Thursday, March 30, 2006

Dear Hiring Manager,

Dear Hiring Manager,

Certain individuals have informed me that the mere existence of a blog can be enough for a potential employer to deny a candidate a job. I sincerly hope that this is not the case in your district, and I believe that if you take a few moments to read the contents of my blog you'll see that it contains the sort of reflexive analysis that a professional in any industry should engage in, even if it does sometimes expose the less-than-desirable aspects of a school.

With love & pedagogy,
Eric Gleason

Leash laws

Spring has come here in full-force, which means that Jed and I are itching to get outdoors as much as we can. I kind of miss being a student myself, but I sure don't miss the homework and am really enjoying having my evenings free again, which means there's plenty of time to take Jed to the park instead of a quick walk around the neighborhood.

Those that know Jed know that he's a big mushball and scared of his own shadow. He was a stray and around 3 when I got him, so I don't think he learned to play or socialize much when he was younger. He really doesn't know what to do around other dogs most of the time. He'll sniff and act interested, but his stance is always fully erect and it's obvious that he doesn't quite know what he's supposed to do to act like a dog. And like a lot of dogs, he's so distracted by what's going on around him that he can no longer listen to commands, which means I've been very leery of letting him off his leash in open areas.

But two days ago I took a chance. We were surrounded by probably 20 other dogs at the park, and after he finally took an interest in a couple them I let go of the leash to see what would happen. What happened was that Jed had the time of his life. He and a husky chased each other back and forth for a while and he and two other mutts kept sniffing and bumping each other around a bit. And the most surprising thing was that he actually came back to me when I called him.

This got me thinking about what might happen when we finally let go of the leash we keep on our students. Most teachers keep that leash incredibly tight all the time and anything but strict obedience has consequences. So what happens when we let go of that leash, and maybe let students choose the path they want for class sometimes?

I worry that too much direction creates people that can only follow strict orders and can't think for themselves when that leash is gone.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

I'm a test pilot

I sat down for another mock interview today, this time with a real educator and not an HR-type that's pretending to know what they're looking for when they hire someone. It's nice of the college to do this for us, helping us find the faults that will come through so that our actual interviews are more successful.

The interviewer mentioned something about me being poised and not appearing nervous, even though I talk fast. (I do talk really fast. Southerners usually can't understand me.) And it occurred to me that the reason why I'm not nervous in interviews is because I just don't get nervous much. Like a test pilot.

I have been reading a lot about the early space program lately (one of my passions since early childhood), but I don't think that's the reason why I've got test piloting on the brain all the time.

It just happens that I'm the sort of person that likes to test new ideas, techniques, and technology, and see if it's practical. Just like a test pilot. And like a test pilot, I'm not dumb enough to test something that's obviously dangerous to work with, and I'm smart enough to stop the test if it looks like it's going to get out of control. Each test is an experiment, you need to stick to the test plan to get good data, the test plan needs to be planned, but you also need to be willing to abandon it if it's going to blow up on you.

I'm pretty sure I'm not exactly the Chuck Yeager of the classroom, but there's an equivalent breed of teachers and I'm one of them.

Gettin' it done

The past few weeks have been rough on me, health-wise. I don’t get sick very much, but have managed to contract two colds in just over a month. Both of them have dragged on interminably. The one I’m recovering from now started almost two weeks ago, and I’ve still got a lingering cough and congestion. As if that weren’t bad enough, last Thursday I became infected with cellulitis, a skin infection that progresses so rapidly that it scares the hell out of you. In less than 24 hours it went from something that looked like a pimple to an infection that covered nearly half my face, making me look like I’d just been horribly irradiated. Some strong antibiotics are taking care of it and now I’m left with what looks like a little bit of sunburn.

For the first time in quite a while, I took time off of work because I was actually sick. I’ve used sick days before, but rarely because of anything worse than a lack of sleep or need for a “mental health day.” There was plenty of work to get done while I was home, but I did little besides nap, read, and watch TV. Even after the fever faded and I really felt okay, I still goofed off and napped constantly. I didn’t even get my laundry done over the weekend

All this makes me feel like a big fraud. A while back I wrote about the need to teach our students to get the job done, even when there’s a significant obstacle. And one thing I’ve always taken pride in is practicing what I preach. So why the heck did I fall down on the job this time around? I’m just feeling a little tired from this illness, just a little run down, not like there’s some unmovable mountain between me and what I need to get done.

I don’t have any real answers, except for maybe that I’m not finding this tutoring work as enthralling and consuming as I did classroom teaching. No excuse, I know, but I can’t think of much else.

Maybe one of the great things about classroom teaching is that at any given moment there are twenty-odd chances to engage someone. Tutoring one on one with kids that really don’t want to cooperate and are absolutely unenthusiastic about learning doesn’t give you this opportunity nearly as much. That engagement comes more rarely, and the moments are fleeting. It’s hard to keep your energy level up when you’ve got a kid that will rarely do more than shrug at you when asked a question. Those moments of engagement in the classroom always gave me goose bumps, and were a big part of the reason I was able to push through those tough days in the classroom.

It’s 2 PM now, and like many days I can’t think about much but getting home to take a nap.

Greatness is getting the job done when it’s hard work. This doesn’t feel like greatness.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

The new batch

Luckily for me (and the mortgage company!) I am staying really busy. I've been keeping my schedule full with 4 kids. Each gets two hours of my time every day, so I'm working 40 hours every week. Working feels good. Paying the bills feels good too.

The two boys I had before are still with me, and with no standardized tests on the horizon we've been able to relax a little more and get work done without much stress. The lazy one is a funny kid, and has the potential to be a good writer. Unfortunately, he seems to want me to tell him that his writing is already great and doesn't want to work on the writing to make it great. Even for an 11th grader, his writing is not remarkable, but the leap from average to outstanding won't be a hard one for him if he wants to make it. The biggest challenge is that he's decided that he wants to write love poems about a girl he's too shy to talk to. Shaky ground here, for sure. Even though I studied poetry in college, I always avoided reading and writing love poems (much to the disappointment of all my girlfriends). So if any of you have some sugestions for some really good 20th century love poems for us to read and use as a stepping stone for him, I'd sure appreciate it.

I don't know quite what to say about the other boy. He will never do what's asked of him. Give him a complex task and he'll get it half done and complain about how much he can't handle it. Make the complex task a series of simple tasks given one at a time and he'll still only get half of it done. This is the one that may have a learning disability. I did a lot of leg work with his counselor and the school psychologist to get him set up for testing, and his mom won't make the call to start the process. She just needs to call the psychologist and he'll start the testing process, but she won't do it. This is the same woman who told me that she begged before to get the testing done, and even offered to have it done without school resources on her own nickel. I'm at a loss with this one. It's pretty clear to all involved that Mom's a bigger part of the problem than a possible solution, and we may just be stuck with that.

The other boy I have is an 11th grader who was kicked out of school for fighting too much. People in the school who don't know him well tell me he's a gang banger, but his teacher didn't think so. He wears the clothes, but so do a lot of kids who aren't in gangs. And so do a lot of kids that get in fights.

I don't want to over-generalize or stereotype too much, but the constant fighting and conflict seem to be products of the blue-collar culture that pervades this school. There's an awful lot of kids (and their parents) who have an attitude of "I don't have to take shit from anybody." I know a lot of their parents have that attitude, I hear them talk about their bosses, their neighbors, the jerk at the grocery store, etc. I don't think they realize that displaying this attitude translates to their kids applying the same attitude towards their teachers and other students. A lot of them have a hair-trigger temper and are more afraid of looking weak than a beating, so they're ready to fight at the drop of a hat. That's what this kid's like. He's always great with me, but I can sense it when he gets frustrated with his school work. He starts getting tense and ready to snap. I won't let him snap, and I won't let him give up, either. I don't think it's something he's used to. He seems to be in the habit of walking away from things that frustrate them. He won't be with me for the whole year, the school is trying to find him a slot at one of the local schools for troubled boys, so in the couple of weeks he may find himself in a better situation. If nothing else, I think keeping him busy all day would be good for him.

My newest student is a freshman girl. Her older brother was in my class while student teaching, and his special ed. teacher told me that his parents have been selling crack out of the house. (The story is that they've had Child Protective Services in there a couple of times in the last year or so, but never found a situation so harmful that it warranted removing the kids from the home. I'm not sure they have any place better to go, other than foster care, which may not be helpful.)

Some students get tutored in the home, most get tutored in the town library or some other place. I refused to go into this family's home, and her mom raised holy hell with the school because they didn't want the kid to have to walk so far, using the excuses that it's cold and there may be convicted rapists living in the motel across the street. I see her at the Burger King 1/4 mile from their house. The girl walks to downtown Albany to see her friends (a good 5 mile walk), but somehow Mom thinks the 1/4 mile walk to meet me is too unsafe.

I think that the next parent I hear complain that the teachers or the school is the problem is going to regret voicing their opinion to me.

It's been a while

A lot of time has passed since my last posting. I'm not even going to check the date on the last post, it's been an embarrassingly long time. I'd wanted to post something useful for the spring's batch of student teachers since I knew at least a few would be reading, but I think that time has passed. Most have probably discovered whatever I could have said for themselves already.

I returned from the park with the dog this morning to find that someone had sent a reply, and that's what it took to finally make me sit down and write again. So thank you, whoever you were.

There was never a problem of procrastination, or having nothing to write. The problem was the exact opposite; there's been so much to write that I couldn't decide where to start. The fact that when I'm overwhelmed with too many choices I often fail to start probably says a lot about my personality. Probably not anything particularly good, either, I'll have to reflect on that more another time.

For those that have been reading frequently, I'd like to get you caught up. In mid-January I was preparing 3 students for the NY state regents exams. For those of you that don't know, the regents exams are a ridiculous set of standardized exams for every major subject area, spread out over 4 years. The "standard" diploma kids get in NY now is a regents diploma, which means they're supposed to be ready to go on to college. Without passing these tests, kids can get a local diploma, which is about half a step up from a GED. I'll probably write more about these tests later, but for now I'll just say that the only thing I think they're effective at is spending a lot of taxpayer money, eating up school days, and crippling effective classroom education. I haven't seen any evidence that they do anything useful for the curriculum, and I'm quite sure that they're anything but standardized across the state.

So, the scorecard after the regents tests: The girl passed all but one of her tests. Considering the amount of work she had to get done, I think she did amazingly well. I think she bombed one on purpose, knowing that she'd be very lucky to pass. Apparently she showed up to the test 1/2 an hour late, started distracting other students on purpose, and then had an argument with the teacher. Since students put their names on their exams and the exam is graded by the teacher, I'm not convinced that the teacher didn't fail her on purpose. The good news is that the girl decided not to drop out, and the principal offered a deal so that she'd come to school just 4 hours a week to prepare for that last test. The bad news is that she's very good at telling adults what they want to hear to get of out a situation and I'm not convinced that she'll hold up her end of the bargain. The other bad news is that the teacher she's working with has no love for her and believes strongly that the girl can't pass anyway. You can't save them all, I guess, but I'm keeping a good thought that she'll pull through this.

The boy that had convinced me that he would fail managed to pass all of his exams. I have no idea how; he refused to do his homework and we'd only managed to get halfway through the material for the Global History exam. But he passed, and that's what's important.

The other boy passed, and I knew he would. The weird thing is that he got lousy scores on the tests, but when doing review work he knew the material. This turns out to be somewhat typical for him, though. We've been catching up on a lot of math work, and he always picks up on the concepts quickly and easily. He'll do any number of review problems correctly. I even do review with him for 15 or 20 minutes before giving him a test. But then he'll make mistakes on the test on concepts he explained to me just a few minutes before. It's frustrating, for sure.

It could be simply because the kid is so lazy. He's even too lazy to figure out a simple way to do things. Last week I told him to do the odd numbered math problems on a particular page, figuring that half of the exercises were more than enough for him. He proceeded to do all of the problems and when I asked why he said "I didn't feel like thinking hard enough to skip the even ones."

You figure it out, it's beyond me right now.