Parent Communication or Tattling?

One of my students has been acting "difficult" for some time now. His behavior is even more frustrating than that of Maverick, because he began the year as one of my "all-stars" and in the past few months he's developed some obnoxious and frustrating habits. The worst of these is his bullying of some his classmates. All the while, I've been unable to get in touch with his mom, because in my school, students rarely maintain the same working number over the course of a year.

So, I was pretty stoked when his mom showed up unannounced last week, and I invited her back today for a conversation. In spite of my mediocre (at best) Spanish, I managed to convey my respect and admiration for her son, but the several problems he'd been creating over the past few months. I ended by mentioning a threat he made to me yesterday, that he would call his dad and then I "would see what happened." I wanted to be as truthful as possible, because after that kind of talk, I'm completely fed up with the kid's antics. But as I was making the last point about the student's threat I couldn't help but feeling like a tattle.

Is there a limit to the honesty in conversations like these? How much should I put in a parent's lap, and how much is my own responsibility? I would prefer to handle all behavior problems on my own, and focus my conversations with parents on academic progress. But this isn't a perfect world, and I obviously need some help from parents from time to time (if only I could read this last year). Still, I wonder if the conversation I had today could do more harm than good.

So Much to Do and So Little Time

As of Friday there will be less than 2 months of school left and you can feel the building breathe a collective sigh and students and teachers put their feet up and just kill time. But this doesn't sit right with me. 2 months is a long time. It's 1/5 of the school year; it's more than enough time to finish two units of study. So should we really use a bit of exhaustion and warm weather as an excuse to stop teaching? That seems to be the general consensus among many (thankfully not all) teachers at my school.

For me I feel more like it's the 4th quarter with the clock ticking down. It's my last chance to make a difference to the kids in my classroom. That means redoubling my efforts, rather than lessening them. Over the course of spring break I looked over goals I'd set for myself in August. With our last state exam over with tomorrow, the next two months will be the time I use to pursue these goals. The focus of these goals is to broaden my kids horizons - by getting them out of the classroom and by bringing speakers and resources to them.

It's early still, but I'm excited for the prospects over the next two months. Next Friday we're going to the Met. I already sent out a letter to parents surveying their interests, availability, and re-inviting them to participate in my classroom. Next I want to seek out some local professionals - artists, writers, scientists - and connect them to my students. Maybe I'm being overly ambitious, but for now I'm determined to turn make these last months count.

I Seem to Be/But Really I Am

April is winding down and so is my class's study of poetry. Today in attempt to bring out an introspective side of my students we tried to write "I Seem to Be/But Really I Am" poems. Perhaps it was asking a bit too much at the end of the day in sweltering heat. As with past attempts, the results were mixed. But as these things often do, it brought about some valuable reflection on my part.

Teaching the poetry to the kids today presented a question to me: What kind of teacher do I seem to be? I thought about this in terms of how I'm seen to my peers and also how I'm seen by students. I was also reminded of the portfolio I recently turned in for fulfillment of my Masters that was meant to be a portrait of my teaching the past two years. Finally my thoughts turned to this blog, and the narrative this has come to represent of my teaching.

I worry that I seem to be at turns apathetic, boring, and humorless. I worry that my students, co-workers, professors, or the readers of my blog might miss who I really am, and there is nobody to blame for that but myself. Before it's too late, I'll try and remedy that misconception.

Who am I really as a teacher? In spite of my frustrations over seemingly endless testing and mindless paperwork, I go into work each day excited and thankful for my job. In spite of the distractions, that's all they are. The core of my job, the kids, are a constant source of excitement, joy, wonder, and yes, challenges. In the course of a day we laugh and joke, we explore and question, we fight and reconcile, we grow and reflect, and undergo countless other processes minute and profound.

At the year's end we will have completed an incomparable journey that will leave us all irreversibly changed. And if I've done my job well, the changes in my students will be unquestionably positive. This is not a job that can be done in the presence of much apathy, boredom, or humorlessness. I hope I don't seem that way to those who observe me, because I don't think that's who I really am.

Momentum

The feeling around school since Spring Break is crazy. It's like breaking through a dam, with parents, teachers and students just eyeing summer vacation. There are officially 9 weeks left until summer vacation, and it feels like it's just around the corner. I'm determined to keep the kids focused over this time. There's still so much I want to teach them before they leave my classroom. It's funny though that this "home stretch" begins around the same time as our last state test happens. We'll be taking the NYS science exam this Thursday. Ironically as the school year winds down, I'll finally be freed to teach how I want.

Dreaming of NCLB

Poetry month continues in my classroom (you may have noticed my half-assed attempt to share poetry on this blog) and asking the students to create their poetry has yielded some mixed results. My mom passed along an incredible book, Wishes, Lies and Dreams, and I've been using it this past week to guide my teaching. It's a mix of authentic poetry written by kids preK-6 and advice from the author on how to use the writing prompts he used with the kids.

Today we tried to write poems based on dreams. There were some interesting poems like one about "a house with 12 doors and 3,000 windows" and a dream about robbing banks and ending up in jail. Then there were some less creative dreams... "I dream I will read a T,U,V,W book," "I dream I will pass the science test," and "I dream I will pass the 4th grade to the 5th grade."

Maybe the poems I wrote for the kids as models weren't imaginative or creative enough themselves. But I worry that maybe school and learning itself has lost an innate quality of creativity and discovery. The dreams of my students were telling in their serious, data-based quality. Now it's my job to find a way to spark that sense of wonder and discovery in my kids so that they can have dreams about more than tests and increasing their reading level.

Back to Basics

Recently I started reading Jonathan Kozol's Letters to a Young Teacher. I'd tried to read it last year, but found it hit a little too close to home, especially when he was fawning over the first year teacher and I was presiding over total chaos. Now, with a bit more confidence in my own abilities and the past in the past, I'm giving the book a second chance. It's been a really gratifying read so far, as it's reminded me of some essential ideas I'd forgotten in the course of the past year and a half.

Before I started teaching I read Kozol's Savage Inequalities. I figured it was an important book for any teacher going into the Bronx, and once finished realized how right I was. The book, although almost 20 years old, is an impassioned and moving portrait of America's poorest schools and the children who learn in them. Besides bringing me face to face with some of the challenges I would face, the book also sparked a mixture of passion and outrage as well as a sense of purpose.

While Letters is written in the form of well, letters, the substance of Kozol's argument has not changed. It is a welcome reminder for me of the importance of reaching out to my students as whole people, and not collections of data that signify strengths and needs. It is also an important wake-up call that the frustrations and indignations that afflict my students on a daily basis are not ordinary nor acceptable. Finally, it has reaffirmed my belief that education reform must be rooted in an ideology of social justice, because a quality education should be a right for every child in this country.

I don't think I ever really forgot these ideas. However I do believe that in the process of figuring out the practice of teaching, these beliefs that represent the foundation of my educational philosophy were drowned out by daily distractions. I'm glad to have them back in the center of my mind while I'm in the classroom.

Elementary Students From the Bronx Traveling to Germany and Dachau

Imagine if more schools spent $25,000 on trips overseas for their students, instead of sets of Kaplan and Princeton Review test prep books. For me, naive is it sounds, a trip to Europe closes a much more profound "experiential" achievement gap, than superficial gains on a flawed state test. This NY Times article about an elementary school not far from my own got me thinking of the limitless possibilities for students in the Bronx, when their teachers and principals think outside the box.

The Four Children Revisited

Last year I wrote a reflection on the four children of the Passover haggadah, and where they fit into my own classroom. While I agree with a lot of what I said then, as with everything else in my classroom, my second year has brought about a new perspective.

The haggadah (the book used to guide the Passover seder) discusses four children alluded to in the Torah. There is the wise child, the wicked child, the simple child, and the one who does not know how to ask. In some ways, each of these children is engrained in all of us. The way we react to different ideas and scenarios at different times might be characterized as wise, wicked, simple or dumbstruck. If each of these children exists alone, then they certainly are found in every classroom.

My reflection last year focused on the wicked child. The wicked child is a dangerous label to apply to a student, and yet undoubtedly most teachers can identify one in their classroom. The wicked child however, is truly a blessing in disguise, because they push us to the limits of our patience, originality and creativity, and make us stronger for it.

Where my thoughts on the four children have changed since last year is on the issue of ownership. That is, last year I did not take responsibility for the existence of these personality types in my classroom. These children existed in my classroom, I thought, simply because they were this way. I know feel that a master teacher has the power to bring out whichever children they want in their students. If my students were simple, wicked or did not know how to ask last year, it is because I did not show them how to be wise. By the end of this year and in the future, I hope that I will consider all my children wise, because I will have developed a classroom environment built on trust, risk taking and confident questioning.

Getting Warmer on Teacher Evaluations

Education Week (via Gothamschools) has a story of Michelle Rhee's latest tweaks to D.C.'s proposed teacher evaluation system. In addition to the controversial "value-added" system based solely on test scores, Rhee is proposing using a system of "impartial master-teachers." These master teachers would be experienced in the content areas of teachers they observe. According to the article, this would avoid the pitfalls of an observation by an administrator who isn't experienced in the subject matter they observe.

The more obvious benefit I can think of is avoiding observations by administrators who just don't like certain teachers. Anyone who's taught in a hyper-political school system like the DOE knows that principals have a very subjective view of "quality teaching." Put another way, I have been observed four or five times this past year by my administration and by outside consultants, and the feedback from the two groups was very different. Rhee's proposal is a nice touch, adding a qualitative aspect to reviews, while striving for optimal objectivity.

Redemption Song

Because some of my favorite poetry is music... Fun fact, by the way, Bob Marley's song references a line from Marcus Garvey:

We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind...

Redemption Song
Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the 'and of the Almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfill the book.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our mind.
Wo! Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfill the book.
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever had:
Redemption songs -
All I ever had:
Redemption songs:
These songs of freedom,
Songs of freedom.

NY Times: Report Envisions Teacher Shortage Looming

A bit of cheery news appeared in yesterday's NY Times. According to the article, the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future projects that a third of America's 3.2 million teachers could retire over the next year. Exacerbating the problem is the high turnover rate of new teachers. Presenting a less than "half glass full" scenario, the report says “The traditional teaching career is collapsing at both ends." While some of the experts interviewed by the Times seem to think the commission is being a bit too Chicken Little, it seems to be an inevitable event given the aging of the Baby Boomers who make up a considerable percentage of the teaching work force.

The commission's plan seems focused on keeping older teachers around longer, partly by changing the pension system. While this should probably be one part of any solution, helping teachers at the other end of the career arc seems to be a more sensible, long-term plan. Luckily Obama seems committed to recruiting more young, qualified people to the profession. The "how" of this plan, is essential of course.

Better pay, better training and more consistent support during the first five years of teaching during which 1/3 of new teachers currently quit, are all vital components to strengthening the profession for the long haul. Everyone seems to agree on these general principles, unfortunately it remains to be seen what form the practical implementation will take. If the commission's report is to be believed, some sort of action toward these changes needs to happen soon, before the current American education crisis turns into an all out catastrophe.

Cleaning Out My Classroom "Hametz"

It's part of Jewish tradition prior to Passover to clean out the house of all bread products. This Jewish version of Spring cleaning also takes on a spiritual aspect as we're told to also evict the "evil inclination" from our hearts. With the school year 3/4 done, I thought about what sort of "hametz" I would want to clear out of my classroom.

Each day I try to go into my classroom with a fresh perspective. But sometimes that's easier said than done. Despite efforts to remain unbiased and fair toward all my students, ultimately I end up showing more patience with some students, and much less with others. In my own defense, some students will take advantage of second chances in a way that others do not. Still, losing one's temper more quickly with a student can develop into a nasty self-fulfilling prophesy where both the student and the teacher consistently expect a negative interaction.

So, after this much needed Spring Recess, I hope to return with this build up of frustration and negativity cleared away. I plan to communicate this to the kids very clearly. I want them to feel they have the chance to start fresh. Hopefully this will provide the opportunity to mend some of the relationships in the classroom that have gotten frayed and tense over the past months.

Of course it's easier for an adult to forgive and forget. Students have notoriously long memories. They can't memorize the formula for the area of a rectangle(!), but they can remember every promise and every slight with alarming clarity. Regardless, I'm hoping if I go into the classroom giving each student a fresh start, they'll rise to the occasion.

The April Fool's Joke That Wasn't a Joke

It was last Wednesday morning when I brought Lil Miss Meltdown into the AP's office for a talk. She had spent the morning whistling and humming, sucking her teeth and being generally disagreeable. I don't know what I thought the outcome would be. Previous talks haven't done much more than buy me an hour or two of focus. Still, at this point I would have been happy with that much.

What I didn't realize was in the course of that brief meeting my principal would walk in and tell the AP to transfer my student to another class. I didn't find out about this later when my AP told me. It being April Fool's I thought it might be a prank of some sort, but when I asked both AP's were very serious about it.

The next day Lil Miss Meltdown's new teacher was absent so she stayed in my class, but the next day I was told to have her pack up her things and send her to her new class. Given this girl's propensity to throw tantrum's when she's unhappy, you can imagine how smoothly the transition out of my classroom went. Even after she was gone it was hard to believe what had happened, especially since I was never a part of the decision that was made to remove her from my class.

So this week I had my first taste of teaching without her in the classroom. Now my managerial energies are focused pretty much wholly on Maverick as well as the new kid, transferred to my class because of too many problems he was having in his old one. So hopefully all the shuffling of students is done and once the dust has settled everyone will be better off for it.

Chairs

chairs

by Valerie Worth

Chairs
Seem
To
Sit
Down
On
Themselves, almost as if
They were people,
Some fat, some thin;
Settled comfortably
On their own seats,
Some even stretch out their arms
To
Rest.

Chicago

Carl Sandburg's been a favorite writer of mine since I studied his work for my high school freshman year English class. Today's poem is in honor of my friend's announced departure to the Second City.

CHICAGO

HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

"Silent Movies"

I was fortunate enough to have another moment today similar to watching our school's ballroom dancing competition. During my lunch, I sat in on a friend's class to watch a special arts integration program going on. The kids (2nd graders) were putting on their own "silent movies" on the theme of integration. The way these kids interacted with one another and were engaged in the task was an awesome reminder of what truly creative teaching can look like. While it's true "test sophistication," standardized curricula and a slew of workbooks by Kaplan, Princeton Review, et al are taking over classrooms, I'm also happy to say that imagination is not yet extinct. I hope to take some of the excitement I saw in my friends' students, and share it with my own.

The Bronx (Teach's Ears) is Burning

I guess I should start reading my UFT publications more carefully. If I did, I might have noticed that Randi Weingarten cited my blog in a letter to the members on the President's education agenda. It might also inspire me to proofread my writing more carefully so that when it's quoted elsewhere it doesn't include grammatical errors like "Tests that measure students' academic performance is one way to assess my own performance." Kind of detracts from the irony of Is Our Children Learning, doesn't it?

What really caught my attention more than my own embarrasing grammar flub (and more than Randi misciting my blog url as Bronxteacher.com), was that Randi wasn't the first to quote my post on Teacher Report Cards (or Teacher Data Initiative reports for those in the know). Apparently the NY Daily News had decided to use my post to support an editorial on the use of these report cards to improve teacher accountability and thus teacher quality. Of course when I say "use" I mean it in the basest sense of the word, because they used the section of the post that fit their argument...

"I wasn't really expecting a great report. What I didn't expect was how low my percentile score would be, even after my rating was adjusted for years of experience. And while it was a blow to my self-esteem, it was also a way to focus my expectations for this year. I know I've come a long way since last year, so I expect a big improvement on the next report card I see."

While, conveniently ignoring (as Randi pointed out) the following portion that did not:

“That said, the whole thing has to be taken with a grain of salt. As much as my job has been overwhelmed by testing, I refuse to judge my performance on test scores alone. Ultimately my job is to prepare my students for a life of learning and success. Tests that measure students’ academic performance [are] one way to assess my own performance. But I’d like to believe that there are intangible aspects to my job — for example, instilling a love of learning and proper work ethic — that can’t possibly be measured quantitatively. I think any attempt to rate teachers without accounting in some way for these aspects of teaching will be fatally flawed.”

I have the feeling the Daily News quoted the first teaching blog they came across in an attempt to convince their readers they're "down with the internets." I definitely wouldn't want to jump to reading some sort of malicious intent into their selective quotation of my writing, or the patronizing, "That's the spirit, Ruben," they tacked onto the end of said quotation.

Of course should I really be surprised? This is the newspaper that believes, "Gov. Paterson and Democratic legislative leaders are... illegal immigrant drug dealers...who...strip...for...Police Commissioner Ray Kelly," but, "should...escape...deportation." That's the spirit, Daily News.

Happy National Poetry Month!

I'll start off the month with one of Shel Silverstein's more irreverent poems...

The Little Blue Engine

The little blue engine looked up at the hill.
His light was weak, his whistle was shrill.
He was tired and small, and the hill was tall,
And his face blushed red as he softly said,
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”

So he started up with a chug and a strain,
And he puffed and pulled with might and main.
And slowly he climbed, a foot at a time,
And his engine coughed as he whispered soft,
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”

With a squeak and a creak and a toot and a sigh,
With an extra hope and an extra try,
He would not stop — now he neared the top —
And strong and proud he cried out loud,
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!”

He was almost there, when — CRASH! SMASH! BASH!
He slid down and mashed into engine hash
On the rocks below... which goes to show
If the track is tough and the hill is rough,
THINKING you can just ain’t enough!