supplies included black construction paper. What am I supposed to do with black construction paper?
An entire day of learning what standards are and how to use them to guide planning. For those not hip on teacher language, standards are just the main things we need to teach. No one should require 5 hours of training on how to figure out what standards mean.
I never met the other new teacher that will be at my school

I asked a bunch of people at Orientation what they thought about my kids making up the rules or me making up the rules dilemma and everyone seemed to like a compromise that sounds good to me. Let the kids come up with some rules on their own, but jot them down in wording I would use or guide them towards my rules. I can tell the kids I'm going to compile every classes' rules together, but then just put up my rules the next day. They'd never have to know. No one seemed to think going one day without posted official rules would ruin my year, despite what all the literature I'm reading says.

Ron Clark had one funny rule: No Doritos in the Building. The whole point of this rule was just to give him an excuse to freak out about seeing Doritos to provide some laughs for the kids. It injected a little personality into his rules. Clearly I can't just use that rule, because for one, I love Doritos. So tasty! But, I think I've come up with another rule I truly believe in:

Deodorant is for armpits only. Don't you dare use body spray.

I like this rule for two reasons. One, teenage boys seem to honestly believe girls will be unable to control their passions if they spray this foul Axe or Tag on themselves, so they practically drown themselves in the stuff in the hallways and classrooms. Two, it gives me the chance to throw a pretend fit when I see a bottle and to throw it in the trashcan, thus making kids laugh.

I just read over that last paragraph, and now I'm re-thinking this idea. Am I copying Ron Clark waaay too much? I feel like a stalker. And is it funny at all to throw a kid's Axe away? I dunno - maybe I need to find a new funny rule. Or perhaps just not search for ways to steal kids' things.

Another thought I had was about decorating my room. Being a very organized person who can't stand clutter, I'm trying to avoid making my room look like the funny pages. I want it to feel very comfortable, like home. I'm going to try and clear bringing in some rugs with the cleaning staff at the school, and I'd like to have lots of live plants, since I'm fortunate enough to have a number of windows in my room. Wouldn't it be cool to grow herbs like basil and mint in my classroom? That way I can make myself some good dinners at home and even let kids take some home to their parents, as well. And it has got to be easier to keep plants than a class pet. I also wanted to bring in some personality items like my Harry Potter blanket or my Kermit the Frog talking puppet, but I would cry if those things got stolen, so I've decided against that.

Do you see how much time I'm spending thinking about all these details? As a student, I never gave any thought to the bulletin boards on the wall or the class expectations. I guess just how little kids don't realize that their teachers go home at night and don't sleep in the school building, I'm realizing that all this teaching stuff isn't instinct. Every minor thing is loaded with potential meaning and consequences and took a surprising amount of time for teachers to decide upon. I am already thoroughly convinced that teaching is the most challenging endeavor you can find. Why climb Mt. Everest when you can teach middle school?

Well I'm off to finally start planning out my units and maybe even some lessons. On a Friday night. Because I'm cool. Have a great weekend!

Welcome to DC Public Schools...

2006-08-16T21:24:00.000-04:00

But first, welcome to my blog! Please allow me to introduce myself and explain why I've decided to keep this thing in the first place.

I was born and raised in suburban Maryland and just graduated from college in May, 2006 with a degree in science education. I student taught very gifted students my last semester and had the time of my life. I love teaching! I love the craft of developing lesson plans and assessing student understanding. I love the instant gratification when a student learns something you shared with them. I love the challenge and adventure of this job. Or at least I did last semester.

Having failed to find a job in Maryland at a school similar to the ones I attended, I decided to take an offer in Southeast DC. For those who may not be familiar with DC, let me explain. The city is divided into four quadrants relative to the Capitol building in the center: NW, SW, NE, and SE. NW is the the richest. SE is the poorest. SE is then further split by the Anacostia River (the most polluted river in the country, by the way) running diagonally through it, cutting off the most southeastern corner from the rest of the city. This is Southeast proper - East of the River. I remember Chris Rock once saying something along the lines of, "The part of DC where you can get shot while being shot." But that's only what I've heard. I myself have zero experience with the area except for the two times I've driven to my new school.

First year teaching, by all accounts, is supposed to be the toughest challenge any individual can undertake. It is therefore easy for me to assume that my job in SE DC is going to be difficult to the extreme. I have started this blog to help me with this challenge and perhaps help others going through similar situations. Reading another first-year teacher's blog was what convinced me I could take the job in DC in the first place, so I feel like I need to give back to the first-year teaching community. Also, if I ever want lots of advice on a topic, I can just ask my readers!

Let me start with this. I am an excellent teacher. Really. I can proudly say that I did an excellent job student teaching. I worked those kids to the bone but they took it all in and learned so much. I was so impressed with the work they turned into me and the respect they showed me. Plus, they liked me and I liked them.

I'm done bragging now. Because as quickly as I convince myself I was a great student teacher, I remind myself that this student population will be a wholly different experience. I'm switching from all gifted students to 1/3 of my students being special education. I have no idea what this is going to mean for me. I'm kind of freaking out. Minus the kind of.

Here's what I've done so far. I've decided to put full trust in experienced teachers who have had success instead of me just experimenting. At least at first. I get the feeling that I need to have these kids locked down and respecting me as an authority figure from day 1 and I don't want to screw that up at all. So which experienced teachers am I trusting? Well Matthew Perry from the TNT movie, "The Ron Clark Story", which I happened to catch on TV 4 days ago, of course. No, actually, I'm not that flighty. And I wasn't that impressed with the movie. I was genuinely impressed with the idea of using rules and manners as the entire basis for an effective classroom culture, though. I went to the bookstore, bought the book "The Essential 55" by Ron Clark, and read it all that night taking notes. I loved it! It made so much sense to me to make manners enforceable rules to ensure order in the classroom and to simultaneously teach students necessary skills for a lifetime. So, I took Ron Clark's 55 rules, and boiled them down to 14 Manners and 13 Class Expectations. I also bought a book called "Positive Classroom Management" by Breeden and Egan that I used to develop my spiffy new hierarchy of punishments and rewards for breaking or keeping my rules. If anyone is interested, I'll post these things.

I have two questions for the viewing public, especially any veteran teachers.
1) Is it as good an idea to make the students always answer, "Yes, ma'am" or "No, Ms. DC Newbie" as I think it is? I excitedly told my mom and boyfriend, 'I've decided I'm going to make the kids call me ma'am!" and both looked at me like I'd lost my mind, and pointed out I'm not a ma'am because I'm not married. I'm a very casual person, so I recognize this goes against my personality, but I thought it would instill a sense of respect for authority. Any thoughts on this, anyone?
2) Should I have all my rules posted and ready to go on Day 1 to create a sense of unwavering order and authority, or should I let the students create some of their own rules first (which I'd hope and expect would largely be the same as my pre-prepared rules anyway) to give them a sense of ownership in the classroom? Has anyone tried it both ways and found one way to be any better?

In closing, let me share why this entry is titled as such. Today was my first day of New Teacher Orientation. One presenter, a third-year teacher, started, "Welcome to DC Public Schools!" as was typical, then proceeded to ask the group who of us was teaching in SE. About half of us raised our hands. She then goes, "Mmm, good luck." And not in a hopeful, wish-you-all-the-best kind of way, mind you. She said it the same way you would say "good luck" to someone who was trying to fly to Japan aboard a paper airplane. Welcome, indeed.