Still OK

Another day, another bunch of unruly students, another parent with a misbehaving child that wants a meeting "with an administrator present." Ho hum. Not bothering me. I am teaching, doing my best, letting the students know I am not here to baby them, but to teach them, and I won't let them stop me. Which means some are finally getting the message and toning down their behavior, if it is in their control. Others are getting phone calls or emails to parents saying "we are less than 2 weeks from TCAP and I don't have the time or energy to devote to a child who is still misbehaving this late in the year." I wish I had the power to boot them.

Today, my Enriched class (smarter, working out of the 7th grade book) had a crayon tossing event. Just two of them, but they have been throwing things all year and I haven't caught them. But today one of the chunks of crayon matched EXACTLY, down to the paper, another similar chunk in his pencil box. Somebody had the audacity to complain it wasn't fair (and most probably because the victim, who I saw shoving one of the kids, is a light skinned Hispanic boy who is not macho, but sensitive), so I convened court, heard witnesses, and made a judgment. And still got the lesson to the kids.

Third day of the week, third day without a mid-day dose of calmative. I hope it is out of my system, but right now everything is rolling off me, and I am not caring. But making progress and doing my best, which is way more than some of the students deserve.

Nowhere to go but up

Yesterday and today went rather well. I had a bad spell on Sunday and was dreading going back to school, but I slogged through tons of grading, did everything I could do to prepare and had a day where I again managed to teach two similar topics in a single 50 minute period, with the kids getting it. Not easy concepts either, but area of parallelograms and triangles.

Today was more potential dread, but I slept OK and went in early to prepare the math lab activity (making different triangles from lengths of drinking straws, and learning that the two shorter sides of a triangle must add to be longer than the third side). Planning period I met with the parents of the "asthma boy" from last week, and stayed calm and professional, and I actually liked them.

Some classes did better than others in small groups, but every class managed to "get it" to some degree, and we reviewed a sample problem on the theorem so they would know what it was about when they saw it. I know I can do a lot better next year, utilizing resources better and preparing the kids from day 1 for the test, rather than the typical cramming during the 3rd quarter. Yes, I said next year. If I make it through to the end of the year and they want me back, I will probably do it. Despite the anticipated 6 reviews, and the negativity being put on teachers. But I reserve the right to change my mind, maybe even several times between now and then.

I think I wore out my worry button, because I have been way too calm the past couple of days, and not been taking my usual lunchtime dose of Chemical X. Has my subconscious come to grips with the fact that I can be less than "perfect" and nobody will notice? Have I allowed myself to bask in a job well done, even if it means I didn't get a concept across to every student (even one is a success). Dunno. But I feel better over the past 2 days. And soon it will be April, a month that is mentally much better. And soon after comes May and the end of school. I should make it.

Decisions of Future

Yesterday was another good/bad one. I kept an upbeat mood for the first part of the day, but my lunchtime class was very unruly coming back from the cafeteria, with one little girl extremely aggressive and loud toward another (there was a lot of jostling and line cutting among the small group that wants to be "first", whether they arrive first or not). This created a poisonous environment in class, and basically no teaching, children applauding the aggressive girl who announced loudly that her mother taught her to hit somebody if they messed with her, even though that goes against everything we teach in school (go figure, a parent undermining the important social and moral teachings of the school).

I have the teaching. I have the classroom management. I don't have any buy-in from many of my students, and they don't care whether they are good or bad, rewarded or punished, get good grades or bad. And it is affecting me, and I am floundering and becoming numb and uncaring.

On a positive note, I made an appointment with a therapist for next week, and I looked up the requirements for getting a math certification added to my license (21 hours, but all can be done online, two classes maximum during the school year and four in the summer). In theory it could take as little as a year, then I could teach any grade, should I choose to continue to teach.

That is the rub. Do I want to be a teacher, knowing that these problems exist and will continue to exist, no matter the grade, no matter the subject, no matter the location? Do I want to invest a year and thousands of dollars in a career that is being undermined and dragged down by politicians and bureaucrats who see teaching as equivalent to building a car - a production line that takes 12 years to spit out a product, no matter what raw materials are fed in. More and more I am leaning to "no" - but is that because I am mentally ill, and incapable of job satisfaction, unable to cope and ignore the little things?

Dreams of a Flood

Is it the news stories about nearby communities who are annually flooded by the Mississippi River and other tributaries? Is it the tsunami coverage? I don't know but last night I had a dream about being in my maternal grandparent's house (way up in the NH mountains - no indoor plumbing, heated by a coal stove, hand pump for water in the kitchen) and having floodwaters be past the windows, then trying to rescue the cars that were floating away. The second part of the dream had to do with survival, as suddenly in this sparsely populated area there were hundreds of people. I was diving down onto what was essentially an interstate littered with cars and shopping carts (?) to get food to give to people. And somebody important from my family was still missing.

The job is getting to me, more every day. I win some, I lose some, but the losses weigh much more heavily. Yesterday I had the ISS supervisor (I would not classify her as a teacher) hang out in my doorway for two class periods. After the first one I thanked her for being there, and she told me I was a great teacher, that I made things interesting and it was too bad the kids just didn't care. If I were sane, I would have taken that to heart - people recognize it is not me that is the problem, it is the kids, their attitudes and upbringings. Still, because I am not sane, I took her presence as another vote of no confidence from whoever told her to be on our hall to keep an eye on me. Even though I appealed to the guidance counselor for some sort of help. I guess I should take it as it was given - somebody who has my back for a little bit of time - a positive thing. But why will they behave for somebody who has even less power and authority than I do? That means it definitely isn't about either thing, but more about connections or relationships - and I can't ever be perceived in the same way as a black woman (the typical authority figure for most of my students).

I had a kid show up at my door wearing a t-shirt, socks and white shorts - just barged in and asked one of my students something. He didn't knock, he didn't say excuse me, just walked in. He refused to tell me who he was or why he was there. It turned out he is the older brother of one of my students, and he had walked away (in stocking feet) from gym to get gym shorts from his brother so he wouldn't get marked down for not dressing out. Like other of my students, he didn't recognize this as class cutting (from gym), or disrupting my class (where he had no business). Of course one of my neighbor teachers stepped in, put him in a playful headlock, told me she was familiar with him (from last year) and would take him back to the gym. Now, had I even touched the hem of his t-shirt sleeve, I would have been complained about, written up and disciplined. I watched my co-teacher grasp the arm of a student not paying attention, to get his attention. Again, I am warned about touching and chastised for doing exactly the same thing to get a student to focus on me and move to a place in line where I was directing them.

I get back-talk every single time I ask for a student to correct behavior. EVERY TIME. Please be quiet. I wasn't talking/I was just asking for a pencil/etc. Do you have permission to be out of your seat? (student continues walking as if I never spoke) Repeated. No. Keeps on doing whatever he or she was doing (usually a stroll to the pencil sharpener or tissues - both excuses to move out of their seats), ignoring me. If I send them back to their seat to do it the right way I get verbally assaulted by mumbles or similar disrespectful behavior. I have one problem student who continues to talk, demand I give him his Science book (which he has lost, but it has become a game to him to tell me that I took it), and if I ask him to please be quiet (as directed by my administration) he mutters that I better get out of his face (something he has been written up for, with no measurable results on the part of administration).

I am seriously considering being a non-teacher. I spoke to our union representative about possible outcomes should the principal decide I am not a fit with the school and should he give me a negative evaluation. The drawback is that she is close/best friends with one of the two teachers reporting my every move behind my back to the principal.

It is a poisonous environment, I feel isolated and overwhelmed. I need help but don't know where to turn.

Cry for Help

Yesterday an email went out, sort of apologizing for the grade verification mess. Turns out report cards go out NEXT week, not this week. You would think somebody in administration could check a calendar. Still, not going to do anything differently.

And the entire day was terrible. Maybe it was my mood that the kids picked up on. Maybe it was the nice weather that gets the kids riled up. It is useless and unproductive to try to find the source - but many of the kids were unruly and uncontrollable. Which was the theme of my post-evaluation with the supervisor from head office. I teach well but my classroom management is lacking. Same thing the principal mentioned in passing (that he hired me because he wanted somebody with strong classroom management skills, and he was disappointed). So I expect a rather dismal evaluation.

I feel like I am alone on my hall, even though my classroom is in the center. The two teachers on either side do not help out, in fact they make the problem worse with the way they yell, wrestle, etc. with the students. And now I am hearing that both of them make regular reports to the principal on every little thing I say or do. I don't know why, but I do feel undermined, and it is taking a serious toll on my job. On paper, I have the power to manage the students, but they refuse to be managed by me. I can have a string of office referrals which are not a deterrent or even a meaningful consequence to the kids - which will also have the effect of making me look like I can't manage my own classroom. Parents are no help, and in some cases seem to be making the situation worse by encouraging the behavior we are trying to stop, or doing nothing, or blindly supporting their child, even when they are obviously and seriously in the wrong.

This is not just my own, isolated problem either. I spoke with our "model" teacher in the 8th grade and he had the same issues last year when he taught in 6th. I don't know who to talk to, in the school, about this to get any feedback or results, but just have to marinate in it for weeks. And the pressure of TCAP is the thick icing on the cake. Every minute I am not actively teaching, but trying to get kids to respect the rules of the classroom (respect is something I try to teach, but it doesn't seem they have a concept for it), is a minute that weighs on me for not teaching.

It is getting very very bad, and I am starting to doubt myself in a big way. I will have to find out from somebody what the worst case scenario would be, if I get a poor evaluation from the principal. Is it that I don't fit at this school (which is obvious)? Is it that the school management is incapable of running the middle school portion of a K-8 building (which is possible)?

Ethical?

Monday after a long break is never fun. I had a bunch of no-show kids, which is not bad, and the remaining kids were relatively low-key. Except for my usual suspects.

We had to rush to print grade verifications, since report cards seem to be going out tomorrow (which was news to the principal), which again is stupid since grades closed the end of the day before break, now we have to print out grades (that couldn't have been altered, since the servers shut down) during a busy day. Here is where the ethics come in. I spotted a mistake, but rather than fix it and own up to it, I just ignored it. If anybody ever notices (unlikely), I can/will plead ignorance, but it doesn't negatively affect any students - on the contrary it actually helped some. And the mistake will not happen again with the 4th quarter grades. No harm, no foul.

And then there is the fun email from the Math Supervisor who will be in our school tomorrow and wants to post-review my observation. Good, from a standpoint of constructive criticism, bad from a standpoint of "I have a ton of stuff to do, and this gives me yet another thing to worry about." Except I am not that worried. About much of anything. TCAP in 3 weeks. 14 more school days. One day at a time.

Finally Home

Got in last night about 8pm, which means 12 hours on the road including a side trip to try to find the Maker's Mark distillery (Kentucky sucks at putting attraction signs at the proper exits - we were 10 miles too far - should have gotten off a couple exits earlier, but this exit, and oddly, the one 20 miles farther on the interstate, had the sign. So trying to drive unmarked back roads). Had a long visit with my 90 year old grandfather, from about 1pm to 8pm on Friday, even though the plan was to be on the road by 7. Blame my aunt who wanted us to get a chance to visit with my uncle and one cousin and his fiancee. I get credit for not going to her house first, though, which gave us lots of time with Grandpap. I have a scary memory for places. Once we were within 10 miles, things looked familiar and I homed right in. My great-grandparents house is now a blacktop parking lot, my grandparents old house has new siding, but not much else is different. Some of the ancient (meaning 80 years or more) pictures still have the same buildings right outside my grandfather's doublewide.

Driving makes me tired, but I slept for crap last night, finally at home in my own bed. No clue why. It was hot, but I think the reality of going back to the classroom was spooking me. I feel better now, but tomorrow morning is probably going to be hell. And the countdown to TCAP is in full swing. Nothing but test prep for the next month or so, then the kids will act as though they are already out of school. Still working on leveling my attitude, which most other teachers have no problem with. Been talking it over with the wife and we both agree I read too much into things, tend to run on bad assumptions, and worst, I can't settle into a middle ground - I over-react. Well, like GI Joe says "knowing is half the battle."

Bridging the Gap

I have been in and out of touch with wi-fi for the past few days. None at the house where I am staying, but down the street at the Barnes and Noble I can access, but I don't always walk down here. Spent a couple of hours on Tuesday in line to get books signed by Patrick Rothfuss (patrickrothfuss.com), but the other people near me in line were fun and cool and we all bonded and talked instead of ignoring each other like true New Yorkers, so I didn't really log on.

The trip so far. Saturday was a long series of drives interrupted by some minor stops. I know I was behind the wheel for at least 11 if not 12 hours. Terrible dinner, nice hotel. Double time-change (eastern time, followed by daylight savings) which made for much confusion of the body clock.

Sunday was much more mellow. Got up and enjoyed a breakfast at the hotel and didn't really rush to hit the road at any particular hour. Turns out we were at the last "city" in Virginia, so rapidly progressed through West Virginia and Maryland into Pennsylvania. Saw signs for Hershey (which we planned to visit on the return trip) being only 7 miles off the interstate, so took the plunge. Made custom candy bars in a computerized production line (very cool, and customized the labels too) and took the ride/tour and shopped, and back on the road within 90 minutes (and the place was starting to really fill up). Made it to Brooklyn by about 4pm, which was surprisingly fast to me. Took a little stroll up and down the Avenue here to re-acquaint myself - a lot has changed but a lot is just as I left it, nine years ago.

Monday - not much going on. Tried to plan out the week around other people's schedules, including eldest daughter who works now in the kitchen at Cheeburger Cheeburger, which just opened here. She has weathered cuts that have weeded out staff lacking in skills and is proud of her accomplishments - doing really well and maturing in being responsible. Wandered a little in the neighborhood, had dinner at an old hangout (Pizza Plus, not that it means much to most) which is completely renovated following a fire a few years ago.

Tuesday was another lazy day, but again strolled the Slope with wife to visit places, do a little shopping, have some lunch. Rich NYC food is playing havoc with my digestion. Then to aforementioned book signing at Barnes & Noble, where the author showed up more than an hour earlier than his scheduled time. Got to love buddingly famous authors from smaller towns (Stevens Point, WI) who, like me, just show up instead of being fashionably late. Which meant I was early enough to get to the bar (Johnnie Mac's) for dinner and trivia at 9pm. We did passably well, disagreed with some of the answers, but had fun just the same.

Wednesday was a foray into the city to drop some work at wife's old company and have lunch with old friends from said company. Strolled SoHo, visited the Apple Store, confused at the huge line of mainly Chinese outside the store until we realized this happens daily - to snap up the daily shipments of iPad2, and then "export" them for fun and profit. They were sold out by 10:30. Dropped into a yarn store, then a high end art studio that specializes in cartoon art (exhibits of Sendak and Seuss, and downstairs some superhero stuff, including Alex Ross, who I collected back in the days of money - which got me more respect from the salesperson since I wasn't just some gawker, but knew my stuff from before she was an agent), then to a really fun store called Kidrobot. Think of it as a quarter-machine for adults. They get the license and produce small statues of different "cool" shows (Futurama, Simpsons, Adult Swim, Family Guy) as well as their own original stuff. The catch? The boxes are sealed and the statue is sealed in a foil pack, so it is like a baseball card or quarter-machine. You never know what you will get. But they are reasonably priced, like $5, so you can enjoy yourself, but if you get a rare one you can score some money in resale. (kidrobot.com) They also have clothes and plush pillow/toys. Just a fun place. Then lunch at a little bistro in SoHo and back home to Chinese takeout (nobody felt like going out) and watching the King's Speech on DVD (yeah, I know it isn't out yet. This is New York where things are bootlegged as naturally as breathing, although this one wasn't a handheld camera in the theater boot, but from a studio copy - so super clear with a "Property of Weinstein Productions - Do Not Copy" popping up every 20 minutes or so.

Now it is Thursday, St. Patrick's Day. Wearing the green, but avoiding Manhattan. If New Year's Eve is amateur night for drinkers, St. Patty's is the semi-pro league. And the parade draws tons of people, as well as plenty of paraders. And the bars open at 10am. Staying the area, going to help with some yard work at the house, do some laundry and get packed (car is in a "safe" spot. Street parking is hard to find but surprisingly safe. The only catch is this thing called "Alternate side of the street parking" which means on certain days, for the streets to be cleaned (and YES, the do clean them) all vehicles must be off that side. So we found a spot Monday night to move the car where it will stay until tomorrow morning). Fill up the car with non-essentials tonight, leave out clothes for tomorrow and the car bags and hit the road around 6 to avoid any traffic (most will be inbound and we will be outbound, so that helps) and on to western PA.

My grandfather turned 90 in January. I phoned him Tuesday night to let him know we were coming to visit on Friday afternoon and we would call for directions when we were close. He is super excited, and my youngest has never met him (the last time I saw him was on a visit he made to New York probably 15 years ago or more). Then last night got a call from my aunt (wife to my dad's younger brother), which is triply interesting. I never called her, she called my daughter's phone to reach me, and she started pressing us to stay the night at her house. There is something strange going on, according to my dad, since my aunt has recently gone back to her maiden name (and for some reason friend-requested me on FaceBook), but he wouldn't go into details. She has never been too tightly wrapped, and always been fundamentally (and judgmentally, with emphasis on the "mental") Christian. Quick to condemn and look down on, and the last time I experienced this was at/after my grandmother's death. She want us to stay long enough so we can visit with my uncle and one of my cousins, who won't be off work until around 6. I tried to explain that if we stay, we face a minimum of 12 hours on the road the next day, and we would rather visit, then push on as far as we can so we are not under the gun on Saturday. She also "suggested" we come directly to her place, then whoever was around would go to my grandfather's. Interesting attempt to control the situation - we can't visit without her, and would have to go back to her house before leaving. I left it up in the air - but I think we will go directly to my grandfather's then let her know we are there. If we hang out long enough the others can catch up, but that will be a long visit and this is all about him, not them. Should be interesting, to say the least.

Trying hard not to think of next week back in the classroom. Hard to avoid it, though, as I have to do some planning of the week and the grading period. I am a pendulum, swinging between confident and capable and freaked out, but somebody has put a magnet on the freaked out side.

Road Trip

Up before dawn, finished near the end of Virginia. Some crazy stuff (Burt Reynolds Boat Rental) and tired from 12 plus hours of driving, but we will arrive tomorrow. Disappointing dinner at Cracker Barrel with a waitress who obviously does not have the necessary English language skills (and from the manager's conversation with us, not the first time) to take our order. My bacon cheeseburger became a grilled cheese with bacon (even though I pointed to the item on the menu - and not because I thought she wouldn't get it, but because she was looking at the menu to see what I was ordering) and my drink stayed unfilled. And a double whammy with both changing to Eastern time AND Daylight Savings on the same night.

Taking the Plunge

Super early in the morning and nervous about doing something I have done many times and at the same time for the first time. Heading out on Spring Break road trip, but back to New York for the first time since I moved away. Many mixed feelings about how it will affect me - things will have changed, it is another place I used to, but no longer, belong. And the stress of long haul driving.

Yesterday was as expected. I got out of having to teach anything by giving the kids their 7th grade math placement. A nice little 25 item test to bubble in quietly while I filled in a "rubric" page for each and every student. Name, teacher name, school name....then comes the fun part. Math grade for all 3 quarters so far. Grade on the test they are taking (we don't have a ScanTron, so it gets sent out and back for scoring). on and on. Then at 2:00, the aforementioned dance, that is nothing like a dance from my middle school years. No actual dancing, just clumps of kids running around, and too many body motions that I don't think I learned for a good ten years past 6th grade. But the day ended.

Off to vets, drop the dogs (who are excited and barky, but give up and meekly follow the vet who they know), then to the Apple store. At which point, my decision is made for me. I forgot how "Apple" people are. The line is about 300 people long for the iPad2. So I go for fallback plan - save money, don't go for the brand new, bells-and-whistles, but get the standard iPad, skip the line (heh heh) and back home to load things and pack.

Whee - next update will be from the road, either via laptop or iPad.

Slipping

I started writing with good, daily intentions. And I find it is not usually top of mind, even in the mornings. Some days I am rushed, or distracted, or busy trying to organize a day so I can have a little moment of triumph and know that, no matter what happens, there is enough to educate, entertain and fill 50 minutes. Yesterday was like that. (notice that when talking about good intentions, I left out the daily walk, the communicating with friends, and other things I planned to do often for the past 3 months).

Yesterday was like that. Wednesday jury duty cattle call was a joke. Drive all the way downtown. Pay, along with the other 2000 other people called, $5 to park, get to the huge room with chairs set up. Wait. Wait some more. Have things explained. Have judges come in. Have more things explained. Have the potential weeks you can pick listed, which ranged from the week prior to TCAP to the last week of school, meaning no matter what, I was going to be out for some portion of the rest of the year, which is a good thing. Watch 80% of the people in the place scramble to get in line for the first week, and line up when the second week is called, without the line being much shorter for having filled the first week. Wind up getting the first week of May, neither good nor bad. Then cattle call out with all the people leaving, meaning traffic and frustration.

So I overplanned yesterday. I had no confidence that a sub showed up, based on past experience. I made sure I had two lessons in one, with calculator practice, and a handout. Got to school and pleasantly surprised to see a note from the sub - she had followed my directions and things went smoothly. Finalize my grades (since the grading period ends Friday at 4pm, they need to be in) and felt accomplished and ready to cruise through the periods. During planning, a man in a sport coat walked down the hall - I figured he was a sub. Then I ran into him in the teacher's lounge and asked him if he was a sub. He said no, and I guessed, out loud, he must be an important visitor. Turns out he is the Math Supervisor for the system. When I introduced myself, he already knew who I was. The administration had requested he come by for a "drop-in" observation of my classroom. The kind that goes in a file. The day after I have been out. The day before the kids go on Spring Break. Not the nicest surprise. And the kids could not have been less cooperative. The ones who learn were great. Those who talk and good were making animal sounds back and forth at each other (this is the class that did the disruptive throat clearing on Tuesday and had a class-wide lunch detention). The supervisor actually thought he was going to be sitting in on my enriched class - oops on his part. I managed to get through the class, he shook my hand, told me I was very energetic and he would email me follow up forms. Great. Have to have those done before vacation, too.

The rest of the day just slacked off from there. Principal decided to move a dance for the middle schoolers into the school day (since lower grades, who do no have the extreme behavior of our teens, had theirs during the school day), which means two of my classes won't meet today. My uncooperative student is now getting up from his seat to challenge me, and when told to sit back down starts his muttering rants and complaints. Assistant principal was not in to update me, so I have no clue where that whole mess stands - but unless I hear something today it will probably hover over my head through break.

And today I have the tough decision - should I blow my GRE money on the new iPad2? It is a cool toy - but at home I anchor myself to this PC and it does what I need. I don't actually feel the need to have a computer with me all the time for Twitter and Facebook and all that stuff, the same way I never felt the need to have a phone with me (and I don't use that often either). I have a school issued laptop, so I can travel with that and be connected via Wifi. I am leaning against getting it, even though I was excited at the idea first. New gadgets are interesting to think about, but not life changing, and this one I think will wait.

Financial front - News America gave me a proposal on my pension. 140% of the estimated worth in a lump sum - just under $20,000. But it will be taxed unless it rolls into an IRA or other retirement fund. Probably going to take it, just got to figure out the right method. Or I can have $68 a month until I die, or $365 a month until I die if I wait until 65.

Winning Combination

Monday truly was hell, as I expected. I felt lousy, the kids had their eyes on the end of the week and spring break and behaved as expected. Many detentions for all sorts of things (two girls who found a sub in their music class left and wandered the halls. "I didn't cut class, I went in then left." was the excuse).

Tuesday, though, things came together better. Maybe because the day was pure chaos. Spring pictures, to which we had to bring our homerooms. Except that our homerooms scatter to classes on our hall and off, and they staggered the times of each homeroom, so I had a fourth of my class at any given moment over the course of 2 hours. It could have been that so many of our detention students didn't bother to show up, and were given in-school-suspension, or ISS. They actually prefer that, since they don't have to tell their parents they got a detention, they don't have to see any of their regular teachers or move from room to room. A couple of students in my classes actually observed that the class was "good" - then took a quick look around to see who wasn't there, and had an "aha" moment when they realized that such a small handful can disrupt an entire class. Or maybe it was the good lesson I planned that wouldn't have worked at all without the smartboard, where my kids could highlight/model percents on ten-squares, right on the board. I had kids begging to be allowed to do a problem. Or perhaps it was that Wednesday (which is today) I don't go in to school (and therefore miss a boring faculty meeting), but go to jury duty to tell them when I can actually come back and serve.

Yesterday was also election day. One item to vote on - Should the City of Memphis surrender the Charter of the Memphis City Schools. The school board already surrendered it, the city council also ratified it, and the state says that you don't need popular vote, those two are enough. But the city council has said if they vote is "no," they will backpedal so fast and rescind their ratification. No matter...only about 15% of registered voters bothered to show up, and the vote was 2:1 in favor of getting rid of Memphis City Schools. What does this actually mean? Nobody knows, but by the end of the month the Shelby County School Board will expand to 25 members, from current 9 (and there are 9 who used to serve on Memphis City School Board)...fuzzy math there, to my mind anyhow. Applications for nominations are being accepted - A perverse part of me wants to apply, since I have taught in both systems, have an Ivy League degree and a Masters in Teaching. But I am not politically connected, so it would never happen. Things like that only happen in the movies or on TV.

*twitch*

Didn't sleep well last night at all. Those hours of sleep in the early afternoon didn't stop me from falling asleep, but I woke up a lot. Mornings would be peaceful if I could relax a bit. Forsythia is budding green beneath the yellow flowers, daffodils are almost done blooming, lillies have sprouted in the front bed and the weeds are almost long enough to mow. Oh, and lemon tree, who used to winter in the dining room, spent the winter in the kitchen where sun streams in for part of the day, and didn't drop any leaves this year. Should be interesting to put it back out and see what develops this year. Maybe a lemon, if we don't have the drought again that burns off all the flowers.

Two days, break, two days, vacation. I can do it.

Uncomfortable

Not just anxious, or in discomfort, but unable to be comforted. My brain knows that things are OK, my body tells me that I am in panic mode and have to get out, get away. Grocery shopping almost didn't happen, with a 5 minute pause in the ice cream isle just standing and breathing trying to calm down. Got home and curled up on the bed for four hours. Chemical X was no use - took it before I even left the house.

Why today? Am I feeling the stress of the week creeping back? This week should be better, with Wednesday technically "off" for the jury duty appearance. Is it because I have veered off of my scheduled lessons, to start teaching to the test? Is it because I haven't made a plan for tomorrow, or this week?

I did grade all the papers, and in almost every case the students have showed me that they learned (according to this TCAP style assessment) what I taught. Retention may be a different issue. But it is a small success, both me grading them, and entering them into a spreadsheet, and them doing better than I expected. This Wednesday they will get a couple more, then, since grades need to be entered by the end of the week, we will go into review mode, and I will try to introduce the clickers in class.

I don't like days like today, when I could/should be relaxing, and instead am coping with panic and headache and frustration.

Friday post-review

It wasn't as bad as I expected. Which is not to say it was actually a good day. Read Across America took over the school, so I had a guest reader in one class. For the others, I read a book to them, which mainly went well, except for a few kids that take the opportunity to talk while I am reading. We all have those. No movement on the troubled kid front - he continues to act out. Principal thanked me for getting him my statement so quickly (from home, the night of the incident), and the Asst. Principal asked what time the event took place, so I assume there is a review of hallway video to back me up.

I gave in to the pressure today. I gave each student a manila folder and a checklist on a sheet of yellow paper. The checklist has every State Performance Indicator for sixth grade, and I have a one-sheet test for each one of them. They are all in TCAP style and language, none is over 6 questions. For the foreseeable future, I will be teaching to the test. Not exclusively, but all assessments will be toward mastery of concepts on the TCAP, using calculators correctly, covering ideas that haven't come up in the textbook pacing, etc. Life will be simpler, I guess, but I still feel like I am selling out, and in the long-run it won't move the needle, so I will compromise myself for basically nothing.

Good things - some kids still respect and even like me, even some who are difficult in class. Those morning greetings are a nice reminder that they care, even if they can't always control their behavior in class. I got a database up for my classes so we can use the "clickers" with the smartboard. Side story - I discovered a massive bug in the application. You can enter a database, but counterintuitively, but to create a new one, it prompts you to save the old one. But there is no function to retrieve the old one, nor can it be found or accessed anywhere on the computer. Fun fun.

Best thing - one week to Spring Break, and Wednesday I won't be in school due to jury duty. Crazy that it feels like a good thing.

It is Friday, why am I not relieved?

Looks like I am once again going to be crushed in the jaws of the "urban" model school system. This model includes leaders who mouth confidence in students, but demand teachers not actually teach, but instruct in how to pass tests that are the only measure of success. Leaders who know parent and student responsibility are key, yet demand more from teachers to fill the gap, knowing it is impossible. Leaders who allow students to flout rules and flaunt their disobedience without meaningful consequences, but demand that teachers exert control through "positive" means (do you think two kids getting into a near fight in the hall are going to stop and question whether their loud argument, witnessed and encouraged by a hundred kids in a hallway, is worth stopping so they might attend a dance?)

Yesterday my most troublesome student caused yet more trouble. He has been a problem since I started, and was my first parent phone call when he struck me several times while "playing" with a friend in the dismissal line. Of course, it wasn't his fault - the other boy grabbed his arms and swung him around so his hands, balled into fists, hit me three times. Lately, his defiance has caused him to be removed from my math class multiple times for intentional disruption (tapping, pounding on desks, popping his mouth, humming, spontaneous inappropriate laughter). Correcting him "by the book" - quietly, privately, respecting his ego - results in him yelling back that he isn't the only one, or he wasn't doing anything. He is in a class with a co-teacher and an aide, and they witness his defiance daily, and it bothers them. In my homeroom, morning and afternoon, he refuses to stay in his seat and stay quiet during announcements, daring me to say something so he can yell his rebuttal. On two different days, after I asked him to be quiet, he coincidentally spoke to a boy across the room (his excuse) calling him "fruity." He encouraged a different student to ask me if I had been in jail, then followed up with "so you never dropped the soap." Again, neither incident resulted in anything meaningful, which gave tacit permission to keep up the behavior.

He has been to the guidance counselor several times, with me in attendance more than once. We met with his dad on parent/teacher night, his mother has been to the school and been called multiple times. Yesterday, I positioned him in the dismissal line with instructions to stay behind a particular student. Within a couple of minutes, he was in the middle of the hall, yelling at a student in a passing line. I asked him to go back in line, and he ignored me and started to walk to the end of the line, where the loud kids congregate (and the one place I try NOT to have him). I extended an arm to reinforce my words - go back to your spot, and he tried to walk through my arm. Well trained in "urban" confrontation, he then loudly complained "I am going to tell my mother you choked me." I called his bluff and his mother, and we had a nice meeting (sarcasm) with his mother, my assistant principal and the head principal. They know this problem has been going on, but they are unwilling or unable to do anything. This boy has been given control of his situation to the point where not only does he not know the behaviors that are unacceptable, he also has no idea where to stop or what the ultimate consequences are. And the part that sucks more - neither do I. I don't know whether this kid will get fed up and assault me, whether he will fabricate a story (similar to yesterday) to save face, whether there is some underlying issue. And nobody is helping me. I feel on my own, but I also feel like I will be scapegoated in some way. And that is not a lovely way to end a week.

Trivia Competition

Tonight was the first night of this year's qualifying for the playoffs. Not exactly sure how it works, but the top 5 teams from each location score points and eventually go to a quarter-final round where a certain number of teams qualify for finals. Even down players we still went into halftime in 3rd, finished in first before the final question, bet nothing on a tough one (rank 4 states by their credit scores) and kept the lead. So we are a step closer to success, plus $50 richer toward next time.

School continues to vex. The kids are still somewhat out of control, but I am trying to keep my sanity by staying calm, speaking to the most upset ones in a caring way, explaining without anger what has gone wrong with their decisions. On the academic front, I am resigned to teaching to the test for the foreseeable future. Calculator drills, practice questions, refreshers, strategies...you name it and I will try it. The pacing chart - out the window. The principal (third in three years) feels the need for a victory, and we are the lowest scoring school in the county system (which is no surprise since we are basically a city school demographically). The pressure is on from the top, but not just on me, on everybody. I don't think there is any risk for me personally, but I will toe the line and do what I can (instead of what I should) to achieve his goals. I just feel like I am continuing to lower my standards and ethics, and buy into a mentality that says one thing (our students CAN learn) and does another (we don't trust them to learn, so let's teach them how to answer these type of questions).

Horrendous Day

Even with my better attitude, today just sucked. Kids misbehaving affected me much more than it should have, the lesson didn't engage them. I just wanted to run away and hide, go to one of the "safe zones" for teachers and have a time out or cry or something. It drains me so much that I doze at the lunch table. Just a day at a time, thinking to myself "babysitting, and if they learn something, great." And the TCAP pressure is on. Analyze this data, create these kinds of probes to reinforce concepts, teach them to use calculators better (this one actually is fine with me, it lets me off the hook with a ton of concepts and simple calculations). Pressure. Building. Mounting.

Planning

That is what I used to do, in advertising. Media Planning. Too often we were slaving to make revisions to things just to satisfy middle managers, or top managers, who had no clue what it took to make their "suggestions" a reality. A lot of the time the requests would circle back on themselves. We weren't allowed to say something couldn't be done. We worked excessively long hours for little pay and less appreciation. And at the end of it all it really didn't matter whether we spent 2 hours or 2o hours - we presented what we had time to produce.

Yesterday I came to the realization that I am doing that again. The kids really don't care, notice or respond no matter how much time I spend. I need to be satisfied with what I can do in the time I have. The only drawback is behavior. The more I can plan for them to do (which takes time on my part, even to just select a worksheet), the more they work, and the less I have to. Motivating them is the hard part. I have a problem student (referred to the office for telling me to leave him alone, then walking away - still no resolution, spoke with him in presence of guidance counselor) leave a 'think sheet' behind on his desk twice yesterday. Many won't do anything, but sit tight and wait for somebody else to call out an answer, then they fill in theirs. Had a girl yesterday, told me the calculator wouldn't do the problem.

And that attitude is a different sort of problem. I got the word "from the top" via my two bossy teachers that I should be teaching students how to use the calculators. Had two administrators pop in yesterday and comment on us using them. It is a vote of no-confidence in the students when we say "let's stop teaching them to think and teach them to press buttons." Go to McDonalds - the cashier presses buttons, and half the time gets them wrong and can't figure out what went wrong - nor can they tell if the total is close to what it should be. One problem on this test was volume of a cone. I didn't (and don't) teach it. But the problem gave them the volume of a cylinder (which I DO teach), and the formula for volume of a cylinder and volume of a cone. They are identical, except for the fraction 1/3 in front of the cone volume. Most popular question was "I don't know how to do this" because they don't think analytically, and because the powers that be focus on test scores, which count for funding, not thinking, which count for futures.

Bartlett pear trees are starting to flower, many trees with leaves budding. And sat down as a family and tried to map out our Spring Break trip. Heading up to Brooklyn, my first time back since moving. There are rumblings that somebody might share the driving, but only in the 'flat parts' - in other words, I will be driving for as long as humanly possible. No clue yet on stops - Knoxville is a lunch possibility on Saturday March 12. Returning we are going to drive across Pennsylvania to visit my grandfather, then down through Ohio. LOTS of driving.