Finally have some time to write down funny things that have happened in the past week.  Here they are in random order:

*I was walking to the math department during my prep when I passed a student I’ve seen around before, but never talked to individually.  “Ms L,” he said, “Shouldn’t you be in class?”  Wow, I wanted to die of laughter.  Shouldn’t you be in class?  How do you even know my name?  Little things like that make my day.

*If I had a dollar for every kid who made a common about my blue eyes or hair I could afford to quit teaching.  Until this year I never thought my features were that unusual until I realized that maybe these kids have never been in contact with someone repeatedly who had blue eyes.  “But, they’re so blue!”  “Do you wear colored contacts?”  Never knew it was such a big deal.  The best was when I wore my glasses to school the other week.  They could not stop asking questions!  I feel like I never cared about my teachers this much when I was in school…

That’s all I can think of now, but overall things are going well.  Some students are cutting and more are failing then I would expect, but the days don’t feel too long and I am ready for this month.

But, before I get anywhere near the beach, I’ve got to deal with the PSSAs.  As an Empowerment school, the stakes are high and now with this bs “Imagine 2014″ plan I keep thinking that our school may be shut down if the juniors do not make the proficient/advanced targets.  It seems so unfair – to place all this pressure on one test.  I can tell that some of my students are nervous and stressed.  Math, English and Science classes are in full preparation mode.  I started my unit on probability on Friday (a topic I love) and it sucks that this is the way it has to be given to the students in a rushed, inch deep and mile wide kind of way.

The thing is I think a lot of my students are smart enough to score proficient, but I don’t know if they have the desire to.  Most of them give up when things are hard, they complain and they get discouraged easily.  How many will actually show up for the three days in a row and give 100% effort each time?  One teacher told me that last year some of the students in her room didn’t want to answer the constructed response questions because they were too much work.  Not this year.  No way.  I’ve been working on building their confidence and work ethic.  I have a lot of faith in my students, I just hope that they don’t prove me wrong.

I hate to be so negative, but everyone just complains and complains during the sessions.  Yes, it sucks that your principal is a “chartaholic” but what can I do about it?  What you’re complaining about is the unimportant stuff – just focus on the teaching!  Maybe I didn’t like having to create a word wall for my classroom, but we’re required to have one, so I did it.  End of discussion.

Instead of complaining I wish we could go around and say one good thing that happened that day.  Honest things, not ones that would impress the moderator.  I’d much rather sit around and listen to teachers talk about their accomplishments – that no cell phones went off in class, no one accused another student of dickeating, there were no fights in the hallways (I’m up to four major ones this week and it’s only weds).  Please, if you’re going to make me sit around for three hours and not get paid at least make it interesting.

I’ve realized that one of my favorite things to do is just walk around school during my prep and talk to all of my students that I run in to.  I look out for them – I ask other teachers about their behavior, fill out the daily reports and try to keep updated on their lives.  My new geometry students don’t get that part of me yet.  There’s one kid in my class, J, who I like already.  He’s huge, well over 6 ft and on the basketball team.  I heard he was a pretty good student so I put him right in the front row.  He’s very respectful in my class, but he likes to hang out in the hallways a lot, particularly by my room.  After a week of harassing him and telling him to get to class, he finally retorted, “Miss, you have to stop bugging me!  I’m not in your class now.  You can only yell at me during first and second period.”  I almost laughed out loud at him.  Don’t you get it?  If you’re my student, I am always responsible for you.  I don’t ignore you just because it’s outside the class period.  When kids have that kind of reaction I wonder if it’s because other teachers treat them like that – don’t make small talk, don’t ask about their home lives, don’t say hi in the hallways.  I want to give my colleagues more credit  than that, but, after some of the behavior I’ve seen this year from supposed “professionals,” I’m not so sure.

Finished Educating Esme this weekend, it was a good, realistic account about teaching.  One of my favorite parts was where one teacher cried about the students to Esme: “I just want them to like me,” she squeaked.  “It’s not our job to be liked,” I reminded her.  “It’s our job to help them be smart.”  So true.  Something to remember as I start teaching full time PSSA prep this week.

I’m reading “Educating Esme,” a book about a first year teacher in Chicago, and a passage I read yesterday struck me.  She talked about preparing her fifth graders for a Christmas assembly, “I was ambitious in the choreography of the dance routine.  It had many complicated parts, but under threat of death and homework, my thirty-one charges learned them meticulously, baring their teeth in a mandatory smile all the way.  I’m exaggerating; I know they kind of enjoyed the rehearsals, the anticipation of performance and success.  They know I would never let them fail.  That’s why they do what I ask, no matter how much they complain.”

I kept that in mind as I went through my lessons today, thinking about how scary it can be to be a student at my school.  Threats of fights in the hallway and the possibility of getting your phone/textbook/homework stolen.  Why should I add to that by making them afraid of math and having them worry about getting called and not knowing the answer.  So I am dedicating myself to building my students’ confidence.  I gave out a lot of compliments today; I called on struggling students to answer the easier questions.  I think it will work and if I keep rejecting their put downs like, “I’m dumb,” and, “I’m not good at math” maybe they’ll start to believe it too.

With a new semester, I also have a new teaching schedule/prep time.  Now, I have class first/second period and my prep is a two hour block in the middle of the day.  At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it, but now I think I do.  The kids are sleeply at 7:30am and because of that I can be a little looser with my first class.  I also find that I get a lot more done when my prep is during the middle of the day.  I have time to start grading assignments from the earlier classes and can make copies for the next day.

My defining moment from last week came at the end of the day on Friday.  I was having such a good day until my last class.  Two boys were particularly disruptive and I sent them out of the classroom.  Immediately I regretted kicking them out – it was 2:15 on Friday, did I really expect them to go down to the SOAR room?  I figured they were going to leave school and I had unintentionally given them an early dismissal.  But, instead, the two boys waited around and came back to my classroom at 2:34 to apologize.  Two, 17 year old, big, black boys had waited around to the end of a Friday afternoon to come and say they were sorry to their 22 year old math teacher in front of the rest of their classmates.  The magnitude of that moment probably can’t be understood by anyone who doesn’t teach in a run down, segregated, urban school, but it was monumental for me.  I decided that no matter how frustrated I feel at times I must have been doing something right over the past five months.  Over the weekend I told my mom about the incident and she made a great observation.  She said that sometimes the best discipline method is just getting the students to like you.  Not in a popularity contest way, but in a way that they want your approval and respect.  And when that happens they will hate to disappoint you.  So true.

Clearly, I was ready for it be to be Friday.  The weather today was freezing, around noon it was suppose to feel like 6 degrees outside.  I came prepared wearing tights, leggings, pants and two sweaters in case my classroom had no heat, but it was actually comfortable.  My attendance was low – in each class only 50 – 75% of the students showed up.  It’s almost the end of the marking period and we have a day off on Monday, so for once I relaxed in class.  We went over homework, but didn’t discuss any new material and spent some time talking about the upcoming inauguration.

Last period, 7 out of 25 students came (and I’m suppose to prepare these juniors for the PSSA?  How can I do that when they can’t even make it to last period?).   Four of the ones who showed up were the boys who have the lowest grades in the class.  They’re the kind of kids I would really enjoy if they weren’t my students.  They’re really funny and easygoing, but trying to make them care about linear inequalities is pretty much impossible.  I gave an in class assignment for them to complete and the two girls asked me to go over it with
them on the board.  So we starting working on the problems and something amazing happened: the troublesome boys actually started paying attention and participating.  They were asking questions and giving answers.  It was a wonderful moment – the last 45 minutes on the Friday before a long weekend and I have 7 students actually engaged in an algebra problem.  They didn’t even try to leave early or cause problems.  Honestly, when things like that happen it makes up for the rest of the week.

If the same student tells you that she is due in 2 weeks and is determined to not leave school until she’s “taken away in an ambulance ready to pop,” is it inappropriate to worry that her water is going to break in your class?

On Monday, I read this article written in the Inquirer:
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about the violence in Philly schools. There were nearly 1, 050 “serious” incidents reported in the first two months of school throughout the city. I was discussing the article with a friend and remarked that my school didn’t seem to have that many fights; I have felt safe in the school from day one. I guess I spoke too soon because there were several serious fights this week throughout the school. First, on Wednesday, one of my students (before coming to my class) got in a fight with an NTA. Then, on Thursday, right before my lunch period, there were several fights throughout the building. I was teaching in my classroom and heard a loud outside in the hallway, like a loud rumbling that was getting closer and closer. Immediately, I called down to the office to report on problem on my floor. The secretary’s response was, “There’s a fight on the fifth floor too? Ok, we’ll send someone up.” I still don’t know what happened or who was involved.

Today, there was a fight directly outside of my classroom during the morning. We’re advised not to get involved in these situations and let the school police deal with it. I just focus on keeping my students in the class and safe because I don’t want anything to happen to them. It turns out that a number of girls from another school came into my school to start a fight with some students. How did the outsiders get into the building? All of the doors are locked from the outside except for one, which requires students to pass through a metal detector to enter the building. Even worse, the only reason I knew that people were trespassing is because a student told me. The teachers got no notice or update from the administration as to why there were so many fights and what was being done to prevent future ones. As my student told me about the trespassers she remarked, “I just don’t feel safe in this school. Can we lock the classroom door?” And, for once, I had to agree.

Several of my friends are part of TFA and what I gather from them is that the program takes a “No Excuses” approach – whatever happens in the classroom (behavior, test scores) are the result of the teacher.  The founder of the New Teacher Project is quoted in the article as stating, “You have to know the challenges our kids come with, take them seriously, try to provide resources to address them but at the end of the day they CANNOT be an excuse for low achievement levels. That’s the bottom line.”  I feel that this statement gives teachers a lot of potential to feel powerful if their students do well.  However, what happens if their students do not achieve high scores on the benchmarks?   The feels like it is all his or her fault, they are given all the blame.

Teaching in philly has definitely changed my opinion about this question.  Can all students, despite their poverty level, achieve and reach their highest potential?  Of course – if I didn’t believe that I wouldn’t be a teacher, especially not a teacher in my current high school.  But, if my students preform poorly is it all my fault or do those outside influences have something to do with it?  For example, I have been having a lot of problems with one student, K.  K was disruptive at the end of a class period before winter break so I told him that the next day he was to report straight to the discipline room once class started and  there would be work there for him to complete.  Using the “No Excuses” approach, I would have blamed myself for his misbehavior.  When class began the next day, I called the discipline  room and K  was not there.  He was sent to the discipline room the previous period because of disruptive behavior in that class and did not show up.  So K is causing problems in more than one class – is his behavior/low achievement still my fault?  I went on school net and looked up his grades from first marking period – 3 F’s and a D.  Hmmmm, are four teachers failing this student that badly?

My point is that I want K to do well in class, but there are other factors at play here.  His home life is hectic and he comes to school with new cuts on his hands and face each week.  Something larger is at play.  Does that mean I write him off as a failure – No.  But, should I go home and think I’m a horrible teacher because this kid misbehaves and is failing my class?  No again.  So my opinion lies somewhere in the middle.  One of the teachers in the article had a good quote, “How do we address the outside influences if we pretend they don’t exist?”  If I pretend that K is growing up in a loving, two parent home, how can I understand his anger and frustration?  We have to understand our students before we can reach them and start to push them to achieve.