Teacher's Diary

In Honor of Super Bowl Sunday...

I am a huge football fan and am excited that my team is going to be playing later tonight. However, I wanted to take an opportunity to share an article that was forwarded to me and is entirely relevant to the topic of Super Bowl Sunday.

In "More Super Bowl School", Deanna Burney discusses what educators can learn from professional sports, specifically football. She talks about how football players all study a playbook and therefore have a common vocabulary with which to communicate with each other. They go through the plays in practice and work together on the field to reach their ultimate goals. Similarly, educators could perhaps benefit from a common language to discuss teaching. Burney uses the example of the term "differentiated instruction." It's a term that I regularly use and I think I employ the concept fairly well, yet when I talk to other teachers, they mean something completely different when they use the same word.

Part of the problem is that education doesn't seem to be as collaborative as it could be. I am on listservs and participate in workshops and people are very willing to share ideas if you ask. But at the same time, I feel that educators in my own school are often so wrapped up in what they have to do that they don't take the time to help out a colleague who is struggling.

I think the Common Core Standards and national standards in general are an attempt to give teachers a common curriculum and language for talking about learning. However, there is still not enough spirit of helping each other - too many teachers just stick to their own classroom and a small group of friends like they are on individual islands. I think what needs to happen to remedy this situation and develop better communities is that educators need to be forced out of their comfort zone and into professional development that will help them achieve common understanding of concepts and vocabulary.

Welcome to 2012

As my regular readers have no doubt noticed, my posting has been extremely sparse lately. Time to come clean.

I had a very rough first semester. It was far harder than I thought it would be adjusting to a new school environment where the administration and other teachers didn't recognize my talents. The school is larger than my previous school, so I feel that I haven't stood out or gotten the attention of the administration in any way and that has been frustrating. But mostly, my bad first semester was a result of my negative attitude.

When I switched schools, I came at just the wrong time, right as an administrative change was taking place. As a result, the people who hired me told me one thing, when the reality come September was something else. Rather than teaching 2 Earth Science classes, as I had been told, I was teaching only one 32-student class and two biology classes (which I had never taught before). I felt betrayed and angry and as a result, my planning and engagement with my students suffered. I blamed behavior issues for all of my problems, instead of recognizing ways that I could improve. I'm not proud of how I acted, but at least now I've had time to sit down and think about concrete ways to improve.

I think every teacher will go through something like this at some point in their career. We are caring individuals and it hurts us when we feel that our talents are being wasted. There comes a time when idealism isn't enough to stop us from getting angry at situations we have no control over - the bureaucracy, the bad decisions of others, the difficult home lives. There is so much outside the classroom that affects our work that it can be overwhelming and disheartening to think about.

I took time over the winter break to step back and what I missed most was my passion for teaching and the great feeling I would get when something did go right. I realized that I had been focusing too much on things I couldn't change and dwelling on all the negatives, often overlooking the positive. So I made a New Year's resolution to record in writing one good thing about each school day. I did it every day this week and I already feel better. Despite all the difficulties, there are still good things happening and THAT is what matters most. I hope to post the best things here on this blog (and I'll still write about difficulties now and then). This year, you should be hearing from me more!

The First Week and a Half

The lack of posts lately is testament to the fact that work has officially begun for me. Yes, charter schools start incredibly early. We don't have any kids yet, but rather there is extensive professional development and orientation for teachers prior to the actual start of the term. This is very good for me because I am going to be teaching a class that is brand new to me - Living Environment (Biology for non-New Yorkers) - in addition to one Earth Science class.

At first I was bummed to be teaching bio rather than more Earth Science, but my anger over that has died down enough for me to begin looking forward to a new challenge. Today I finally started to feel my feet touching down on some solid ground. We new teachers were given an overview of expectations and rules and consequences, good basic stuff that makes me feel more comfortable working in a new place where I definitely don't know all the procedures.

Am I happy overall to have made the leap? Yes.

Last week, the principal of my old school resigned and a replacement has not yet been named. The situation there is unlikely to get much better for at least the first year, plus students are going to feel that they caused the principal to leave, which will only make them more defiant. While I will miss "my kids" and the co-workers I had truly bonded with over the past to years, I don't think I will regret my decision in the long run.

I can see that I have a long and challenging year ahead of me, but I am ready to be in a more supportive environment and really get to work on becoming the best teacher I can be. Hopefully I'm well on my way!

No Facebook for Teachers

Should teachers be allowed to communicate with their students via social networking sites?

According to the state of Missouri, the answer is no.

A friend recently forwarded me this blog post, which describes the new Missouri law banning teachers from being friends with current or former students on Facebook and other social networking sites. The law is part of a larger act that protects children from inappropriate conduct by their teachers.

I agree that precautions need to be taken when dealing with our youth. I myself have taught students for the past two years, many of whom I know have been physically, sexually or emotionally abused by their parents and guardians. I certainly would not want them to be exposed to more hardship and trauma from their teachers. However, I feel that banning social networking of all kinds with teachers can have negative effects. I have a separate Facebook account especially for my students, where I post messages about upcoming tests and field trips and answer students' questions about homework and the content of my class. Since I will be leaving my current school, I plan to keep in touch with my former students using Facebook.

However, I am extremely careful in how I use Facebook. I never go onto my students' pages or look at what they have written to other friends. I monitor any pictures or notes that have my name tagged in them so that I am sure nothing inappropriate is tied to my name. I do not use the account for anything personal. I feel that, used like this, Facebook is an extremely valuable tool for communicating with students. Most of them do not check their email regularly, but they are on Facebook constantly. Should I stop using something that is working for me simply because others worry that it could be inappropriate?

I took the precaution this year of letting my principal know that I was using the account and offering to give him my password so that he could check my activity at any time. I think as long as teachers are willing to be open about how they are using Facebook and keep their activity in regards to their students on a professional level, things should be fine.

But that's just my opinion. Please comment if you have ideas about how social media should or should not be used as a tool for learning.

School Politics

Over the weekend, I was talking to the director of the summer camp I used to attend, back in middle and high school, just catching up and telling her about my life these days. Inevitably, talk turned to the current state of education and the amount of bureaucracy surrounding the field. Everyone who works anywhere near education knows that, as much as we would like it just to be about the kids, a lot of political shenanigans affect what we do. At my school, the end of the year was full of tension because of these issues.

The jury is still out in my books about the union. Yes, I think the union is a good thing for teachers - it protects us from principals who might fire us at will (and talking to my former private high school teachers, this is certainly not out of the question). Our union rep this year got involved in some pretty heavy and necessary battles with our administration and helped change things for the better - I personally will benefit next year by actually having the correct amount of seat time for my science class, while for the past two years I have had about 20 hours LESS than the minimum state requirement. Obviously, this was something the union should fix.

However, I also feel that the union throws its weight around unnecessarily sometimes. There were times this year that I actually rolled my eyes during union meetings as our rep went on and on about how we shouldn't have to stay a minute longer than required by the contract and that the mandatory staff pd set up by the school each week was a violation. And maybe those statements were true. I, however, can't help but wonder why we are wasting time and energy on these things. I know few teachers, at our school or others, who do not spend extra time at school to benefit their students. It's what we do.

In the end, all that happened was that our union rep antagonized the administration to such a degree that he started getting "unsatisfactory" ratings. He is leaving our school next year. Although I saw it coming, it still saddens me that a promising and dedicated teacher ended up losing his chance to work with these kids and actually make their situation better.

It has already been suggested that I become the union rep next year, but I'm not sure I'm willing to get involved in all the messy politics. Still, I do feel that we need a union rep who understands the powers of the union and can use them to make life better for both teachers and students (because in the end, our jobs as teachers are only as good as our students' lives). I hope that if I am put in the position of union rep that I do a better job of communicating with administration and create a better relationship between them and the teachers.

Inquiry Teaching - A New Thing?

My roommate forwarded me a New York Times article about how scientists are developing new techniques for teaching science that improve student understanding. I was intrigued, since I'm always looking for ways to improve my teaching.

In the study, researchers looked at two undergraduate freshman physics classes. The classes were huge - over 260 students, according to the article - and most of the instruction was delivered traditional lecture style. In one of the classes, however, researchers went in during the 12th week and did experiential learning with students, having them engage with the material and answering their questions as they came up. The results: their experimental group did much better on a final test than the group that got only lecture.

My question: ...and...?

Is it really a new discovery that kids learn better when allowed to interact with the material, rather than sitting through passive lectures? My school, a public high school in New York City, was founded on the principle of teaching via inquiry three years ago and it had many older schools to look to for guidance. I read the article, very confused about how scientists think this is remotely a new idea. I have been teaching for a grand total of almost 2 years and I could have told you exactly the same thing this article did.

Usually, the world of secondary school is far behind in terms of up-to-date pedagogy. Researchers are constantly developing new and better techniques for teaching our students, and then it takes 5 or 10 or 15 years for it to trickle down to the classrooms and actually benefit the kids. However, that is not the case here. Public schools are already using inquiry teaching and the Universities, it seems, are the ones who need to catch up.

Dave Eggers on Teachers

I read an interesting article in the New York Times about teachers and teaching, check it out for yourself!

Basically, Eggers argues that teachers are underpaid and overworked (which they are) and that this is affecting the quality of our education system. Every year, a high percentage of teachers; natioinwide, 46% leave before they have completed 5 years. Eggers then offers solutions to these issues - namely, raising teacher salaries to attract the top tier of college graduates to become and stay teachers.

Many argue that the cost of our education system is too high already, but Eggers argues that we shouldn't blame teachers for flaws in the system, comparing that to blaming front line soldiers if a war isn't going well. No one would do that. And I would argue, isn't the education of our children the most priceless thing we have to offer? If teachers were more highly paid, teaching jobs would be sought after and more competitive, which would drive the best of the best to be placed in the classrooms. I think we all agree this would be better for the future leaders of our country - and the world.

The Trouble with School Reform

This morning, I read an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times entitled The Limits of School Reform (Joe Nocera). In this article, Nocera writes that "good teaching alone can't overcome the many obstacles [a student] faces when he is not in school." I find myself drawn to this argument because it is both relieving and a bit dangerous.

Nocera argues that school reform these days downplays students' background and home life to the point where they seem to be arguing that it doesn't even matter. Yet not everyone buys into this. While I agree that blaming students' home lives (and thereby exonerating teachers from all blame) is ridiculous and has the potential to create a school system riddled with teachers who are just there for the paycheck. It would leave students exposed to situations where no one cared about their learning.

However, to completely ignore the effects of parental involvement, neighborhoods where these kids live and their socio-economic status would be like ignoring the genetic component while treating someone's medical condition. Students are certainly affected by where they come from, who they live with and the amount of exposure they get to things like books and new places. While this doesn't mean that we should give up trying to help students from difficult backgrounds, it is something that needs to be addressed in the reform process.

Many educators feel the same way. Nocera references another article about Ramon Gonzalez and the changes he made at a high-need school in the South Bronx. Gonzalez is seen as a critic of the reform movement because he disagrees with a lot of the experimentation that has gone on in the school systems.

I can relate to that since, as a NYC Teaching Fellow, I do not feel I was adequately prepared for the classroom. I had good grasp of the concepts to be covered and I was energetic and motivated, but I had little in terms of real teaching skills. Thus, the students I taught last year were my "guinea pigs". I tested new strategies on them, and when those didn't work, I tried new ones. As a result, few of them were prepared to take the Regents and they went on to 11th grade chemistry having truly learned few of the concepts I had hoped they would. It is unfair to students to set them back a whole year because I was trying to figure out what to do.

Much as I think the Teaching Fellows is a great program, bringing energetic new minds into the teaching profession, I have reservations about the damage it can do to students. In fact, all first year teachers are pretty bad and Teaching Fellows are at least intensely dedicated to improving. Perhaps the problem is larger - we need our teachers to go through more rigorous training and enter classrooms already prepared to do a good job. Of course, there will always be room for improvement, but I think we owe it to our students to not use them as lab rats.

Overall, I think there are many ways that school reform has made progress, but it also needs to undergo more change to truly impact our school system in a meaningful way.

Another Great Japan Resource

I was just sent this site from ABC news, where you can actually hover over images to see before and after aerial shots of different parts of Japan that have been affected by the earthquake and tsunami. Below is a screenshot.

The Doldrums of Teaching

The past week has been utterly awful. I'm getting sick, my classes are crazy, the weather is terrible and my lessons are falling flat, no matter how hard I work on them. I am simply not enjoying being a teacher right now and find it hard to even get myself out of bed in the morning because I dred going to work.

I had a similar slump last year around this time and it makes life a chore. This year, things seem really hopeless - at least last year, I could pass my failures off as rookie mistakes, but now I feel I am failing as a teacher. It has gotten so bad that I'm having vivid nightmares involving school and can't seem to get anything done because I am constantly paralyzed by how far behind I feel.

Feelings are similar throughout my school. My co-teacher had to take Monday off because he was having such severe panic attacks and most of the staff is hanging on by a thread. On top of that, we had a visit from an expert on school safety come from the union and she essentially told us that our school is in serious violation of lots of safety protocols. The task now falls on us to fix the gaping holes our administration has left in the safety network. It is disheartening to think about how awful the situation is for our students.

I have been avoiding talking about many of the problems in this forum, simply to protect my anonymity, but I feel I should share that my school is going through a slow process of falling apart. Our principal has been told that our scores must drastically improve to avoid change of leadership and/or shutting down of the school. The great idea of small schools is turning out to be just another failed attempt at fixing a system that is fundamentally flawed. Many small schools are struggling to stay afloat and teachers are discouraged by the lack of job security (or at least the feeling that their jobs are not secure). We are overworked, underpaid and seriously underappreciated by both our students and our administration. At least that's how it is at my school.

I had said I was in this for the long haul, but now I'm not so sure I can handle it. I hadn't intended to look for another job, but I'm thinking I might have to. Still, I try to find something good about every day - no matter how small - because at this point those small things are the only things keeping me going.