November: The Collection

Going into my first full year of teaching at a rural school in Mississippi, I knew things were going to be tough, exhaustion was going to set in, and my emotional equilibrium would be thrown woefully out of balance for the next two or so years. I knew that there would be really good moments to go along with the bad, and although the good may seem few and far between in the beginning, over time it would start to even out. At least that is the impression given off by others who have been or are currently in the program. 

Having gone through the initial summer school training and three full months of teaching in my position as a Biology 1 teacher, I am surprised to find that the problems and issues still currently seem to outweigh the positives. On some days, the really tough ones when I am running low on sleep and the students do not respond to consequences and test averages come back in the 40’s, I wonder how I can make it through another year and a half of this. Deep down, I know I will not quit and I will finish teaching this year’s sophomore class and next year’s sophomore class. I know that the second year will most likely be easier. I know that I will be teaching fewer students next year, and more well behaved ones to boot, and I know that I will be reusing material instead of constantly creating it. But the double edge sword of having high standards and expecting us as new teachers to go above and beyond those standards to perform, is that stress and worry related to going above and beyond. 

I work too much. Over any given regular school day, too many hours are spent on the classroom and too few are spent on keeping me happy, healthy, and sane. When I arrive in the morning, there may only be one or two others already in the building. Getting to school early does not bother me. I like to come in when the school is still quiet and dark as a way of resetting the classroom clock. I teach the same prep for six periods, as well as an enrichment period dedicated to Biology test preparation. I have my planning period during the last class of the day, and it is usually filled with putting the classroom back together, meetings, or preparing for after school tutoring held on Mondays and Wednesdays. By the time I get back to the house, there is still two or three hours to spend on planning for the next day and grading. Working on using in class downtime more effectively will help cut down on time grading papers outside of school. Using one day a weekend to map out and plan the upcoming week is another way to free up personal hours after school on weekdays. While I am advancing each week on increasing the quality of my work and decreasing the time spent on work, I still feel the need for much improvement. 

I also stress too much. Taking a step back from my own improvement and turning the lens to look at student improvement so far this year, I find it hard to tell whether students are or are not on track for where they need to be by the end of the year. The pressure to have 50% of test takers score proficient or advanced on their Biology 1 state test has been applied since the beginning of the school year, and I find the amount of pressure increasing as the school year progresses. I am not worried about half of the class. There are many who are well on their way to scoring advanced, and many more who I believe will score proficient. Then there are the students who are currently failing my class or who are always hovering over the border, and beyond whether or not they will pass my class and continue on to a science elective next year, I worry that they will not be as prepared as they need to be come state test time in May. I worry that I do not have what it takes to attain their attention and keep it for another six months. I worry that they will not pass this test, maybe even not graduate, and some of that blame will rest on me. Even when I am technically not working on anything, I think and worry and stress about past and future interactions with students. 

I stress myself to come up with new and engaging ways to present the material so that it will stick with a variety of learners. We already do not use the text book, unless students need to look up a picture or diagram. They keep track of their own interactive science notebook inside of a composition notebook, and aside from the few who have misplaced it, most students keep all of their notes in the notebook and take it home with them every day. While I hope to greatly improve the effectiveness of the interactive science notebook for next year, I have found it to be very beneficial. Incorporating paper projects has also been a small success. We recently made ATP Money, where students practiced creating ATP and ADP molecules out of paper and string on a printout of a dollar. Earlier in the year, students illustrated bonding inside and between water molecules using Mickey Mouse Water Molecule cutouts and string. While my classroom has very limited space due to the number of desks covering the coveted floor space, we have been successful in completing a cheek cells DNA extraction lab and cabbage juice indicator lab with time constraints and very limited resources. My hope is that peppering the lectures enough with songs, projects, and labs throughout the year will be enough to keep the class engaging and informative.

I know that things will get better. I know that I, as an educator, will get better. I know that my students will learn more biology, and they will work. I know that my life will find a new equilibrium because I know that I will not survive long being this out of balance. I do not know how much I have to give, but I am constantly feeling like I am giving my all. And sometimes it does feel more like that all is being taken, rather than being given. When I feel stretched to the limit, somehow I find a little bit more to give tucked away in a long-forgotten corner. I dust it off and present it to this new world in which I find myself, only to go back into the Labyrinth searching for another hidden twist and turn. Sometimes, when I am lucky, those little amounts of all are traded, not taken, for a smile, a pleasant exchange, a lightbulb flickering on in a student’s mind, a brand new story to add to the collection. 

September: On Virtue

As a teacher in a struggling school that is considered to be a high risk of failing in a community with high poverty, I find myself torn between two competing guiding goals for what the heck it is I am trying to do here:

1. help students learn what they need to pass the Biology 1 state test so that they can graduate and the school can raise scores enough to be a school to which parents go out of their way to send their children, or 
2. help a large group of young adults learn and apply the concept of virtue and morality, as described by Barry Schwartz in his TED talk entitled, "Our Loss of Wisdom."

Now, of course, these are not mutually exclusive, and I do feel responsible for completing both throughout the year. Not doing the first could get me fired. Not doing the second would be a detriment to those individuals in my school, the community, and to society at large.

I wholeheartedly agree with Schwartz when he says that a wise person is made, not born, and that a person does not need to be brilliant to be wise. He uses the word wise and the concept of wisdom as another way of referring to a person that has empathy and acts on what they know to be right as a way of continuously serving others. The behaviors and moral skills Schwartz describes can, and should, be used by any person in every profession. Before people can use their moral skills in the workplace, they need to first be taught how to be moral during their childhood. Although it would seem that parents and guardians hold the majority of the responsibility for the task of modeling and teaching morality, every person involved in a child's life also shares in that responsibility. Children and young adults spend so much time at school and involved in school-related activities during their development into adult human beings, much of that extra responsibility falls into the hands of teachers and school staff members.

I accept this, that I have a responsibility to model and encourage empathy and morality in every second of every day with students. I do believe that this virtue must be cultivated, over a long period of time. This virtue is not in and of itself unnatural, for virtuous acts are seen in the natural world. It is the repeated modeling and praising that, little by little, builds up a moral skill.

What I just need now is more guidance on how in the world to do that effectively.
Anyone have any ideas?

August: the first FOUR weeks

Things I am proud of:

• I have a file folder for (almost) every student (except for the ones that just came back from ALS within the last week and a half).
• We set up Interactive Science Notebooks (ISN) and every student has one!! I am still working out the kinks, and four weeks in, I still have yet to give a grade for the ISN. My goal next week is to pass out a rubric and grade two class worth’s a day.
• I made it through my first big unit! We have now covered and tested on competency 1, which is inquiry in Biology 1 (scientific method, designing experiments, data, and graphs). Today we started Biochemistry, which will keep us busy until the end of the 1st nine weeks (the first quarter).
• Students have barely been eating in my room, and most are not tardy. Although, I did have to alter my tardy policy to be just INSIDE the door getting your materials, instead of SITTING DOWN in your seat working on the bell ringer questions when the bell rings. I had to change to accommodate the line that forms in the front of the room when students are grabbing their ISN and bell ringer folder each day.
• Our school has a band! You don’t even realize how happy this makes me.

Things with which I am not yet satisfied:

• For my goal of calling all parents within the first two weeks/month/two months - I have called all of my fifth period, which is my worst period. I have also seen around 20 parents during our open house this last week.
• I spend too much time “perfecting” any one lesson. I need to get my planning done FASTER so that I can spend some time grading.
• I have yet to enter a single grade - and it is the fourth week of class! I have piles of things that are half graded, we’ve gotten through two tests and a quiz, and there are around 20 pages in the ISN to check and grade. Progress reports get printed on Tuesday, so I sort of have to get something entered.
• I have not gone to every football game. This is not a requirement, but something I wanted to do. I said nay on the first away game and the game last night that was occurring in the rain.   
• I am much more angry and dejected than I thought I would be this early in. I want to be excited about this all, but the anxiety/dread/exhaustion/hopelessness seem to outweigh it most of the time.
• I was verbally sexually harassed by students for the first time. No matter the context, I do NOT appreciate someone telling me to “shake dat ass.” Especially when it is a teenage male who thinks they’re the shit and is just saying it so their audience of other teenage males can laugh. Double especially when I can’t tell who actually said it, so an insincere apology brought on by pressure from the football coach is the most I can hope for.

Mostly four weeks in, I don't have much time to think about this all. I can't seem to find the time to check in with my parents or siblings. I haven't done anything creative in I don't even know how long...I just keep putting one foot forward and triple-checking my phone's alarm.

L'Etoile du Nord

While in class yesterday, I kept myself busy with a little bit of grading and adding to the I Am poem we started at the beginning. It soon morphed into a poem about where I am from, more so than me in my current place/time/position/mindset.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
L'Etoile du Nord

I am from backyard woods, a

maze of oaks and acorns, and 

falling maple helicopters.

from forts of ferns and tree hole witches brew,

long summer days spent at Jan’s

laundry sheet hammocks stretching 

for an afternoon nap.

from yeah, sure

and sometimes you betchas.

from casseroles and apple cider, and

the World’s Best macaroni and cheese 

made special from the hands of my father.

from rosey cheeks and sniffling noses

sodden mittens and hole-in-the-hill snow forts

I am from broken and bandaged families

with slowly healing wounds

from cottages and cabins, 

Up North camping and canoes

Hours spent with wrinkly fingers

never far from water, still

Minnehaha, Minneapolis, Mankato, M&M

from colored crayons and chemistry kits,

late nights gazing at crystal clear skies, 

wondering

if that light in the distance is Mars, or

Venus, or L’Etoile du Nord?

Or something else, like

what does heaven look like, 

if you know everything, Mom?

I am from reserved until full-force

with genuine sincerity

if you don’t have something nice to say...

and above all else, The Golden Rule.

from privilege and support, both

financially and emotionally

Always keeping near me that

Never Ending Supply of gratitude.

Classroom Management Plan, year 1

Below is the rundown of my classroom management plan, with explanation and commentary in brackets. Go ahead and grab yourself a warm drink, settle into a comfy chair, and prepare yourself for a chunk of not-so-light reading.

All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind (M Fischer)

What have I learned from my students this first summer during summer school?

I learned that I have a lot to work on in trying to become a better teacher.
I learned that I have weaknesses.
I learned that I have strengths as a teacher.
I learned that an interesting, engaging, challenging lesson is the best kind of lesson to have.
I learned that good sets start the lesson off right.
I learned that most students have Pit bulls, or at least that is what they say.
I learned that teenagers are quick to make fun and quick to shut down when they are on the other end.
I learned that the good kid can hide it in order to fit in.
I learned that there is such a thing as participating too much.
I learned that getting high does not help you with your studies.
I learned that the same student can be perfect in one class and a hellion in another.
I learned that some kids do watch Animal Planet.
I learned that they have dreams more than becoming a professional basket/football player.
I learned that students love it when you make words sound funny.
I learned that students love hand signals, even if they do not want to admit it.
I learned that boys and girls can be their own biggest distraction.
I learned that they will make fun of you, whether they like you or not.
I learned that counting down is effective.
I learned that in a classroom holding sixth to 11th graders, it can be hard to get the content level just right.
I learned that students will not organize unless you give them directions to do so.
I learned that having a student write something on the board before class starts can be a way of showing that they care.
I learned that creating seating charts is a science in-and-of itself.
I learned that the motivated will go far.
I learned that I really, really like school uniforms and dress codes.
I learned that students can make any kind of noise imaginable.
I learned that the saying that the teacher will show students respect and demand it in return is a hard concept to grasp. Many students like to flip it around and hold that as truth.
I learned that I should learn more about sports.
I learned that students are good at finding patterns. All teachers say “Good Morning.” TEAM teachers teach but only on Monday and Wednesdays. They always catch the popping noise, but not the snapping. Etc.
I learned that they complain about clubs but are sad when they’re over.
I know there’s much more, but by now I am fairly zombified this late in the day/week/summer.

I was apprehensive coming into the summer at having to get to know a whole new group of students. Our biology classroom in the extended summer program was very small, eventually settling out at seven individuals, which on the one hand greatly reduced the number of names/personalities/tricks I needed to get to know but also narrowed down the variety of the people with which I was interacting. I was a little amazed when the English and Math teachers outside on morning duty were greeting student after student by name. There were some teachers that made it their business to learn any and every name they could, even if they had never taught the student, and others that switched rooms over the summer so they did end up teaching a big chunk of the summer school student population. While interacting with the group of students that I did, I was amazed at some of the things we were being connected by in our teacher-student relationship. Animal Planet, corny jokes, number of siblings, and interested professions, just to name a few. As much as we as teachers prejudge, lesson plan, and evaluate situations, you just cannot know for sure what will connect you to a student. Sometimes it happens instantly, right on that first day or week. Sometimes it happens after you’ve both gone through a behavioral rough patch. Sometimes it does happen in class, but more often than not, it happens before or after the bell rings, outside waiting for the buses, or in the bleachers.

Empty Vessel Existing to Convey Information

In coming into an alternative licensure program in which newbies to the field of education are thrust upon the teaching stage with little to no experience and then evaluated on every aspect of their performance, it should be pretty obvious that you are going to suck. Maybe not all the time - you may have some really good days and you might totally kill it during a particular lesson. And maybe not in all the same ways - your improvement will go up and down and cross itself back again on more than one occasion. But the hope in MTC is that there will be a steady progression towards becoming a better teacher, for as Dr. Monroe likes to say, being successful at school means continually growing as individuals.

Across most of my evaluations so far, the biggest thing that I need to work on right now coming into the program as a teacher with a little untrained prior experience, is my teaching personality. On the very first lesson I taught, my TEAM teacher said that many of the teaching basics are down in my case, which is very nice not to have to deal with. And then I was given an informal choice - when I am up there as the teacher in the room, I either need to be more authoritative or more fun. Currently I say good things and do more or less what a teacher should do, but I exist simply as an empty vessel for conveying information. I need to show more of my personality, or at least a uniform teaching personality, that can get the students more engaged and interested in being there for class.

So far I can tell that working on my teaching personality includes the following:

• Being engaging. Teaching should be a give and take with student participation, especially during sets, as they serve the purpose of getting students involved in the lesson and making the information relevant to their lives. This also includes making conversations with students while on duty posts (outside the school in the mornings for me). Some of my sets have been alright or even good, but I need to work on ways of working in more questions so that the students are running the set for me.
• Being enthusiastic: I don’t want to go the authoritative route because I feel it so clashes with my inner personality that I would become too much of a negative person for my liking (this is not the same thing as being strict in the beginning of the year, though). So I’ve decided to go more the FUN route. This means being (at times overly) excited about the class, period, material in order to get students excited about being here. The first comment that my TEAM teacher made about my true teaching personality coming out, is when I made a short impromptu infomercial-like comment of which brand of jelly I use to make my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (blackberry jelly). The fun, quirky, and awkward moment aligns with my genuine self, I guess.
• Being LOUD: This does not necessarily mean all the time because I have been told that I can command the classroom with a quieter tone (a folksy, melodic tone, some might say). But it does mean pulling out loud bursts of energy occasionally throughout the lesson to keep students on their toes and engaged, and it also means being able to issue consequences with a decisive and strong tone, as to not appear meek. This has come up in my role plays again and again, as well - saying the right things but people not really believing them because there was no force behind the consequences.

I liked what my TEAM teacher said about this teaching personality thread already appearing in various forms on many of my evals: by the end of the summer, this is going to have changed into one of my strengths. That’s the goal, at least.

The First Weeks in MTC

Summer school has thus far adequately met my expectations. Now, before I get into whether or not those were high expectations or low expectations, there are a few things that must be addressed in order to have some context around my situation (for any who aren’t already aware).

I moved down to Mississippi a year ago when my partner became a first year going through the program. For the first six or so months, I pretty much sat at home watching a lot of Netflix. I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know my way around. We only had one car and my partner wasn’t always able to carpool to work. I was lazy...There were a lot of reasons...err...excuses.

Then a situation sort of fell into my lap, and it was really hard to ignore it. There was a teacher retiring mid-school year in the subject area I am familiar with, and the district was pretty cool with hiring a person with little to no (accent on the NO) prior teacher training. When the new year came in, I started as a long-term substitute teacher in charge of three sections of Physical Science and three sections of Introduction to Biology at the good ol’ North Panola High School, one of the nearby school districts*. It is hard for me to take any credit for making it through those first six months of teaching because I had A LOT of help. I was able to follow around some of the best teachers MTC has lately produced, I had a personal helper at all times because he lived with me and found it hard to say no to helping, I had a very supportive and encouraging administration and staff that cut me some slack where I needed it, came down hard on things that would make me better anyway, and were present in the classrooms, halls, meetings to guide me through a myriad of situations. I don’t think I came out a success, but overall, I was not a complete failure. I am sure glad I did it, but I would not like to go through the long-term sub without any prior training at a high-needs school in rural Mississippi gig again**.

So now starting the program and starting summer school...
It is great to be here. There is so much for me to learn, both in how to become a better educator but also how to become better in general. I am going to just go ahead and just list some of my observations thus far:

• The kids are about what I expected. Actually better behaved than expected. I was assuming the worst of the worst, but I found that these students are motivated to stay on track or get ahead, or at the least have parents that are motivated to provide their children with opportunities to help them succeed. And I really like our kids. I’ve gotten to know them a bit faster than I did the first time around at NPHS. It helps not being the only teacher in the room for that.
• The TEAM teachers really know their stuff. Watching them is like watching water pour out of a faucet. Seemingly one of the most normal and uninteresting things in the world - until you slow down your gaze and take a moment to watch the way light reflects off the bouncing water droplets as they cascade down into the sink below...Cheesy? Yup, that’s what I’m going for.But seriously: when watching a good teacher teach, it can be hard at first to spot interesting things. Because they just do what you think should be done. It seems normal, logical, and predictable. Light bulbs flicker on when they should, lines line up without hassle, and the world seems in order. But then you start to notice the perfect degree of feigned ignorance, and the way all their directions make complete sense. You start to notice the specific kinds of questioning strategies they use to make the students to the work and do it right. You notice the general sense of fairness about the room, both when listening to praise and when listening to someone get in trouble. Summer school has been great for seeing these great talents in action, and there is a lot I can learn from them.
• The above point was probably too long for a bullet.
• MTC teachers are very diverse and everyone has wonderfully different things to bring to the program and to teaching in Mississippi. But we also have some common thread connecting us all to education. It’s nice to have a solid base in common with so many people.
• It can still be hard to understand the kids, but I’m getting better at feeling confident to ask them to repeat again (and again). I am getting better at names and faces, too.
• One thing I definitely do not enjoy is having to work every day without fail after the normal work day has ended. So. Much. To. Do. Summer school is easier than a regular school year, but I still wish I was on vacation.
• I thought it would be hard for me to be engaging with students who I did not know at all, and it was. It is so much easier to engage, praise, issue consequences, and react to situations when the students are familiar to you.
• I am rooting for all my fellow first years. Now that the second years are gone, I hope we can keep the ship sailing.

Overall, I basically knew what I was in for. There are some changes, especially with the fluidity of the program itself at the moment, but mostly the experience has gone in the same stages that I was planning. I work and am tired, but not as much as a full time teacher. I still have a lot to learn, both in lesson planning and in being in front of the classroom. Now that the second years are leaving, things are going to be just a little bit more lonely. All in all, it’s good to be here.

*Also where most of the nearby MTCer’s and where all of our newfound friends worked.
**And I suppose I should say that I am really thankful for being encouraged to even do it in the first place. I was on the phone with my mom the night before ready to not go in the next day.