I have to say that overall I am very happy with the administration in my part of the school, at least the lower levels that I deal with. We have a principal who is hands on and excited about learning, we have a dean who has given me a tremendous amount of advice, and a house secretaries who have done an amazing amount of work for me and the rest of the house. It really makes my job a little more bearable, even on the unbearable days.
I wanted to write that before I wrote this rant to give them their fair due.
One of my juniors has missed a ton of class, doesn't do much work, and when she does come to class she spends the whole time talking. She doesn't live at home and her mom already treats her like trash, so she's not threatened by any grades or disciplinary action you can give her.
Obviously, there's lots to worry about. She's definitely at risk of dropping out and I'm pretty sure no one's doing much about it.
So I talked to the dean. I told her my concerns and asked for her advice. We agreed that maybe the best thing would be for the three of us to sit down and talk and see what we can do to help keep this kid on track, and make sure that she knows that there are people who care about her success.
Well, the scheduling didn't work and the dean had the conversation without me. She checked to see if that was okay. Everything's going good so far, right? We've got coordination, we've got mutual respect, and we've got an act formed out of love and concern for this kid.
That lasted apparently right up until the time the kid got to the dean's office, where she said "Mr. Gleason's new here, put yourself in his shoes."
No kidding. There was no "we're worried about your absences and your grades" or "you're following a pattern that's going to lead to dropping out." WTF?! Apparently her talking is caused by me being new.
The dean's either backed me up on everything or given me good advice on everything else. This one is both frustrating and mind-boggling. I hope to God that it's not a sign of things to come.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
"It ain't no stereotype, it's just the truth."
I grew up right next to the tracks. Not on the wrong side, not on the right side. It was kind of a unique place in that these tracks didn't seem to divide the town into "haves" and "have nots." Both sides were the right side. When I got to college on the South side of Chicago I lived near the tracks again, except these tracks didn't have a right side. It was bad news everywhere. I'm amazed that I didn't get my dumb white ass handed to me on the way to the El stop (they don't call it the subway in Chicago) a couple dozen times, or even just walking down the street by campus. It happened to a few people I knew, so I guess I was lucky (or maybe big and intimidating).
There wasn't much diversity in the town where I grew up. Most of us were white and I think there were maybe a few dozen kids of any color at my elementary school. I played with one black boy in my class a few times, but really didn't have much contact with anyone but the white kids. I was shy, and except for seizing every opportunity to be the class clown I couldn't figure out how to make my presence known in a crowd. The crowd of black kids on the playground was awfully loud and intimidating in this respect, so I never got to know any of them. All the loud shouting and carrying on made me want to run back to things I knew.
Fast forward a couple of decades with political correctness run amok, white people can't talk about race without both tripping over euphemisms and facing backlash from all sides. One of the things I love about the kids at my school is that race is so ever-present that they talk about it casually, like it were no big deal. One of the black kids in the class keeps calling a character named Elroy (a white guy from the rural midwest) with Leroy. So I can say to him, "Aaron, Elroy's from the sticks and Leroy's from the hood. The story is out in the sticks," and everyone laughs and we have fun.
The third time Aaron remembers the joke and isn't confused anymore. It's thin ice sometimes and you have to be careful, but as long as you're respectful no one gets their feelings hurt. We can talk about whether or not it's important that 95% of the staff is white while only about 30% of the students are. We can talk about the obvious differences in different cultural groups within a single class as well as the school. We can do it easily, without having to use the words "black" or "hispanic" (or whatever) instead of tripping over phrases that are even more politically-charged like "African-American" or "Latin-American" (a lot of these kids are anti-patriotic and don't like the "American" part, and a lot of black kids say things like "my family came from Brooklyn, I don't have any ties to Africa"). It makes it real easy to get right down to the heart of whatever it is we're talking about. And we do it without fear of mistakenly insulting someone, without tiptoeing around the topic at hand, without resorting to stereotypes, and without pissing each other off.
You might be familiar with the game Taboo. The object is to get your team to say a word by giving clues, but without saying any of the taboo words written on the card. So one of the black kids stands up in front of his team and says without hesitation, "Black people like this."
"FRIED CHICKEN!!!" shouts the team in unison, followed by an unproductive three or four minutes while they all talked about their favorite side dishes and couldn't think about anything but food. Funny how some stereotypes have so much truth in them that it makes it impossible to examine why they're stereotypes with these kids. "It ain't no stereotype, it's just the truth." That's how they feel about it.
There wasn't much diversity in the town where I grew up. Most of us were white and I think there were maybe a few dozen kids of any color at my elementary school. I played with one black boy in my class a few times, but really didn't have much contact with anyone but the white kids. I was shy, and except for seizing every opportunity to be the class clown I couldn't figure out how to make my presence known in a crowd. The crowd of black kids on the playground was awfully loud and intimidating in this respect, so I never got to know any of them. All the loud shouting and carrying on made me want to run back to things I knew.
Fast forward a couple of decades with political correctness run amok, white people can't talk about race without both tripping over euphemisms and facing backlash from all sides. One of the things I love about the kids at my school is that race is so ever-present that they talk about it casually, like it were no big deal. One of the black kids in the class keeps calling a character named Elroy (a white guy from the rural midwest) with Leroy. So I can say to him, "Aaron, Elroy's from the sticks and Leroy's from the hood. The story is out in the sticks," and everyone laughs and we have fun.
The third time Aaron remembers the joke and isn't confused anymore. It's thin ice sometimes and you have to be careful, but as long as you're respectful no one gets their feelings hurt. We can talk about whether or not it's important that 95% of the staff is white while only about 30% of the students are. We can talk about the obvious differences in different cultural groups within a single class as well as the school. We can do it easily, without having to use the words "black" or "hispanic" (or whatever) instead of tripping over phrases that are even more politically-charged like "African-American" or "Latin-American" (a lot of these kids are anti-patriotic and don't like the "American" part, and a lot of black kids say things like "my family came from Brooklyn, I don't have any ties to Africa"). It makes it real easy to get right down to the heart of whatever it is we're talking about. And we do it without fear of mistakenly insulting someone, without tiptoeing around the topic at hand, without resorting to stereotypes, and without pissing each other off.
You might be familiar with the game Taboo. The object is to get your team to say a word by giving clues, but without saying any of the taboo words written on the card. So one of the black kids stands up in front of his team and says without hesitation, "Black people like this."
"FRIED CHICKEN!!!" shouts the team in unison, followed by an unproductive three or four minutes while they all talked about their favorite side dishes and couldn't think about anything but food. Funny how some stereotypes have so much truth in them that it makes it impossible to examine why they're stereotypes with these kids. "It ain't no stereotype, it's just the truth." That's how they feel about it.
My fault
The fight was probably my fault. Fortunately these kids all know each other so well that they know when one of them is about to lose it, so three of them jumped up to hold Daysha back when she started stepping towards Emily.
One of the things that really frustrates me about the culture at this school is that the kids never learn how to de-escalate a conflict. Every statement requires a response, every insult needs to be topped, every threat needs to be one-upped. Things that should be little conflicts at worst blow up quickly.
We were playing a simple game. Two students sit next to each other with dictionaries, I say a word and they race to find the correct spelling. Emily has had some kind of verbal conflict with most of the girls in the class (I hear her say in a confrontational voice about three times a week "I'm dead ass, just try to prove me wrong"), but I don't think I knew the extent to which she was willing to take it. When Emily had beaten two opponents I thought she needed someone on her level to challenge her. Daysha is a bright kid and hadn't said a word all day, so I asked her to try it. Next thing I know Emily was walking away saying something, Daysha was walking towards her saying about the same thing, and then it was "I'll smack you in the face with a book" met with "I'll hit you in the head with a chair," and then shouting and clawing and the three-kid restraining team and the hall monitor and then it was finally done.
All because I thought Daysha could spell as well as Emily and thought some friendly competition might get them focused on something academic.
Stupid fucking mistake.
If I'm being honest with myself, the problem probably was really Emily's short fuse; the more I get to know this kid the more I think that she's a catalyst who needs just the right critical mass to cause a huge explosion, and that critical mass is not small. Too much mass and her explosion will get snuffed, too little and it won't have any fuel to burn. This kid needs an audience.
And she needs a teacher who can help keep her from getting herself in that deep that quickly.
One of the things that really frustrates me about the culture at this school is that the kids never learn how to de-escalate a conflict. Every statement requires a response, every insult needs to be topped, every threat needs to be one-upped. Things that should be little conflicts at worst blow up quickly.
We were playing a simple game. Two students sit next to each other with dictionaries, I say a word and they race to find the correct spelling. Emily has had some kind of verbal conflict with most of the girls in the class (I hear her say in a confrontational voice about three times a week "I'm dead ass, just try to prove me wrong"), but I don't think I knew the extent to which she was willing to take it. When Emily had beaten two opponents I thought she needed someone on her level to challenge her. Daysha is a bright kid and hadn't said a word all day, so I asked her to try it. Next thing I know Emily was walking away saying something, Daysha was walking towards her saying about the same thing, and then it was "I'll smack you in the face with a book" met with "I'll hit you in the head with a chair," and then shouting and clawing and the three-kid restraining team and the hall monitor and then it was finally done.
All because I thought Daysha could spell as well as Emily and thought some friendly competition might get them focused on something academic.
Stupid fucking mistake.
If I'm being honest with myself, the problem probably was really Emily's short fuse; the more I get to know this kid the more I think that she's a catalyst who needs just the right critical mass to cause a huge explosion, and that critical mass is not small. Too much mass and her explosion will get snuffed, too little and it won't have any fuel to burn. This kid needs an audience.
And she needs a teacher who can help keep her from getting herself in that deep that quickly.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
defecits
Like most boys, I think, I always thought my father had some incredibly obnoxious habits, particularly when it came to how he dealt with me. Probably the most intolerable (and cause of the most fights) was how he always focussed on what I didn't do instead of what I did accomplish. If I'd bring home a math test that was a 95%, he'd say "why wasn't it a hundred?" Keep in mind that I was not a particularly good student throughout most of high school, even though every standardized test I ever took was scored in the 99th percentile.
That's one hell of a whammy to lay on your kid, always asking why a B wasn't an A and why an A wasn't perfect. There was never any real follow up to help me get perfect scores, I just had to live with the imperfections and constant disappointment. I think it's like catholics and guilt, and it's something I still carry with me to this day. If I don't do something perfectly I'm like as not to worry about that little bit that wasn't right and forget about the rest. Everything I wrote before about counting your victories is crap and I really don't believe it most days. I want to believe, but I really don't, not deep down.
I "only" got a 3.89 GPA in grad school. And I'm pissed at myself about it. I could have gotten a 4.0 if I'd worked at it.
Because I keep carrying this big whammy around with me it's tough to leave work most days with a sense of accomplishment, even though my dean and my mentor teacher keep telling me that I'm doing a good job and tell me the horror stories of other first year teachers. I keep looking in my gradebook and see that at least a third of my students aren't doing their homework, and I really feel like there's some way in which I'm failing them because I can't inspire them (or coerce them) to get to work. I've connected on some level with most of my students, but some of my struggling students are still deliberately keeping me at a distance and the frustration that I can't reach them at all is making me grind my teeth some days.
On the flip side, I know that the first year or two are supposed to be hard, almost hellish sometimes, and some days I feel like what should have gone incredibly badly was really okay and I'm trying to think of that as an accomplishment. A few of my failing students are starting to do enough work to pass my class but aren't working so hard in their other classes. A few others aren't doing any work but they're opening up to me, and I have a feeling that someday soon I'll find that opening that will allow me to convince them to put in enough effort to pass. Small victories.
That isn't enough to fill me with the sense of price and accomplishment I want to feel from the job I feel like I was born to do, but it's a start. Sunny days help a lot, too.
That's one hell of a whammy to lay on your kid, always asking why a B wasn't an A and why an A wasn't perfect. There was never any real follow up to help me get perfect scores, I just had to live with the imperfections and constant disappointment. I think it's like catholics and guilt, and it's something I still carry with me to this day. If I don't do something perfectly I'm like as not to worry about that little bit that wasn't right and forget about the rest. Everything I wrote before about counting your victories is crap and I really don't believe it most days. I want to believe, but I really don't, not deep down.
I "only" got a 3.89 GPA in grad school. And I'm pissed at myself about it. I could have gotten a 4.0 if I'd worked at it.
Because I keep carrying this big whammy around with me it's tough to leave work most days with a sense of accomplishment, even though my dean and my mentor teacher keep telling me that I'm doing a good job and tell me the horror stories of other first year teachers. I keep looking in my gradebook and see that at least a third of my students aren't doing their homework, and I really feel like there's some way in which I'm failing them because I can't inspire them (or coerce them) to get to work. I've connected on some level with most of my students, but some of my struggling students are still deliberately keeping me at a distance and the frustration that I can't reach them at all is making me grind my teeth some days.
On the flip side, I know that the first year or two are supposed to be hard, almost hellish sometimes, and some days I feel like what should have gone incredibly badly was really okay and I'm trying to think of that as an accomplishment. A few of my failing students are starting to do enough work to pass my class but aren't working so hard in their other classes. A few others aren't doing any work but they're opening up to me, and I have a feeling that someday soon I'll find that opening that will allow me to convince them to put in enough effort to pass. Small victories.
That isn't enough to fill me with the sense of price and accomplishment I want to feel from the job I feel like I was born to do, but it's a start. Sunny days help a lot, too.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
How I got the job
I never knew what it was that caused the school district to call me out of the 100 or so applicants they had for the job, or how on Earth I managed to win the job when competing against at least 4 other teachers who had experience. This particularly didn't make any sense when they hadn't seen my transcript or recommendations.
It just happens that my new mentor was one of the interviewers and this came up while we were talking this week. She said "We thought you didn't really say very much," (no one has ever accused me of being brief or un-talkative...) "but you were the only one that didn't shoot themselves in the foot." So I got the job because I was the only one that didn't screw up in the interview.
Good enough, I'll take it. I would have rather heard something about how they liked my philosophies and pedagogy, but the bottom line is that I've got the job and I'm keeping it.
It just happens that my new mentor was one of the interviewers and this came up while we were talking this week. She said "We thought you didn't really say very much," (no one has ever accused me of being brief or un-talkative...) "but you were the only one that didn't shoot themselves in the foot." So I got the job because I was the only one that didn't screw up in the interview.
Good enough, I'll take it. I would have rather heard something about how they liked my philosophies and pedagogy, but the bottom line is that I've got the job and I'm keeping it.
Monday, October 02, 2006
When you really know fear...
Kainen was absent from class one day last week. He's a good kid, plays on the varsity soccer team, real enthusiastic and seems to like class. He's one of the ones you miss when he's not there. For a lot of my students absences are almost as common as the days they're in class, so there are sometimes a lot of kids to miss.
I saw him in the hall at the end of the day and asked him why he missed my class. The story he told me was not one I was prepared for. He had an excellent reason for missing class. See, the police had to interview him to complete the report about the incident when another kid on the soccer team pulled a knife on him and held it to his throat.
Real slow, in case you missed that... One of his teammates threatened his life with a deadly weapon on school grounds.
Holy what-the-hell, Batman!
The police arrested the teammate and I heard that he was under house arrest, but word is that this kid is connected with a gang, maybe a new one in the school. There's plenty of reason to worry about retaliation, and Kainen was worried about it. They had an away game that night and he was worried about being on the bus with the knife-wielder's friends and I can't blame him. When a lighthearted and happy kid is worried, it shows easily.
So you can imagine what went through my mind when Kainen missed class the next day. Like I said, absences are common so there was no need to panic, but the worst definitely entered my mind. There's a different kind of fear that can start to set in when something like this happens, and it's not one I've ever felt before. Fortunately that test pilot side of me managed to keep things on an even keel while I got the right information, but this kind of fear is hard to keep at bay.
Our computer system allows us to track attendance througout the day and showed that he missed all of his classes. I spoke to my principal, but she never followed up on it. I just wanted to make sure the kid was alright.
Fortunately, a phone call to his mom after school was all it took to find out that the kid was stressed out so she let him stay home. (Why the principal didn't make that call in the middle of the day when I spoke to her about it is another issue.) In fact, it was heartwarming to find that both Kainen and his mom were grateful for the call and went out of their way to make sure I knew how much it meant to them.
But all that is really just back story, because here's what makes me really afraid. It was in the paper and someone in each of my classes knew the story so we talked about it in class. The sort of things I was hearing were "It was just a kitchen knife. What idiot brings a kitchen knife to school?!" and "I wouldn't have snitched on him. Snitches go down, that's just how it is. It's better to live with the fear than to tell the cops."
One more time: Holy what-the-hell, Batman!
Obviously, there's lots of work to be done with this community, and I'm not sure that either the school or I are well-equipped to do that work.
I saw him in the hall at the end of the day and asked him why he missed my class. The story he told me was not one I was prepared for. He had an excellent reason for missing class. See, the police had to interview him to complete the report about the incident when another kid on the soccer team pulled a knife on him and held it to his throat.
Real slow, in case you missed that... One of his teammates threatened his life with a deadly weapon on school grounds.
Holy what-the-hell, Batman!
The police arrested the teammate and I heard that he was under house arrest, but word is that this kid is connected with a gang, maybe a new one in the school. There's plenty of reason to worry about retaliation, and Kainen was worried about it. They had an away game that night and he was worried about being on the bus with the knife-wielder's friends and I can't blame him. When a lighthearted and happy kid is worried, it shows easily.
So you can imagine what went through my mind when Kainen missed class the next day. Like I said, absences are common so there was no need to panic, but the worst definitely entered my mind. There's a different kind of fear that can start to set in when something like this happens, and it's not one I've ever felt before. Fortunately that test pilot side of me managed to keep things on an even keel while I got the right information, but this kind of fear is hard to keep at bay.
Our computer system allows us to track attendance througout the day and showed that he missed all of his classes. I spoke to my principal, but she never followed up on it. I just wanted to make sure the kid was alright.
Fortunately, a phone call to his mom after school was all it took to find out that the kid was stressed out so she let him stay home. (Why the principal didn't make that call in the middle of the day when I spoke to her about it is another issue.) In fact, it was heartwarming to find that both Kainen and his mom were grateful for the call and went out of their way to make sure I knew how much it meant to them.
But all that is really just back story, because here's what makes me really afraid. It was in the paper and someone in each of my classes knew the story so we talked about it in class. The sort of things I was hearing were "It was just a kitchen knife. What idiot brings a kitchen knife to school?!" and "I wouldn't have snitched on him. Snitches go down, that's just how it is. It's better to live with the fear than to tell the cops."
One more time: Holy what-the-hell, Batman!
Obviously, there's lots of work to be done with this community, and I'm not sure that either the school or I are well-equipped to do that work.
paper clips
It seems that nearly every other teacher I see has a highly complex system of organization that would make any mid-level manager of a state agency very proud. They are particularly good at the creative implementation of paper clips along with all sorts of other calendars, plan books, grade books, and files and files and files.
So far I have 6 files, a couple of spreadsheets, a calendar that I always forget to use, and have not figured out why paper clips are so important in a teacher's life.
So far I have 6 files, a couple of spreadsheets, a calendar that I always forget to use, and have not figured out why paper clips are so important in a teacher's life.
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