Reunions

On the train home today I ran into a student of mine from last year. We barely recognized each other. Since shaving my beard I look a bit younger and she looks like a soon-to-be middle schooler. While I would be excited to run into any of my former students, I have to admit I was especially happy to run into this girl. She's an incredibly smart girl and an unbelievably talented writer. She also has a tough home life and a look of perpetual sadness and exhaustion. Since leaving my old school I have wondered periodically how she is doing.

Since last year she's moved to a new neighborhood that requires her to travel almost an hour to school each day. Her sister told me she's often late, because she doesn't want to get going in the morning. When I asked about her plans for next year, I hoped she would list one of the better middle schools available in the Bronx or even Manhattan. Sadly, her mom forgot to fill out the applications, so she doesn't know where she would be next year.

When I decided to teach, it was based on a cliched, middle class, white liberal "save the children" fantasy. While my expectations of teaching have been tempered over the past three years by reality, my hopes for my students remain ever-lofty and idealistic, if not naive. It's hard losing touch with my former students, and wondering what will become of them. In the case of truly extraordinary students like the girl on the train, the hopes are all the more elevated.

It's tough to think a girl as innately talented as my former student might get lost in the shuffle in middle school, without having a chance to really challenge herself. I hope that even if she doesn't get to attend a top middle school, she'll come across some teachers who help her tap into her potential and fight through the challenges of her circumstances. I hope she'll take me up on the offer to help her in anyway if I can. If she doesn't, then I hope I still run into her again someday.

That's probably unlikely though. I guess that's one of the tough parts of teaching. You don't get to help your students for more than one or two years. After that all you can do is hope for the best and trust that your colleagues will pick up where you left off.

Fun With Real Life Number Stories

If Mr. B's class takes tests on 10 of the last 25 school days, what are some ways to express this as a fraction?

If Mr. B's class will take simulation exams on 6 of the next 10 school days, what is the new fraction?

If each test takes up 2 periods, how many periods will the class spend on testing in all?

*For early finishers: If each period is 3/4 of an hour, how many hours will be spent on testing in all?

Rules of Survival

One of the axioms I was told early in my teaching career was, "Don't smile till Christmas." And I suppose to a certain extent this cliche is a useful tool of survival for novice teachers. But based on recent experience, I don't need advice on how to withstand problems with the kids; I need help with the adults.

The general rule I have tried to follow since early on is, "Pick your battles." This is definitely helpful in the classroom (Should I bother arguing over pen vs. pencil? Is it worth addressing a kid who is overly fidgety on the rug?), but it is even more valuable for navigating school politics. Since my first year teaching I have found myself confronting issues large and small that made me uncomfortable. Deciding whether to voice my opinions was always a difficult choice.

This year, as I've adjusted to the dynamics of my third year of teaching and a new school culture I've stayed out of the fray more or less. I don't bother anyone and nobody's really bothered me. I may have my issues with test prep strategies or superfluous phone calls in the middle of lessons, but nothing has been worth fighting over. Today however, I was faced with a classic "small problem, big implications" issue.

It arose from my school's "science fair" scheduled for tomorrow. It's not a science fair in the traditional sense where individual students, or at least groups of students create their own experiments or models and present them. Instead, each class is responsible for creating a poster board of a scientific inquiry. Naively, I had my students write the different elements of the science lab and create the headings themselves. I just glued the components onto the board.

When I got to the gym where the fair is being held, I realized the error of my ways. I had paid too much attention to things like "letting the kids put the presentation together," and not enough attention to, "making sure it looked perfect." I was ready to leave it as is. I knew it would stand out for the wrong reasons, but I was also happy with the choice to let the kids take control of the work.

This was not an acceptable choice, I was informed. "You want the kids to be able to be proud of their work," I was told. This was ironic because before I brought the poster boards one of the kids said to me, "Everyone's going to be so proud of our hard work."

This was a battle that many teachers would deem not worth fighting, but at the same time giving students ownership of their learning (including the products) is very important to me. And as I reassembled the poster board with bright borders, construction paper backgrounds and computer printed headings, I felt sick to my stomach. I have to apologize for the melodrama, but it really was frustrating and demoralizing. My poster board may have stuck out like a sore thumb aesthetically, but I was ready to defend it. Unfortunately I couldn't just think about my students' work in this situation, I also had to think about my standing in the school as my tenure is being decided. As so often happens, survival trumped idealism.

Maybe I'm overreacting. In the end, the poster board still displays my students' work. The content is all theirs, only the presentation is mine. What do you think? Am I overreacting? Care to share some other rules of survival along the lines of "pick your battles"? Feel free to share in the comments.

Lessons From the NYSESLAT

This week my students took the New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test (NYSESLAT). While it was frustrating to lose three half days to more testing, watching my students take the test was also enlightening. The listening portion on Monday was especially interesting for me.

Overall the test was pretty straightforward and my students had a pretty easy time with it. But the few questions they missed were eye-openers. I realized from their mistakes that several of my students still have trouble understanding sequence and distinguishing between similar sounding words.

While it was clear to me from day one that I was going to have to work hard to communicate with my students this year, I didn't always fully understand the gap in understanding. Witnessing some of my students totally misinterpret listening questions on the NYSESLAT gave me a greater appreciation for my students challenges with the English language. Their challenge is my own challenge as well. As a native speaker I easily forget how confusing even simple instructions and explanations may be. After seeing that confusion firsthand this week I hope I won't forget as easily in the future.

Learning to Learn

So after the disastrous informal observation with my principal and wrestling with my ego for a few days I managed to turn things around. Coming to the rather obvious conclusion that I needed get over myself and use the criticisms I received to help my students was a powerful realization. Since then I have pushed myself to refine my planning and prepare myself better for each lesson. With a week of this newly found focus and drive under my belt, I felt more confident when my principal returned for a follow-up informal observation.

My principal sat through my entire literacy block which included about 25 minutes of word study and my reader's workshop. I was proud of the lesson and the ways in which I thought I'd implemented my principal's feedback. I looked forward to a conversation about it and proving that I could listen to criticism without getting defensive.

Today I was given the opportunity to have that conversation, and I sat quietly and dutifully and listened to my principal's feedback. Once again, there seemed to be a disconnect between my impression of the lesson and my principal's. However, having identified the obstacles of my defensiveness and my ego, I swallowed my pride and thought about how to make the necessary improvements.

Hours later, there was still an internal struggle in my mind. For each of the criticisms I received I thought of a rebuttal. Thankfully I had the sense not to try this approach in the meeting with my principal, but I think it's equally important not to allow this way of thinking frame my teaching and planning as I move forward.

I think one of the major challenges I'm facing as I receive some of the most brutal feedback of my short teaching career is learning how to listen to it and use it. For most of my first two years of teaching at my old school I hardly got any feedback. I had four official observations by my administration and I can't remember any informal observations. I received feedback from mentors and consultants, which after my first year was overwhelmingly positive. During the course of my "formative years" of teaching, I wasn't given consistent, critical, constructive feedback. In some ways I think this has lead to my resistant way of thinking today.

Several of my students face the same problem. In their formative years of learning they didn't receive enough feedback and consequently they've developed some poor academic habits. They spell their names with capital letters in the middle and they continue to forget basic rules of punctuation and capitalization. It isn't until someone constantly calls them out on it will they fix these problems.

Another similarity between some of my students and I is our ability to fool the people meant to identify our weaknesses. Some students can appear academically proficient simply by sitting quietly and doing their work without asking questions. I appeared proficient to visitors to my classroom by having good classroom management.

In both cases my students and I needed someone willing to dig deeper, look closer and give specific, critical feedback. For me (and I imagine for students too) the first experience with blunt criticism can be unsettling. But no matter how unnerving it may be, it is necessary for us to get better. I look forward to starting that process right away.

Life Lessons Reviewed

Today my class and I took a trip to the Jewish Museum's exhibit on Curious George. It was a nice break and a much needed reward after weeks of test prep and testing. One of the highlights was a walk through Central Park while we waited for our tour. The kids were fascinated by the droves of people walking their dogs, the view of the skyline from the reservoir, and a girls phys ed class from a nearby prep school.

"The girls are playing baseball?!" I heard one of my boys say. Before I had time to intervene, another boy did my job for me. "Girls can play baseball! Remember what Mr. Brosbe says, girls can do boy things and boys can do girl things. It doesn't matter."

It's nice when a student gets a math problem correct quickly or explains the moral of a story with the clarity. But it's even more gratifying when you know one of your "life lessons" from a teachable moment sunk in as well.

Bouncing Back

Just like my students, sometimes I can be a little slow to wrap my head around a concept. And just like my students sometimes a sudden breakthrough happens, and the proper perspective snaps into place. After a few days of wallowing in my informal observation gone wrong, I finally snapped out of it today.

I had a few obvious but nonetheless helpful epiphanies. First, that I had originally agreed with my principal's points. In fact, I had anticipated most of her criticism. So then why was I haven't such a hard time accepting it? Simple: my ego. Coming to that pretty obvious conclusion helped me suck it up, and focus on using the feedback to do better.

Secondly, it dawned on me that I never have thought of myself as a perfect educator. In fact, I'm more than happy to focus on my own shortcomings as a teacher. So, if I know I'm not perfect, why was I so upset when someone else pointed out the obvious?

Finally I realized that my improvement as a teacher isn't about me. Again, it comes down to my ego. I want to be seen as a good teacher, or even one of the best teachers in my school. But I have to put my ego aside, because my performance as a teacher isn't about me, it's about my students. Why do I want to be a good teacher so badly? Because being a good teacher means I make a greater positive impact on my students. So if someone is offering me advice on how to help my students, it only makes sense to listen carefully and act on it. If I'm able to do take constructive criticism and use it to improve (and as motivation as well), then my students will be better off, and the accolades and recognition my ego needs will follow.

In a Slump

Everyone has bad lessons occasionally. At least that's what my AP tells me. And most of the time I don't beat myself up too much when a lesson of mine goes off track, because more often than not I can pinpoint one or two things that I could have done differently to teach a much more successful lesson. As soon as I target what went wrong, I feel better and ready to apply those lessons.

Lately however, I feel like I'm in a bit of a slump. I had an informal observation with my principal that went less than perfect, to put it diplomatically. Okay, to be honest it was pretty much a disaster. While I immediately recognized some issues with the lesson after she left, I didn't see it as fundamentally flawed. My principal had a different opinion. And since that conversation, my confidence has been seriously shaken.

The rest of the day Friday I was in a funk, kind of fumbling through lessons. I spent all day yesterday planning for today, hoping to bounce back, but instead felt even more frustrated. With all the planning, the question is what went wrong? Did I follow my lessons carefully enough? If I did, then I need to question my ability to plan effectively. My lessons follow the laundry list of criteria - they have a clear objective, they are standards-based, differentiated and based on the needs of my students as demonstrated by data I've collected. They have a connection, guided practice and independent practice. And yet today felt like a struggle from start to finish, and is inspiring a serious crisis of confidence that I haven't felt since my first year of teaching.

The problem is, until recently, I felt that I had made enough progress as a teacher since my first year to no longer be considered a novice. While I was still getting the hang of a few things, I felt like a better than average teacher. Lately I'm feeling downright incompetent. As a 3rd year teacher I may still be entitled to "novice status" but as someone who got into teaching to be an immediate "game changer" so to speak, the feeling of being mired in mediocrity is totally unacceptable.

I'm still frustrated with myself over the failures of my first year, but I accept I can't do anything about that. My 2nd year had its challenges, but I believed it was a success overall. This year felt, until now, to be the one where everything fell into place. It wasn't as good as the Hollywood superhero teacher story, but it was narrative I thought I could be proud of. The past couple of days have shaken my view of my current abilities and with it my understanding of my progress as a teacher overall.

While it's been difficult, it may also serve as a much-needed wake-up call. I got into education to be part of the solution, not the problem. So it's crucial for me to have a realistic perception of my own talents, even at the expense of my ego. If I'm not doing a good job at this point, I need to seriously evaluate why, and figure out how to do better, quickly. If I can't put those pieces together, I may need to accept I'm just not a good teacher. I think the whole system would be better off if more teachers made this decision.

For now though, I'll accept an incomplete before I give myself an F. Instead of giving up I'm reassuring myself that everyone has a slump sometimes. Brutal honesty is something I need as a teacher, but it's also important not to let a couple of rough days define my abilities or overshadow positive feedback I've received. I know my kids have grown a lot this year. Hopefully identifying my shortcomings will be a way to help my kids further, and I can look back at this slump as a brief problem in an otherwise successful year.