connect

Dayshawn is a good kid, as far as I can tell. He's quiet in class and doesn't seem motivated to do his English homework, but this isn't anything like his first love. He's a musician, and I'm going to guess that he spends every minute he can thinking about or playing music. The band he's in made it to the final rounds of competition at the Apollo last year. Haven't found out the details yet, but it sounds pretty cool. He started off in my class but was switched to a different section to solve a conflict. He asked to get himself switched back when he found out that I'm a Victor Wooten fan too.

Mike is more of a typical kid and just started playing bass as well. To look at him, you'd think he was more or less a typical kid into heavy metal. Lots of metal band tshirts, usually wears black jeans, long hair which he doesn't style... He doesn't have much to say in class, but every day at the end he manages to find something new to talk about with me, almost always about music. All it took was the Hendrix poster I put up on the wall to get him to open up a little bit.

It's amazing how it only takes a few small connections to start changing things.

The things they don't tell you.

I've been struggling with a couple of my classes, trying to keep some semblance of order so we could get on to actually learning some of the skills they'll need to pass their big test at the end of the year. I mean really struggling. When I talk they start talking louder so that they can hear me. The only effective way I have to get one class under control is to shout "QUIET!" every once in a while. I don't like doing it, but nothing else is working yet.

I was even beginning to have doubts about whether or not I could really handle being an urban teacher, wondering if I'd made a huge mistake and if these kids were going to suffer because I wasn't prepared to teach them.

And then one day a couple of older teachers stopped by after school to beat me out of my lunch money.

I'm kidding about that. They asked very politely for my money. I forget exactly what it's for, birthday cakes on our birthdays or something... They have each been teaching for about 30 years, and most of those years in Schenectady High School. We talked about all sorts of teachery things, including my two most unruly classes. That's when one of them said it always takes her at least 3 weeks to get them under control at the beginning of each year.

Why the hell didn't anyone tell me this before? All this time I thought I was screwing up big time and it turns out that this is normal!

Time to relax a little bit.

Small victories

Itty bitty little teeny tiny victories.

They come from out of nowhere. Right? Nobody plans tiny little victories. People who plan victories plan momentous events, worthy of mention in the local paper if not an interview on NBC Nightly News.

So it surprised the hell out of me when Chrissy stopped in after school today. Her class is out of control. And I was pretty sure that she hated me. This is the one that told me (without any sense of irony) that she thought it was rude when teachers interrupt conversations that students are having during class.

She was concerned about her grade on a quiz, but after talking about that I managed to steer her towards talking about why her class is out of control. And I think I got her to come around to the idea that the class is keeping her from learning and that they will respond when she asks them to be quiet. Not all at once or right away, but it will happen.

Hamid feels the same way. Two kids complaining about the behavior of their class may be enough to start getting the class in line. At least I know two kids who really care. That's worth celebrating.

Now, if I hadn't forgotten my wallet I could stop for a cold drink on my way to a late after school meeting. Small victories will have to be celebrated later.

Pop quiz

I am trying hard this week to take some consolation in the fact that every new teacher is supposed to have trouble their first year. Or two. Or four. My trouble classes are not getting better, though they may not be getting worse, either.

An older teacher saw my freshman class for a few minutes yesterday and said to me "It's not you, it's them." It's quite a relief to hear that there's nothing particular I'm doing wrong, but it seems like there's nothing in particular that I'm doing right, either. What I do know right now is that all the techniques that are supposed to work to modify behaviors (proximity, consistency, modelling respect, showing fairness, de-escalating instead of escalating, one-on-one counseling) are not. Raising your voice doesn't work. The kids just talk to each other more loudly so they can hear themselves.

Today's improvised solution: I announced a quiz tomorrow. None of them were listening. I'm not sure how many of them really care about their grades enough to learn a lesson from it, but we'll see.

Founded dumb

Part of today's 11th grade class was a discussion about respect, what it means to show it, what characteristics make someone respectable, etc...

A few of the students complained that a lot of teachers don't respect the students. Emily, chimed in with "Yeah. It's very disrespectful when teachers interrupt our conversations."

"Emily, do you mean before or after the bell has rung?"

"After. I mean it's not like we're going to talk for two hours or anything."

What on Earth do you say to that?

Loving every minute

I managed to land a sweetheart deal with this job. 2 preps, 4 sections of 11th grade and 1 section of 9th. Most teachers have 3. Some are asked to do 4 preps, though our union contract stipulates that they must agree to it and they get extra money. I have my own classroom and am in it for all but one class. I've been told to keep my mouth shut about this as more senior teachers are running all over the place. My classes are capped at 26 students, but only one class even comes close to this. Most are under 20.

This really seems like a cool high school. It's huge, but almost all of them are these days. So they followed the middle school model and broke the scool into 4 houses. I'm in the Fine Arts house, which has an audio and visual production studio, dance studio, instrumental music, choir, and seemingly all of the really cool English courses. Nearly every one of the teachers and staff has been both friendly and helpful. I'm a pretty good judge of when someone's genuinely nice and when they're just being polite, and everyone I have to work with is genuine. This is a biggie.

Here's another biggie: No one seems to care a lot about the specifics of what I teach. There are 3 required books and several more to choose from, but nothing else is defined. Everyone I've spoken to has incredibly helpful suggestions, but it's up to me. Which for me means that it's up to the students. I told them that there are a few things that we have to do, but that they get to have a lot of input on all of the rest of it.

I've got about 100 students and so far I seem to have made at least a small connection with at least half of them already, just by telling them that they get a lot of choice.

I really hate getting up early, but I really love going to work in the morning now. I've definitely found a great place for me.

I am an urban educator

I am an urban educator. I'm not yet sure exactly what that means, but I know I am one because the school superintendent told all of us teachers we are in his introductory speech on the first work day for teachers.

I also know I'm an urban educator because when I tell them that I'm working at Schenectady High School they grunt, sigh, grimace, or in some way offer their condolences. Teachers in suburban schools say things like "Wow. I couldn't do it."

They're right. They couldn't do it. I am doing it.

Getting up to speed

Here's how it happened.

Tuesday, 8/23, 4:45 PM: Voicemail message, you're wanted for an interview at Schenectady High School. Can you make it tomorrow morning?

Tomorrow morning: kind of a weird interview. Reminded me that educators are really bad at the HR thing. Managed to get a couple of key statements in, but it was clear that the interviewers were getting worn out from talking to people and I couldn't engage any of them very well. Was pretty sure I was out of the running.

Thursday afternoon: Eric, this is the school secretary. We'd like you to schedule an interview with the superintendent as soon as possible. Me: How early do you want me there?

Friday morning, 8 AM, interview with the assistant superintendent: He asked scripted questions, wrote shorthand versions of my answers on a form, then signed it before I was done talking. Ended with "You passed the test, you got an A. You'll be getting a call this afternoon."

Note that he didn't actually say that I got the job.

Friday afternoon: no call.

Friday night: I called the ELA coordinator. Nobody told her I'd interviewed with the superintendent yet. She hemmed and hawed for a bit, until I finally said "I understand you can't formally offer me a job until the whole HR process is complete, but where do we stand?" Her: "You're the only one we sent for a 2nd interview. I'll double-check Monday morning, but I'm sure everything's a go. Orientation starts Tuesday at 8:30."

I still don't know exactly what made them give me the first phone call, or what it was that made me beat out the 5 or 6 other people they interviewed, but I'm not letting them take it back.

Sorry for the delay....

It's been almost 4 months since I posted anything. My sincerest apologies to everyone who has been reading and offering support. There was always plenty to say, maybe too much, and sometimes when there's too much I get studck and don't do any of it. The end of the 2005-06 school year was frustrating, to say the least.

1st frustration: I didn't even get an interview in the district where I finished my student teaching. I knew everyone in the English department, had recommendations from the current and past department coordinators, the principal liked me, and I knew the curricula for two of the openings they had. Out of 4 or 5 total positions they filled this year, I didn't even get a call. I didn't push it because I really didn't like the department, but it's disheartening to see that the people you worked with won't even give you the courtesy of an interview.

2nd frustration: Not one of my new batch of students had any motivation to succeed. No matter what techniques I tried, I could only get them to do the barest minimum amount of work, and not nearly enough to pass their finals or regents tests. And I did try every technique in every book I could find. For one reason or another, they were determined to fail and there wasn't much I could do about it.

One of them had a legitimate excuse. Her parents are drug dealers and she has a horrible home life. She also has some sort of emotional disturbance that she lets get the better of her. She actually made the biggest strides and I was incredibly proud to see her starting to succeed at math, something she hasn't done in three years. But she melted down during finals week and failed to show for two of her tests. No good reason, she just didn't show up. Our meeting spot was a quarter mile from her house and the weather was nice. She just didn't manage to make it that day. She did show up for her Math final, but melted down at the end and refused to use all of the alotted time for the problems. I think she could have figured it out if she tried a little more, but she gave up and missed passing by 7 points.

The other two just didn't want to work. One of them actually said this to me while we in the library to do research for his essay: "Mr. G., I didn't know we were going to have to use, like reading books." I'm not sure what kind of books he had in mind.

By the end of the school year I was simply glad to be done. I miss all of my students, but it is a relief not to have to teach them now.