Goodbye Stranger

Oh well, parts 1 and 2. I’m still waiting for the response from TFA to see if I’m going to facilitate in the math/science seminar this summer. I want to know ASAP so I can figure out what to do this summer. If I don’t end up going to this seminar, I’m going to take a language course at U of C and/or a drafting course at the Art Institute. I’ve decided that after teaching, I’m going to look into two possible options. Either I’ll go into architecture or nuclear energy. I haven’t entirely made up my mind, but then again I never do. I just make random plans and if they are advantageous at the time, I go with it. So much for a LTP for my life. Speaking of which, I am making all these plans for things in the distance, but I can’t even sit down to make plans for my classes next week. I know basically what I’m going to teach, but I’d like to have more detail. Maybe I’ll go do that now.

MTemb17: I think yesterday was the first time I’ve seen Eli Manning smile
NovaZone: he has nothing to smile about…he didnt make that kick
MTemb17: :) :)
MTemb17: neither did I but look at those smiles
NovaZone: you know who should be the one smiling? GOD…cause thats the only way the giants pulled that one off
NovaZone: fuckin divine intervention
NovaZone: thats what it was
MTemb17: God hates Brett Farve
NovaZone: *cries*

The sad part is I will be rooting for the Giants in the Superbowl. Fuckin’ Patriots…makin the rest of us feel like terrorists.

• You stop in random, busy places to pick up paper clips and rubber bands that are ‘perfectly good.’
• You express how happy you are to sleep in ’til 8am.

Another weekend rolls around. I’ve only got 3 more weeks until the next big vacation, and only 2 weeks after that until the end of the quarter. That doesn’t leave me much time. I told my kids that our goal was to get back on track by the end of quarter 2, and so far, that’s not the case. Whether it’s because of the sedentary teacher I replaced, because the kids just came in so far behind to begin with, or (most likely) because of my horrible, underdeveloped ability to be a teacher, I don’t know. Regardless, we are not where we need to be to move onto next year. The nice thing about my school is that they have given me a great deal of input regarding curriculum and vertical class structure. I’m thinking about taking advantage of that and inserting a mid-level course to prevent some students from being forced into a class that is currently over their head. They are smart enough to do it, but don’t have the necessary skills yet.

So, I just sit at home planning out ideas for how to remediate massive amounts of skills while still pushing forward. Our school is pushing kids with Fs and Ds into a Saturday school, which I’m grateful for. Instead of teaching math on Saturday, however, I’m going to start an “honors” program where several students who are doing well in their classes can learn electronics and then build robots. Maybe later in the year we will build computers. Sky’s the limit as long as the budget holds out. I’m excited for this, and so are the kids, especially since they are earning elective credits.

For the rest of the weekend, I’ve been stormed in, and missing friends, so I’ve been concentrating on my guitar. It seems the only guitar style that I’m able to pick up on is the blues. Very versatile, both musically and lyrically. So I just sit around and sing songs about my kids, and my job, and the state of the world in general. It makes me feel better and keeps me going until that next vacation. 3 more weeks…that’s good and bad at the same time.

This show is so entertaining. While eating my delicious Saturday morning breakfast, I turned on the discovery channel to see a little Adam-Jamie action. In this episode, they tested the myth that elephants are scared of mice. You figure it’s something made up by cartoons and pop culture, right? Wrong. They both thought it would be an easy myth to debunk, but they proved themselves wrong. They traveled to Africa to get accurate results from non-trained, wild elephants. They hid the mouse in a camouflaged object and when the elephant was walking by, they revealed the mouse. The elephant actually took notice, backup up in distress, and walked around the mouse. Amazing. Mythbusters is an awesome show. Ok, gotta go, it’s back on and Adam is using a military helicopter to shoot fish in a lake with an M1-34 minigun. Interesting.

Wow. I needed Thanksgiving vacation to come. My new school is working out swimmingly, however the added competence in the way things are run adds more responsibilities. I now work 6 days a week. 60-70 hours a week. Getting paid for half of it. What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking. I’m not sure this post has a point.

My kids are still behind where I think they should/need to be. We are pushing ahead quite hard, but I’m still getting a good deal of resistance. For some reason, I thought the lectures on why you can’t talk in class would start to decrease. My bad. I’m still sending too many kids to the office for minor stuff. The scores on the last quiz weren’t great, and that wouldn’t depress me as much if I hadn’t also given the exact problems to the kids the day before…and told them, “these are the problems that are going to be on the quiz.” At least memorize some answers? No. I guess not. I hope I’m actually getting them to learn something. I keep thinking that I’m just a horrible teacher and am wasting both my time and their time. Most of my kids are going to be juniors next year and based on sample problems, they are not prepared for the ACT.

I planning to get some goals up on the wall for next week. Maybe if we set our sights on something big, it will keep us focused. At least there will be more color on my walls. I can’t wait for the new building, when I get to decorate to my heart’s content. Oh, and I also get to teach physics.

I know that nobody said it was easy, but I never thought it would be this hard. (Kudos, Coldplay.) I’m tired of coming home to an empty apartment and feeling like such a failure. At this point, I really need a win.

So, to fill some of my jobless time during the week, I started to think about how to decorate my new math classroom. I decided on posting some mathematicians on the wall, but the stuff you buy on the internet is so damn expensive, so I started to make my own. Here are 3 that I started on. I plan to make more over the weekend.

• You can get complete strangers to stop acting like assholes in public by giving them a blank stare.
• A student explains that there is a fire in the garbage can outside the classroom and you ask if he is on fire. He says no, and you tell him to come inside then and sit down…class is starting.
• You shout over “important announcements” on the loudspeaker because raffle tickets are honestly more important.
• You put things like “important announcements” in quotes to indicate your sarcastic distaste.
• You complain about horrendous student behavior, and then act equally horrible, if not worse, in grad school or PD.
• A student tells you his house burned down so he doesn’t have his lab journal. He has the lab journal the next day.
• You have students named after characters in Star Wars.
• A conversion rate of 100,000 Seso Pesos to the dollar sounds plausible to your kids. (Plus, they believe you when you tell them they can’t make copies because of the hidden watermark…)

And many more to come, I’m sure…

It has been a month, and I haven’t broken down yet. My students are my students. That said, I’m still waiting for my school to hear back from the city to see how many new teachers they have to fire. Apparently, they overstaffed massively at the beginning of the year, and now that many freshman aren’t showing up, they have to cut. So next week I may not have a job. Go figure.

Regardless, I love teaching. I love my kids–even the ones that interrupt me in math class to ask, “Professor, where you get your ties?” Yes, I wear Tommy Hilfiger. Yes, I worked for him. No, not personally, and no, I’ve never met him nor want to. Now sit down–you don’t need to stand to ask a question. Moving on…

Teaching for a high-risk school is something that is quite different than I ever imagined. My high school was pretty well off, even if I wasn’t. I first thought that teaching for Corliss would be like teaching at my high school, only with less resources and a different culture. Well, yes, there are less (no) resources, and certainly there is a different culture. However, the culture is not simply racially different, but also motivationally different. It’s hard to see an entire culture of young people motivated, not by success in terms of life achievement, but by money and sex. This of course does not apply to all my students. I try and avoid generalizations. However, the majority of the time, if my students aren’t blatantly hitting on each other, they are glorifying being filthy rich by any means necessary. I have nothing against being rich (feel free to donate to the Teach For America fund), but if this is the only measure of success, then these children are setting themselves up for failure by default. They won’t even have a chance.

My job at teaching, is not just to make them understand how to solve an equation, but to make them open themselves up to new ways to understand the world–new opportunities, new paradigms, and new achievements. A friend of mine in TFA who teaches kindergarten and I always argue about whose job is harder. I think we both get our points in, so no one is the clear winner. But, although I can imagine how hard it must be to look at a 7 year old who gets the short end of life’s stick everyday, at least they don’t realize the extent of it yet. They are too young to be able to project the coming obstacles in the future. When I look at my high schoolers though, I see the shit that life hands to them everyday, but I also can see it in their eyes how desperate they are. Many of my kids are tough–act tough, talk tough. When it really comes down to it, when you really ask them to reflect, they just fall quiet. They are scared more than anything. That’s what kills me every time. I can’t stand the way the world is some days.

And so I begin my documentation of my Teach For America experience. When I was going through institute, I thought that the whole journaling thing was kind of lame. I changed my mind. It isn’t enough that we teach these kids to succeed in the face of overwhelming odds. We need to tell all those who either are ignorant of the inequity problems this country faces or those who deny it outright, that our schools exist. Our students exist. One day, students just like them will have an opportunity to attain an excellent education.

Here’s to hoping I still have a job this week and can continue teaching my kids.