10 posts from 2007

...And other reasons I think I'll be ready to teach on Monday.

1. (pumpkin pie)

2. My parents.

3. My dogs and (to only a slightly lesser extent) my cats.

4. Finding pictures of myself from camp six years ago (in them I am rocking out on a guitar I don't know how to play, shaving my legs - which is a long story, wearing underoos - also a long story, and other ridiculously embarrassing photos)

5. Neighborhood Ultimate Frisbee Game (tomorrow).

6. Not having seen anyone that looks any where remotely close to the age of any of my students (probably an easier feat when you teach middle school).

7. Bogglific.

[assigned blog: Why should someone apply to the Mississippi Teacher Corps?
or
How many detentions have I given out so far?]

I came to Mississippi to teach math.  I signed up for the teacher corps to spark interest in my students in math.  I applied because I knew that most of my students would be poor and black and that both groups are hugely
underrepresented in math.  My field is math.  My joy is math.  I get excited about math.  And I wanted my kids to love and enjoy math like I do.  I knew that some, or even most of them, wouldn't, but
I hoped that a few would.

Not that this dream is dead, but more that t barely factors in right now.  I don't get around to teaching math much.  I babysit.  I discipline.  I mediate.  I supervise.  I answer questions.  I tell kids which questions are appropriate and at what times.  I make executive decisions about whether we are going to the bathroom right now or not.  I write passes that protect students from the wrath of security guards and administrators.  I call down upon kids the wrath of security guards and administrators.  I write worksheets, and I plan lessons.  But rarely do I ever get around to teaching math.

Just today, I had four kids kicked out of my class.  We will wait and see (tomorrow) how many of these students will be suspended.  They were playing around outside after lunch, and this turned into some basic punching in the face and pushing and yelling.  Not a full-fledged fight, but definitely more than a think-piece.  This all occurred in less than ten seconds.  My back was turned for six of these.  Four seconds were spent yelling at kids to "Get on the Wall!"  Two minutes were spent waiting for the security officer to come to us and sort out the situation.  With twenty kids, it's hard to keep four others in line.

But I think I'm turning into a decent drill instructor.  My babysitting gets better day by day.  Today I worked on my "executive decisions about whether we are going to the bathroom right now or not."  And I wrote a few notes and maybe got a few kids suspended, so the whole "wrath" thing was practiced.  But teaching math?

People should apply to MTC for the reasons that draw them to teaching.  But (at least for me) they may have to find some different reasons to stay.

With that in mind, let me just say that I love my job.  Not necessarily the coursework, or the paperwork.  Not that I'll stay forever, or even much more than two years.  But I love my job.  It is the hardest, most stressful thing I have ever done.  And every once in a while I am reminded that it is also the best, too.

(I actually don't know how to spell claus cause of the movie The Santa Clause)

Anouncement: Will all teachers who have birthdays in the month of September please come to the office when all students have been dismissed.

Me: Man, I wish my birthday was in the month of Septmeber.

T: Why?  Cause their

The Santa Clause (Full Screen Special Edition)

Me: Yeah.

T: When's your birthday, Mr. Williams?

Me: Late April.

J: My birthday is December 26th.

T: On Christmas.

Me: The day after Christ -- Oh so that's Christmas day.

T: So you must get more presents than everybody.

J: No I get the same amount.  I get my birthday presents.  And then my Christmas presents and then ones from people out of the goodness of their heart.

[a beat]

Me: Oh, because the others ones are from Santa.

J: Yeah but I know the story.  Someone told me he's not real.  But I still believe in him.

T: Santa died.  He died in 1998.

J: Yeah.  They must have found his suit cause he disappeared when he died.  Otherwise they wouldn't know it was him.

The previous occurred during a tutoring session.  I was pretty astonished.

Today was my third lesson and by far the worst.  It started out well and then just bombed from there.  The hard thing - and probably the best - was that I was being evaluated today by a third year.  He - and my second year - gave me great advice.  But they also made a point to be encouraging.  "You're a good teacher."  This I didn't tell myself.

My first lesson I taught almost word for word off the plan.  The second, I deviated a bit.  This one, I barely taught off the plan at all.  It was badly written, and I didn't care because I wasn't going to teach it.

But my lack of organization was pretty clear.  It showed.  Problems arose when we tried to work out solutions that I hadn't properly thought through.  I was not going to talk about improper fractions and then all of a sudden I had an improper fraction sitting on my board, staring me in the face, taunting me.  So then I had to teach about improper fractions, but I wasn't prepared for them.  We were vanquishing fraction evil (no really we were - we were the fractioneers and we were fighting the evil of non-reduced fractions and fraction expressions), and I hadn't thought about what moves I might use.

My lesson plan was even complete!  Complete your lesson plans, first-years!

But all in all, I step away from today with some goodness.  Too much we think failure is a bad thing.  But the amount that I learned from this lesson is ten-fold that that I learned from my first two successes.  I needed this failure to grow as a teacher.  I needed the successes to allow myself to believe that yes, I am a good teacher, but while the successes are affirming, the failures help me grow.

I read a paper about gifted students in public education.  The point of the paper was that since teachers are now teaching - whether pressured or not - their lessons at a slower pace and a lower level.  This leaves more gifted students without a proper and supportive education.  What is left for them to do is to fall by the wayside, participate in special - and sporadic - classes that don't tie into their normal ones, or move out of the public school system.

This paper has a personal connection for me.  I was placed in an Academically Gifted class in the second grade.  In elementary school I spent sometime with my REAL class and sometime with the AG students on our own.  In fifth grade my math teacher, sensing I wasn't challenged by his normal coursework, began to introduce me to pre-algebra.  In middle school I was put in the faster classes and placed in the math classes of the grade above me.  In high school I took AP and IB classes.  But I was never really challenged.  Some of the work was hard.  Some was not.  But I never found a passion for my work, except for every once in a while, like the pre-algebra in 5th grade.
  
What does this challenging of students look like?  I think the elementary way was better, but it might not have had enough connection between the AG class and the non-AG class.  As a teacher I want to challenge all (or at least most) of my students.  But how does this work when one student struggles with multiplication and another is ready to take a Geometry or Algebra course in middle school?  How do I keep both of these students engaged and active in the same class?

I'm not sure how to answer this.  One thought I have had is having soduku puzzles in my classroom for students to work on during down time.  They have different levels and teach some important math skills (mainly algorithms).  But I don't know.

In other thoughts...

I taught my second lesson of summer school yesterday.  It went well too.  We added and subtracted fractions of unlike denominators.  The students were coaches for a basketball team in which Donielle Marshall and I were the fractions of unlike denominators.  We had to be subbed out for Kobe Bryant and Lebron James who were the fractions of like denominators and much better at basketball.  I tried to incorporate giving them a wrong way to do the addition and then discover that it was wrong.  But I didn't make it clear enough for them.  I also tried to incorporate more independent practice.  I still did not give them enough time for that.  I also am struggling because I am not a visual learner and so my teaching style right now is very auditory which works for some students and not for others.  I need to work on this.

I got first-year of the week!  With my roommate.  That was pretty awesome.  It was nice feeling appreciated for my hard work and enthusiasm.

Today we heard four third-years give us some advice.  It was nice to hear from new voices but it was long and hard to pay attention for the seven hours.  Tonight I go to Jackson for the first time and I am excited about it.  This is where I'll be living.  Hopefully I'll be able to see the Delta and maybe the river.  If not I'll check it out some other time.  Maybe tomorrow.

    I left the room exhilarated and sweaty.  My shirt was soaked.  My maroon shirt looked like dried blood - an almost black crimson - under my arms and I can only guess about my back.  But I didn’t care.  I was drenched with pride, too.  I stood tall.  I walked tall.  No, I strolled tall.  No one could touch me.  I was the man.  I was a beast.  And I was ready for anything as I followed my second-year to the spot where we would conference about my performance.
    I had just finished my first lesson of teaching.  EVER.  It went really well.  I was able to get the students responding to my questions, to my lesson.  I presented most of what I had wanted to cover.  I was a bit rushed at the end, but it seemed to work out in the end.
    My lesson was about changing between percents, decimals, and fractions.  The bullet, as my Sociology teacher from college would say, was that “They’re the same.”  I had my students repeat it a lot during class.  When we changed a percent into a decimal, “They’re the same!”  When we changed a decimal back into a fraction, we could because “They’re the same!”  When we moved to fractions and back to decimals and percents, we were able to because “They’re the same!”
    My lesson started out with a magic show (Being silly is always great! - at least for me).  I talked about Gatorade and Powerade and how I like Gatorade when I’m playing basketball and Powerade when I’m playing football.  But sometimes I want to play football and all I have is Gatorade.  I can’t magically turn a Gatorade into a Powerade.  But if I have a a percent [and then I pull a Gatorade bottle with PERCENTS written on the side] I can easily change that into a decimal [put the Gatorade bottle down behind the table and pull up a Powerade bottle with DECIMALS written on the side].  And if I have a decimal I can get a percent [switch them again].  And if someone really wants a fraction - percents and decimals are no good to them - well, if I have a percent or a decimal [switch for Powerade] even though I can’t turn a Powerade into a grape soda, I can turn a decimal into a fraction [switch for Grape Soda can with FRACTIONS written on the side].
    Whether or not the students liked it, at least they saw that it’s okay to be silly in class sometimes and they might have picked up something on the relationship between fractions, percents, and decimals which is, of course, “They’re the same!”
    The show also got me on track towards exhilarated and sweaty.  And the rest of the lesson was awesome.  A blur at times.  My notes were cluttered and not set-up well enough, but I was enthusiastic and it seemed the students picked up on this.
    Things that worked for me today:
    Repetition.  Repeating over and over ways to solve the problem.  Repeating “They’re the same.”  And I mean not me repeating them, but having the students repeating them.  We said these things over and over and hopefully they got some of them.
    Being silly.  If nothing more, it made me more at ease.  I’m sure it won’t work sometimes, and I wasn’t silly for the whole class period.  But being silly allowed me to get into the groove of teaching, and hopefully it helped the students learn a little bit more.
    My favorite part of the lesson was the look of one of my students when I said that she was a master at converting between fractions, decimals, and percents.  It wasn’t much, but it was a gleam and a small, quick smile.  I have been debating calling my students mathematicians at the beginning of the year come August, and now I know I will most certainly do it.  They are mathematicians.  And for too long they have been told they’re not.  That will not happen in my class.  EVER.
    Tomorrow I teach again.  I’m less nervous this time, but I’m sure I’ll be just as exhilarated and sweaty tomorrow.
    Today I call myself a teacher.

Today is the second day of our program.  There are 28 of us first-years.  Everyone is really cool.  We play frisbee in the afternoons and work to prepare in the mornings.

Today we watched a movie called LaLee's Kin.  It follows one woman (LaLee) and her large extended family in Webb, a small town in the Delta and the school district of Tallahatchie, which struggled to rise from a level one school to a level two.  The film was very depressing.  The odds that these children are facing are unimaginable.  They struggle to find pencils and paper so that they can go to school.  They don't have time when they are at home to do their school work.  They are dropping out of school.  Getting pregnant way too early in life.  Struggling with hunger and poverty.

But as others in the program said, this film is a reminder of why we are here.  The schools in Jackson and the Delta need the best possible teachers.  Education is the way to combat this rampant poverty.  The cycle of teenage pregnancy, drug use, and incarceration.  I came here to teach math, but I think I am here to give these kids as big a nudge towards college and education and out of this cycle as I can.

I will be teaching in Jackson.  At Chastain Middle School.  A second-year here teaches math at Powell Middle which is Chastain's rival.  Supposedly both teams met in the city football championship (Powell won) last year.  Chastain is most likely 100% black.  It is a level three school.  85% on free or reduced lunch.  65% from single parent families.

I am daunted.  But I'm glad I'm here.  This will be one of the (if not the) most important experiences in my life.  I'm sure that the Teaching Corps folks will provide us with the tools necessary to start our classrooms in August.  They all have been extremely helpful these past few days.

Next week I start teaching.  And I can't wait.

It's my first day in Mississippi.  Yesterday was my first day in Alabama.  I look on a map and I realize I have not been to any state that even borders Mississippi.  Unless Florida borders it (to be honest I didn't really look at that map).  I figure shock is a word that might come up.  But so far everyone here has been great.  Really helpful - although a bit unsure about my questions such as "Is there a grocery store around here?" or "The square?  What is that?"

Nathan showed me around town tonight.  It's a bit more comforting now.  The two roads of Oxford.  The billion bars of Oxford.  The two grocery stores and the one Wal-Mart of Oxford.  I feel like I'll get the hang of this city soon enough.

Teaching...  Teaching math.  Maybe in middle school.  I was contacted by a principal last week and he made it seem sort of like it was a done deal.  So maybe it is.  "The awkward years" as a friend of mine put it.  Middle school that is.

I'm szuper excited about meeting the others in my program (szuper is Hungarian for super).  That's tomorrow.  When my number of days in Mississippi equals my number of days in Alabama.

Here's to a new life adventure!  Here's to teaching math!  Here's to Mississippi!  And here's to everything else that's great about the world!