Liberto's plane departed at 6:30 a.m., which meant a 4:00 alarm this morning. He should already be in Miami by now, en route to Caracas for two weeks. It was no secret that I was not amused at having to haul myself up at 4 a.m. on a Saturday. But I managed. I arrived home in a fog but decided to try to stay awake until evening. I'm very lucky to sleep extremely well 99.9% of the time. Knowing what it feels like not to, I sympathize with insomniacs. Feeling sleep-deprived is hell.
This weekend, I'll study for my Speech test on Monday, begin the on-line training for a short grading gig with the Virginia Writing test, and plant the new strawberry plants that arrived from a seed company two days ago. I'll pick up school and office supplies from Staples and bags of potting soil from Home Depot. I'll help Paul study for his American history test next week, pick up the house, and oh yes, review my Lesson Plans for next week to determine what I have to create and to print. It's still three weeks until Spring break, and I, as well as the other teachers, am becoming seriously burned out. After Spring break, we have another four weeks until school ends. What can you do with students in the waning days of the school year, after they've already taken the major standardized tests and finished the major projects?
Did the Fox network black out for the entire country Thursday night at 9:30, as Ryan was revealing the Idol voting results? Or was it just in this region? The next day, a radio announcer was fuming about it; I also heard one of my students complain. So I know for sure our television wasn't the problem. Also, our other channels were working. At 10:01 that night, Paul looked up the results on the internet, so we know Casey came in last and could have been sent home, but the judges used their Save to keep him on. I'm appalled that America could overlook his talent in favor of a couple of the pretty girls who don't have a fraction of his magic. This year, the favorites for Paul and me are James, Casey, and Scotty. All of the Top 11 are strong---it's hard to say any of them should not be there---but as J-Lo pointed out, it's not the vocals that are in question, it's the emotional connection that they create with their audience. I love Scotty's deep, seductive voice. He reminds me of Glen Campbell. I even you-tubed some of my old favorites from years ago, "By the Time I get to Phoenix..." "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston." We like James because he's weirdly cool, with his Aspie manner and Tourette's tics. Casey is fun. Anyway, as past years have proven, the free market will determine in the long run who is the real winner. Look at Daughtry and Adam Lambert.
All the teachers at my former high school, Groves, are being terminated and must re-apply for their jobs, as part of the NCLB crap. Only 49% will be re-hired. The rest, if they're in good standing, will be dispersed among the other schools in the system. Groves never did make AYP, even with the new lean and mean principal of 2007, who has since been removed. My former colleagues from the school are all over this on facebook, outraged about the obvious injustice of teachers always being blamed for low test scores and indolent students who would just as soon Christmas-tree every scantron as read the questions on the test. If students are rude and talk back, it must be the teacher's fault for not being terrifying enough. If students won't do the work, it must be the teacher's fault for not being interesting and engaging every minute! The Groves teachers are angry, but, my, doesn't this all sound good on paper for the Supt? He cleaned house in the failing schools throughout the district! [Entry on his resume.] Better he should clean house on the failing families in this city who don't raise their children with any work ethic, goals, or manners.
I've talked before about the math teacher who now floats into my classroom during first block. It's interesting to observe how he teaches: with a loud, angry voice, put-downs, and frequent stops to write students up, send them into the hall, or give a lecture on how worthless they all are. As a matter of fact, it occurred to me yesterday that I have never seen him smile, either at me or at any of the students. There is a tightness about him. What's interesting, though, is that even though he is terrifying, or at least much more so than I'm capable of being, this quality doesn't stop the students from talking back or ignoring his lessons. One of my worst nightmares from last semester's Basic Reading class, K, does not hesitate to stand up and spout off at him when he disciplines her. Then he shouts back louder, she shouts back even more, and the next thing you know, they're engaged in a heated conflict. It's interesting to me to observe that even a man with a loud voice does not have any more impact on the Career Troublemakers than I did.
I have just one Career Troublemaker in one of my 11th grade classes, but now that I'm working with a different AP who handles 11th grade, my write-ups bring quicker results. On the last write-up, I added the comment that B. has shown over and over that he does not want to be here, disrupts constantly, looks for trouble,etc." I wanted to add, but didn't, "Why in the hell does the Board of Education allow students like him to stay in the school?? B's mission is to find amusement by disrupting; he has no desire to learn; he has a 40 average in all classes. Why, oh why, are the other students punished by his presence?"
My fate for next year is undetermined. An AP appeared in my room last week for an observation. I had taken the students to the computer lab for the first half of class, to find internet sources for their research papers. She came into the room just as the students and I were returning. I handed out the students' research paper packets, printed on bright orange paper so they wouldn't lose them as easily, and then I distributed a Scavenger Hunt sheet which listed questions about the research paper which they could find by hunting through the 20-page packet. The questions asked such things as "When is the paper due?" "How many secondary sources do you need?" "How do you do an in-text citation?" "What is the thesis statement in the model student paper?" and so forth. Personally, I thought this technique was a cool way to get the students inside the packet of instructions. Do you think they would ever read beyond the first sentence on their own? They would not. But the crucial question is whether this activity aligned with any of the Georgia standards! Let's see, how about the standard of student is able to read a text and draw information and conclusions. After distributing the Scavenger Hunt sheet, I set the timer for 10 minutes---it's far better to have them still working when the alarm goes off than for them to have a second of idle time, for idle time is the devil's workshop for high school students. They all worked assiduously, thumbing through the orange packet, writing down answers. I noticed the AP scanning the room to make sure I had the Holy Standards on the wall, as well as Essential Questions and Vocabulary Word Walls. I did. And it's no easy task to produce these big posters. I have to email them to Liberto, who takes the time and trouble to print them out on large sheets of blueprint paper with his huge machine. But as I stood there watching the students do their Scavenger Hunt, I suddenly thought, "Crap! The day's agenda isn't on the board!" Every other day, I dutifully write this on the board, like a good little teacher should, but that day, the copier in the faculty lounge was actually working, and I saw my big chance to run off the research paper packets for my 75 students. Believe me, times when the copier is working well are rare. Among the grand total of 4 that services 100 teachers, only one or two work at any time, and even those will suddenly jam, run out of toner, or stop for no reason. Thus, instead of going to my room that morning before first bell and writing the agenda on the board, I claimed my place at the copier and finished the handouts. By the time I was done, Mr. T. was already in my room teaching math. I didn't want to interrupt by walking in and writing the day's activities on the board. He has a hard enough time keeping their attention. When his class ended and my class came in, I wanted to get them to the computer lab right away because we only had the first half of the block. So I never wrote my agenda on the board. There goes one strike against me. Later that afternoon, the principal sent his daily mass email telling teachers what they're doing wrong and how they have again failed to measure up, and reminded them that any word walls should be BIG enough for students to see easily across the room. On my word wall, the size of the words is not huge because it's awkward for Liberto to print twenty words, along with pronunciation and definition, on one poster and make the words gigantic. I assumed that mass email was directed at me, the principal having heard from the observing AP how insufficient my vocab words looked. My walls are also heavily decorated with posters the students have made. One assignment was to copy an Emily Dickinson poem of their choice onto a poster (because her poems are so short!) decorate it, and write an interpretation of the poem at the bottom. In addition, I had my students do newspapers in Publisher, including a front page, an advertisement, and an editorial, based around themes of authors, periods, and literary works; these too were on the walls. My walls also contain colorful advice books the students made as one of the culminating projects for the unit on persuasion. The AP could interpret this as too much childish clutter that keeps the all-important Word Walls and Standards from standing out. I can assure you that I see students stop all the time to look at each others' posters or advice books on the wall, but I have never seen them stop to admire the list of Georgia standards. But the essence of the observation will probably be centered around the Scavenger Hunt. Did it meet the standards? Did I use the time well, and not waste a minute? After the alarm rang in 10 minutes, none of them had finished, so I said I would extend the time. About five minutes later, some students had completed the assignment, while others had not, so I announced that we would start going over the sheet right now (better to cut short a working student than to let a non-working student wait too long and start looking for trouble!) Next, I called on a different student for each question. "That's right, Brandon, the paper is due on April 29." "Yes, Lindsay, the three types of note-taking are summary, paraphrase and direct quote." We'd gotten through about 10 of the 20 questions when the AP got up and left. I felt relieved, but not particularly worried because as I told J. last year when we were both on the chopping block, but I was Saved due to a technicality, "I do the best I can every day, whether anyone is watching or not." I've had a sort of Whatever feeling about it since the observation. This year, so far, there have been no complaints from the Administration. They are cold towards me, but I'm probably a constant reminder that they were unable to dump me and hire some young, cool, potential coach who could teach English on the side.
In fact. . . I did not know this until a school email called attention to a discussion on the Bryan County blog about how unfair the school's hiring and firing policies were. According to the anonymous blogger, clearly an insider at the school, a teacher of Computer Apps was let go last spring and told it was due to budget cuts. She did not have tenure, so she had to leave. In the next five minutes, they hired in her place the husband of one of the other teachers. He coaches as well as teaches. His wife is also a coach. Did I mention that the school is very big on sports, and the teams do very well? I followed the blog for about a month and learned a lot about the politics of hiring and firing at my school.
Liberto just called from Miami and is ready to board for Caracas. I just realized how fuzzy my mind feels and that I need to get out and do some errands to stay awake.
No comments:
Post a Comment