May102010

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So. January 5 was the last post.  One of my New Year’s Resolutions (of… 12?) was to write regularly here.  Most of my resolutions have gone the way of this one too.  But there’s a REASON.  Its because I’ve felt like the above picture for most of the school year.  In fact, the only reason I can write right now is because a) I have a cold or maybe sinus infection and nasty cough and am waiting for a doctor appt instead of being at work and b) the AP class officially ended Friday.   This is going to be the topic of today’s post, though I created a list of many others to posthumously write about later.  Less real time, more reflecting on a year, let’s say. AP stands for Advanced Placement (found out how to link!).  You might have taken one of these classes - college level courses in high school that terminate in an exam that if you score a 3,4, or 5 on, will result in college credit.   In recent years, there has been an attempt to democratize APs by expanding them to more schools, particularly schools with students of color from low income neighborhoods.  My schools is one such place, where the goal is to offer students these kinds of classes in order to prepare them to be successful in college.  The students that I got in my AP class in September were - for the most part - the students who received the best grades in their classes for the previous two years.  For the first essay that the students wrote, on a nine point rubric, most scored from a zero to a two.  I think maybe two students got a two.  Even at the top of their class, their skills were nowhere near where they needed to be to be in a college level course.  Apparently, as we get to the later part of the story, this was *supposed* to alert me to lower my standards.   However, I had been to a summer institute about how to teach the class with a guy who has taught somewhere in the ‘burbs of Southern California for 15 years and I sort of understood that there was a particular standard to AP. I mean…. there are sample questions to use on exams. There is a RUBRIC for essays and example essays.  I felt like it was pretty clear. I worked these kids hard all year.  And was sometimes mean. Sometimes supportive. Pretty much always relentless.  There were lots of moments throughout the year where they got real annoyed at me when I would do something like assign essays on top of 50 pages of reading and notes.  Or tell them two days before about a certain section of history that they needed to memorize 40 dates from.  At some point in the year, I had them rewrite every essay that they weren’t scoring a five on (this was still most of the class) and we were still doing an essay a week on top of that… so they had a lot of work.  Some kids responded to all of this by continuing to do their best throughout the whole year, even when it seemed like they were stuck.  Others would spend some chunks of time falling into despair and feeling like it was pointless for them to do anything.  In the end, though, every student had at least a few moments where they saw progress.  Saw that essay move from a 1 to a 4.  Had their multiple choice score jump up.  Scored 100 on a quiz.  Or even just an 80 was a big deal for most.  In April, I put up a bulletin board showing their trek throughout the year with our essay writing.  The “marathon” showed my students starting at 0-2 scores and moving to 5-7.  Low and behold, a representative from the College Board - the people who make the AP program, who sponsored this summer institute where I learned what the standard was, and who write the exam - came in to our school.  She looked at information about my class and saw that the kids grades overall had been really low.  She said, “This teacher must be one of the few in the city who is teaching this class the way its supposed to be taught !”  Turns out, this was not a compliment.  This consultant’s overall complaint about our school - and especially around my class - was that our standards are too high.  Her argument was that kids around the city are doing the same or less work and getting better grades, which means that we are unfairly setting our kids up to compete for entrance into college.  Really, my colleagues were told, we have to be realistic about how many of *our* kids from *these* neighborhoods would be able to pass an AP test. In the next breath, though, this woman is talking about how we need to make sure our kids are sent places where they will “have a lot of support” so they aren’t overwhelmed with the work that college requires.  In her formula, the goal is to make sure the standards are low so that they just get into college no matter how prepared they are and then just cross our fingers that they make it.  This sounded to me like it was straight out of some 1980s movie about people who didn’t believe in a group of kids because of where they were from.  There’s a voiceover: Everybody told them they couldn’t do it…. enter shadowy shot of kids entering the front door of a school and slow motion walking to class…. and….You get the idea. But NO. This shit happens in 2010 with a representative from an organization that is supposed to be promoting equity in education. The kids’ AP scores won’t come out until July.  AP US History is the most failed AP in the nation, but most of my kids came out of the testing room smiling (albeit with a large dose of exhaustion).  Even if they didn’t get their 3s and above, I know that putting them through this process and not lowering the expectations of what they COULD accomplish has helped prepare them to do well in college.  And if those scores come back and they passed, I’m gonna fucking rub it in this woman’s face…in a non-violent, don’t you ever question what my kids can do sort of way, of course.

So. January 5 was the last post.  One of my New Year’s Resolutions (of… 12?) was to write regularly here.  Most of my resolutions have gone the way of this one too.  But there’s a REASON.  Its because I’ve felt like the above picture for most of the school year.  In fact, the only reason I can write right now is because a) I have a cold or maybe sinus infection and nasty cough and am waiting for a doctor appt instead of being at work and b) the AP class officially ended Friday.   This is going to be the topic of today’s post, though I created a list of many others to posthumously write about later.  Less real time, more reflecting on a year, let’s say.

AP stands for Advanced Placement (found out how to link!).  You might have taken one of these classes - college level courses in high school that terminate in an exam that if you score a 3,4, or 5 on, will result in college credit.   In recent years, there has been an attempt to democratize APs by expanding them to more schools, particularly schools with students of color from low income neighborhoods.  My schools is one such place, where the goal is to offer students these kinds of classes in order to prepare them to be successful in college. 

The students that I got in my AP class in September were - for the most part - the students who received the best grades in their classes for the previous two years.  For the first essay that the students wrote, on a nine point rubric, most scored from a zero to a two.  I think maybe two students got a two.  Even at the top of their class, their skills were nowhere near where they needed to be to be in a college level course.  Apparently, as we get to the later part of the story, this was *supposed* to alert me to lower my standards.   However, I had been to a summer institute about how to teach the class with a guy who has taught somewhere in the ‘burbs of Southern California for 15 years and I sort of understood that there was a particular standard to AP. I mean…. there are sample questions to use on exams. There is a RUBRIC for essays and example essays.  I felt like it was pretty clear.

I worked these kids hard all year.  And was sometimes mean. Sometimes supportive. Pretty much always relentless.  There were lots of moments throughout the year where they got real annoyed at me when I would do something like assign essays on top of 50 pages of reading and notes.  Or tell them two days before about a certain section of history that they needed to memorize 40 dates from.  At some point in the year, I had them rewrite every essay that they weren’t scoring a five on (this was still most of the class) and we were still doing an essay a week on top of that… so they had a lot of work.  Some kids responded to all of this by continuing to do their best throughout the whole year, even when it seemed like they were stuck.  Others would spend some chunks of time falling into despair and feeling like it was pointless for them to do anything.  In the end, though, every student had at least a few moments where they saw progress.  Saw that essay move from a 1 to a 4.  Had their multiple choice score jump up.  Scored 100 on a quiz.  Or even just an 80 was a big deal for most.  In April, I put up a bulletin board showing their trek throughout the year with our essay writing.  The “marathon” showed my students starting at 0-2 scores and moving to 5-7. 

Low and behold, a representative from the College Board - the people who make the AP program, who sponsored this summer institute where I learned what the standard was, and who write the exam - came in to our school.  She looked at information about my class and saw that the kids grades overall had been really low.  She said, “This teacher must be one of the few in the city who is teaching this class the way its supposed to be taught !”  Turns out, this was not a compliment.  This consultant’s overall complaint about our school - and especially around my class - was that our standards are too high.  Her argument was that kids around the city are doing the same or less work and getting better grades, which means that we are unfairly setting our kids up to compete for entrance into college.  Really, my colleagues were told, we have to be realistic about how many of *our* kids from *these* neighborhoods would be able to pass an AP test.

In the next breath, though, this woman is talking about how we need to make sure our kids are sent places where they will “have a lot of support” so they aren’t overwhelmed with the work that college requires.  In her formula, the goal is to make sure the standards are low so that they just get into college no matter how prepared they are and then just cross our fingers that they make it. 

This sounded to me like it was straight out of some 1980s movie about people who didn’t believe in a group of kids because of where they were from.  There’s a voiceover: Everybody told them they couldn’t do it…. enter shadowy shot of kids entering the front door of a school and slow motion walking to class…. and….You get the idea. But NO. This shit happens in 2010 with a representative from an organization that is supposed to be promoting equity in education.

The kids’ AP scores won’t come out until July.  AP US History is the most failed AP in the nation, but most of my kids came out of the testing room smiling (albeit with a large dose of exhaustion).  Even if they didn’t get their 3s and above, I know that putting them through this process and not lowering the expectations of what they COULD accomplish has helped prepare them to do well in college.  And if those scores come back and they passed, I’m gonna fucking rub it in this woman’s face…in a non-violent, don’t you ever question what my kids can do sort of way, of course.

January52010

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aaand. we’re back.

after vacation + one more day due to travel problems, I trudged back to school today.  Day was mostly fine, though energy is low all around and everyone’s mood hovers around grumpy.  None of that “rejuvenated to tackle the new year” stuff around here.  After spending precious minutes going over the plan for the next two weeks leading up to finals with all of my classes, I was then alerted near the end of the day that…

*surprise!!!* finals are NEXT WEEK INSTEAD!  leaving another full week AFTER finals before the semester ends… where we’re supposed to…. twiddle our thumbs?

The worst part about this whole thing is that they have been doing PD (professional development) after PD about long term planning and following unit plans and making sure we’re planning for success.  They’re requiring monthly calendars now to be turned in, something I have no problem doing since I do it on my own anyways, but I’m not *quite* sure the point if they are going to change things around at the very last second like this ALL. THE. TIME.  Carefully planning each day leading up to a final exam so students doesn’t really work if you move the final up by a week.

Also, once again, it was left to the teachers to figure out how much time we should give for each exam and to coordinate our own schedules accordingly - switching classes and pulling kids who need additional time from other classes, etc.  In most high schools, they have a school wide finals schedule.

You know what was really bad, though? Usually, I’m infuriated by this kind of thing. Like, why do they do these things that don’t make sense and hurt our kids?! and me (and other teachers…. but I’m a little self-centered at times)?! I thought those questions today but sort of uttered them out with a sigh instead of outright indignation, like this was expected, like this shouldn’t be something for me to be angry about anymore.

*cue: burnout*

Tags: /burnout /Daily Grind

December212009

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ZOMG! Learning styles theory is bunk?? »

Have you all ever heard about learning styles? Normally associated with Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences, it basically says that people learn in different ways (verbal, musical, auditory, interpersonal, intrapersonal, etc.) and part of a teacher’s job is to find engaging ways to teach that hit on a bunch of these so that everyone learns…

This is like some BREAD AND BUTTER educational theory that apparently is WRONG.  And apparently (according to above linked article),  “… the report adds, the “widespread use of learning-style measures in educational settings is unwise and a wasteful use of limited resources.”

I’ve seriously been taught this about teaching since I was 17 and teaching summer school to middle schoolers in Sacramento.

Crazy.

Oh yeah, some shit happened at school today (because - have you noticed yet? there’s actually something EVERY.DAY.), but its the Monday before break begins and I can’t even let my brain go to that depressed place right now. Gotta read GoogleReader some more for tidbits like this and then eventually force myself to work.

December172009

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my first picture! pilfered but here, nonetheless. The MTA is down $400 million and then on top of that the state is in a total mess so part of their solution is to end free student metro cards ! (click picture for the story). My advisory period today turned into a full blown discussion about this topic and how unjust it is, how its going to make more students drop out than the already low graduation rate we have now, how they need to tax the rich more or make someone not earn as much money, how families don’t have any extra income to give for this, how the city needs to provide “cheese buses” for every student, etc. As we started winding towards the end of the period, one of my students, K, says, “But what’s the point in talking about all of this if we’re not going to DO something.”  I told students potential organizing options and they settled on the first step of the petition (before, you know walking out of school and storming the MTA building, another suggestion) that they will create and circulate around our school and tell their friends from other schools to do the same. In the midst of this conversation, my students asked me if they could take this up in Albany.  Most of the students in my advisory were also in my 8th grade class last year, where we took two trips to Albany to lobby with Domestic Workers United during the state legislative lobby days.  We talked to politicians, rallied, and marched, and they still sing the songs from that day. It warmed my heart to the nth degree today to see them talking about what those women did to organize their efforts and how they could do something similar here. That, as one small example, is my dream of being a teacher fulfilled.

my first picture! pilfered but here, nonetheless.

The MTA is down $400 million and then on top of that the state is in a total mess so part of their solution is to end free student metro cards ! (click picture for the story).

My advisory period today turned into a full blown discussion about this topic and how unjust it is, how its going to make more students drop out than the already low graduation rate we have now, how they need to tax the rich more or make someone not earn as much money, how families don’t have any extra income to give for this, how the city needs to provide “cheese buses” for every student, etc.

As we started winding towards the end of the period, one of my students, K, says, “But what’s the point in talking about all of this if we’re not going to DO something.”  I told students potential organizing options and they settled on the first step of the petition (before, you know walking out of school and storming the MTA building, another suggestion) that they will create and circulate around our school and tell their friends from other schools to do the same.

In the midst of this conversation, my students asked me if they could take this up in Albany.  Most of the students in my advisory were also in my 8th grade class last year, where we took two trips to Albany to lobby with Domestic Workers United during the state legislative lobby days.  We talked to politicians, rallied, and marched, and they still sing the songs from that day. It warmed my heart to the nth degree today to see them talking about what those women did to organize their efforts and how they could do something similar here.

That, as one small example, is my dream of being a teacher fulfilled.

December152009

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brief summaries: my school and the city.

First, the school update: You remember the hope (this is where I would link to another post if I knew how?!) about the survey and the possibility of feedback, etc.  Here’s what happened after that:

1. small changes: principal feedback on meeting notes, a suggestion box in the main office, announcements emailed to the staff

2. heard from another meeting that I put my spies (kidding) in: teacher morale is low on the high school, according to members of the administration, because teachers are spending all their time BEING negative instead of DOING something positive.  read: its our fault.

My grade team was actually called out as the bright spot of the high school because we’re proactive and create magical solutions (We’ve started calling ourselves the dream team. Even asked the AP for matching jerseys).  Had I been there, I might have said something to the effect of: HA! We’re trying new things out and working ourselves to the bone creating solutions that are making you smile, but we’re the least happy OF EVERYONE. Some of these things ARE NOT OUR JOB AND WE’RE GOING TO BURN OUT AND LEAVE.

sorry for the all caps.  I’m a little disgruntled today for a variety of reasons, one of which is wondering why school is still happening for another week aka break needs to be here now.

and here’s what you might have missed in the city:

**The governor is withholding schools aid because of the state budget shortfall:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/nyregion/14budget.html?_r=1

**new york is trying to win a lot of obama/duncan education money (called Race to the Top, or RttT), through the aforementioned teacher tenure linked to test score initiative and substantially increasing the number of charter schools:

http://gothamschools.org/2009/12/14/regents-urge-legislature-to-double-number-of-charters/

**the mayor/chancellor team is closing down 20 SCHOOLS! including some of the last large high schools in the city.

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/145920

… to be replaced by those charters from the RttT proposal? Doesn’t that timing just work out so nicely for the new initiatives of Bloomberg and Klein! God, now if only they were good for educating all of the city’s students….

Tags: /small reforms /blame the teachers /The Reformers /Race to the Top

December92009

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high/low

This post was originally going to be called “bright spots” or something like that because I wanted to write - for once-  about the few things that make me happy and make me excited to teach: the students.   Then, I got some news this morning and needed to change the post to “high/low.”  In advisory, we do something called check-ins, where a question is asked and everyone around the circle answers before we move onto our activity.  One of the more frequent check ins is high-low - you say whats going really well right now and what, well, sucks.

So. High: I’ll use two examples of students as a positive example of “don’t stop believin’”  First, B is a student in my regular 11th grade US History class.  She’s failed the first two marking periods, not turned in any major assingments, bombed tests, and does inconsistent classwork.  Rub her the wrong way and this girl has an attitude like you’ve never seen.  Throughout, though, I’ve been trying to provide her with opportunities to show what she does know in the classroom and be able to show this off in front of other students.  Without getting all pop psychology, both her attitude and incomplete work seem to be a cover up for some severe self-esteem issues.  In short, she thinks she can’t do it and will fail at it, but would never say that or ask for help to cover it up.  So little by little, I’ve been sending her notes in class when she does well, or asking her to share the answer when I see she has it right on her paper, and been conferencing with her about what to do better.  I asked her last week what I could do to make sure she succeeded this marking period, and she said, “I think its just something I need to do for myself.”  I told her to keep thinking if there was anything she needed, and that I wanted her to know that I really believed that she could do it.  She smiled - a rarity for her - and has been smiling more in class as she gets more and more answers correct and does more and more work.  Its early in the marking period.  We’re just a week or two in.  But I really hope that her building confidence continues to show through in the work that she’s putting in. 

Second example: C was put into my Advanced Placement US History course at the start of the year by his last Global History teacher, even though he has failed a number of classes in his first couple of years here.  The kids laughed at the placement, his parents questioned it, and even he asked me why he was here.  At first, he wasnt completing enough work and was scoring pretty low on just about everything.  His comments in class were random and seemingly without point.  As the semester has gone on, though, he is getting some of the highest grades in the class on exams, essays, and quizzes.  He regularly participates in discussions in a way that really contributes to the class, and I really enjoy having him around.  His aim is to get an A in AP because when he’s off task, I often ask him if he’s got an A and has time to be wasting.  He says I wont have any reason to make him be quiet then.  ha.  I’m hard on him and hard on the class in general because I expect a lot out of them… and we have so far to go.  The AP essay grading scale goes up to nine.  Most of the kids first essays were at a 0-1.  We’re at around a 1-6 range now in the class, with some students showing a lot of improvement if they’re willing to put in the work.  It feels great for me to be able to congratulate and praise students like C and see them take that and do even more.

So, the low: I found out this morning that one of my students was arrested yesterday.  The teacher I spoke with wasn’t sure, but she said what she had heard was that it was for assault and robbery.  I’m not even sure I know what to say about this right now except that it makes me really sad and scared.  This kid has multiple personalities, depending on the day and the class period, even.  What I’ve seen in the hallways or with other teachers is that one of these personalities is very angry.  This is not USUALLY what he is like though.  He may be annoying sometimes, but he’s just a goof.  He’s not a bad kid.  What scares me is that if he gets some kind of time for this that will all shift.  And I dont know what happens then for the rest of his future.  His mom was here for parent teacher conferences and talked about how much she wants him to to graduate, to go be a responsible man in the world.  I can’t imagine how crushing something like this would be to his family if even I feel like I’m reeling from it…. 

Tags: /positive reinforcement /outside the school /student improvement

December72009

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Report shows wide disparity in college achievement »

Article from the post about success rates in college.  Some clips:

*About 45 percent of low-income and underrepresented minority students entering as freshmen in 1999 had received bachelor’s degrees six years later at the colleges studied, compared with 57 percent of other students.

*Only 7 percent of minority students who entered community colleges received bachelor’s degrees within 10 years.

*BUT! Giving kids the money they need to pay for school helps: Pell recipients at community colleges completed their studies at a rate of 32 percent, the same as other students. Pell students who transferred to four-year colleges also graduated at the same rate, 60 percent, as other students.

Tags: /achievement gap /college readiness /money

December62009

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inconclusive attempts at improvement

I have a potential reason to be hopeful !! At the end of a really useless professional development on Friday about discipline from the deans (have I mentioned the high school dean before? I’m not sure what she does cause she’s not really in the halls checking for anything except uniforms - more on this in a minute), we were shepherded into the computer lab to take an online survey from the administration about the current state of the school.  Questions included ranking how supported we feel, how our classes are going, etc.  Though initially skeptical, page two was full of open ended questions! Rejoice! Nothing makes this disgruntled, talkative and opinionated teacher more happy than being able to tell the people who can change it EXACTLY what the problems are AND even provide potential solutions (could we make it any easier?!) since they don’t seem to know it themselves.  My responses included lots of words like “emergency” and “low morale” and “failing” etc. It also included the following, which is a summary of sorts of most of my problems with the school right now:

On Thursday’s community meeting, the dean talked at length with the students about the uniform policy and rattled off the ways that it would be daily monitored, that no excuses would be accepted, and the myriad of consequences that would follow for students who were not dressed appropriately.  She said that she is taking a stand for what the school stands for.  I stood at the front my class in some kind of shock, thinking, “Our school stands for … uniforms? That’s it?” If we’re actually about educating our kids and not just making sure they’re wearing the right t-shirt, we need MANY MANY MORE school wide priorities and policies related to students ACADEMIC achievement.  A kid failing but in his uniform still isn’t going to graduate.

Thursday is also the day that I have my inquiry team meeting.  The inquiry team is a group that looks at the school’s data in depth and produces sub-groupings, a focus on the bottom third of our school, and lots of pretty graphs and reports to show visitors and put in large binders.  We’re supposed to use this to learn more about the kids and, based on this information, what we should do to teach them better (which, of course, means a higher standardized test score).  Most of the inquiry team meetings are taken up by discussions of the middle school data.  When I asked the head data specialist (our creative writing teacher - everyone’s got multiple roles here) about what the data focus was going to be for the high school, she replied, “They’re not doing any school wide focus on the high school.  They’re going to leave it up to the individual teachers to decide who to focus on in their own data analysis.”  She paused for a second after seeing my facial expression and continued, “It seems like they’re really just focusing on making the middle school strong so that it can feed into the high school later.  They’re pretty much ignoring the current high school.”

See why its so hard to have hope here?!! !! I am generally an optimistic person though and so my new hope is this: the chorus of high school teachers writing all that is wrong in the SURVEYS (as opposed to the meeting notes where similar things have been written but seem to fall on deaf ears) will become so CLEAR and URGENT in the eyes of the administration and CHANGE WILL HAPPEN. YES WE CAN!

Tags: /small reforms /optomism /priorities

December12009

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on coming back.

I had a really wonderful Thanksgiving. After spending a full day in the kitchen, the meal was a total success (23 lb. turkey, Parmesan mashed potatoes, roasted root vegetables, garlic cauliflower, apple sausage stuffing, sauteed kale, orange and pear cranberry sauce, glazed carrots…. and a chocolate pecan pie - I did not make this - with 18 year old aged scotch brought by one of the feast eaters) and in addition to spending time with all of the people at the dinner table, I got to see a number of other LA-ers that I get sporadic moments with.  The weather was mostly sunny and beautiful, though sometimes I overestimated the “I live in New York so am impervious to California weather” bit.  I took an extra day so in total, it was five days off.  I did absolutely nothing related to school at all after working my ass off the week before to get it all done.  For a moment, it felt like summer all over again.

Yes, and then I came home.  Got back to Brooklyn around 10:30 last night.  Was giving a test in one class today so that was covered and pulled together the rest so I could get to bed by 12.  Reality comes fast and sleep is fleeting for teachers returning from any break.

And yes, then I went to school.  After leaving early and feeling very good about my positive start to the month of December and all of the problems that we could collectively solve before the New Year, someone got sick on my train and they discontinued service on the entire 2/3 line…the only train that directly goes from my house to school.  Four trains and a hike later, I made it to work barely on time.  How quickly optimism gives way to anxiety and depression.

The second marking period ends today, and with it is coming a list of too many students with 55 next to their names (for those who don’t know… even if a student gets a 5% in the class, its a 55).  We had a grade team meeting at lunch.  During these weekly meetings, all the teachers of one grade get together, diagnose problems and try to solve them.  Considering the lack of feedback on the administration level when we write EVERY WEEK please let there be a school wide attendance and late policy or some action on this issue, since it is crippling the 11th grade, the English teacher and I had been hashing out a new plan of our own. There are large posterboards tracking each student visibly and color coded levels and consequences and rewards.  This probably doesnt mean anything to you if you’re not in education, but suffice it to say, we’re trying anything possible as lowly classroom teachers to make some kind of change in the patterns of failure that we’re seeing.

In response to some recent calls for change, the principal actually came to our meeting today.  She promised administrative support for the rewards and consequences part and was impressed with the initiative that we are taking. Which was… nice.  I’m feeling fairly jaded so I treat all of these things with…. tentative appreciation.

In other areas of the school, a student in the 9th grade came back to school today who had been at an out of school suspension site for the past couple of months for hitting a teacher.  The Department of Education issues these long term suspensions less and less.  The deans suspect its because there’s just too many of them across the city.  This child, however, has had a history of hitting teachers, so she got the time.  No teacher was given a heads up that she was coming back.  By third period, she had attacked and spit on another student during a class.  She was back in the classroom 4th period. The school is working right now to get her classified as needing a 12:1:1 setting.  This means that she needs a classroom with twelve students, one teacher and one para-professional.  I don’t know this student personally. What I know is what other teachers and students (my old students from the 8th grade class I taught last year) tell me: she’s a 9th grade holdover, consistently disruptive in class, lashes out at just about everybody, and is not passing again this year.

We learn about inclusion a lot in education courses.  Inclusion is the idea that you don’t have to sequester away students who have some kind of disability.  The school can work with them in a whole classroom to the benefit of every student - heterogeneous groups mean that students help each other learn and in the process, they themselves learn the material better in addition to gaining critical social skills about how to problem solve and collaborate with other people.  There are some great examples of this.  Cooperative Team Teaching (or CTT) allows two teachers to be in the room of an inclusion classroom, helping all students learn the material.  Its all supposed to be seamless and interwoven and no one knows who is who.  There are other instances, though, in the case of the aforementioned student, where learning for a group of 34 (because, yes, that’s how many are in this class) becomes impossible because of one student.  Whether or not inclusion for all students would be the ideal, the classroom teachers that I see do not have nearly enough of the people and other support resources necessary to make that happen.  And as a result, the student is failing, the teachers are not teaching as well as they can, and even the most motivated students are frustrated that they can’t learn either.

With everything else that has been going on in the school, one teacher told the assistant principal today that if there is not a solution figured out about this student - like not putting them back into class after they spit on a student -  that’s she’s leaving at the end of this semester.  Its not just about the student, but, as she said, “its the last straw.”

And so… in a day that started with optimism, and maybe even a little progress, I still left feeling like maybe our school was on the brink of another disaster.

Tags: /daily grind /discipline and consequences /inclusion /small reforms

November262009

link

linking teacher tenure to test scores in nyc! »

Its 6:20 and I’m supposed to be getting ready so that I can go brine a turkey in Valencia.  Stopped off at the nytimes (mistake!) and found this.  I’ll wait til post tday to tell you why its SO. BAD.

on a more positive note, happy thanksgiving! I’m going to celebrate with my family and a couple other people who are very close to me.  And I’m cooking the whole thing. woot.

Tags: /standardized testing /teacher breaks