This is part of a year-long series looking back at the journal I wrote when I was just starting out my teaching career (at that point, I taught middle school social studies). Read more about his project here. Next installment: January 19th.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
I managed to get through last week unharmed--in fact, I'd say I was all the better for it. It was a lot of work, but I didn't feel overworked or stressed at the end of the week at all. I felt like it was all worth it, and I had some fun, which of course makes it not feel like work at all.
I think I'm finally at that long-awaited point where I have developed a good rapport with my students. A lot of last year is a blur (and I was too burnt out to write things down most of the time) so I'm not sure if it was at this point last year that I really felt I had my students on my side, that they would do almost anything for me, and that they would generally behave better. I do remember that we had to pick up the pace and the scope of the material in January, and that they had some trouble but I helped them along as much as possible.
In any case, I'm really excited about how things have turned around. Well, except for my homeroom--the group I'm with for almost the entire day until Thursday. You always hear from teachers that there's inevitably that one "really bad" class, the one that seems to be from a different teacher because they react to you so differently than the rest of your students. In my two years, the stereotype is reality. Last year, it was 8th period--which was the worst way to end every day, let me tell you. It made things much harder than they should have been.
This year, it's my homeroom, which is good and bad. It's good because once I'm past that hurdle, my 2 other classes before lunch are excellent. So I'm always in the "if I can get through this, I can handle anything else today" mindset. On the other hand, it also means that I spend the day with them on testing days, before special events, and just entirely too much.
The two previous benchmarks were equally awful--it was in the first round that I began lunch detention because of their behavior, and in the second they were just as unwilling to cooperate in the morning and simply couldn't handle the after-lunch extra tutoring put in place.
The idea to do tutorials after lunch (instead of literally babysitting the students for the entire day, because they were always done with the test in under 2 hours in the morning) was my idea. I suggested it to the principal and with the help of my cluster teacher (who has his ear) it was implemented immediately. The only reason I came up with the idea was because the administration refused to stagger the periods after lunch so that every class met at least once over the 3 day ordeal. So what did they finally decide to do this time? Stagger the periods.
Today went fairly well until they reached the point where only about 5 students were left. I kept them occupied with puzzles, which worked pretty well until they ran out and/or they finished them. After that it was nearly impossible to keep them quiet without inflicting severe consequences. My verbal warnings were completely ignored, as were the detentions I issued, and so I attempted to send two girls next door, but the teacher there refused them (knowing they would be loud). I was trying to avoid bringing the office into it, but they were completely unrepentant and I just asked them to go straight to the office. The VP wasn't there, so they came back and continued to disrupt testing! I had to get the extra teacher who was around to help out to watch my class while I tracked down somebody to get these girls out of my room. I found the principal, who got security, who took them to the office for the remainder of testing.
That's not the end of the story, unfortunately, and the actual end pretty much tells you everything wrong with this school. ISS (in school suspension) is closed until Friday (for no reason I can think of), so they weren't send there. The VP has finally started issuing tickets (common practice in town) for extreme offenses, but the officer who issues them is out until Friday. So in other words, they just sat in the VP's office until just before lunch, when they again returned to my class (slightly humbled, it seemed). Neither of the girls seemed to be concerned about the ticket, which will likely cost them over $100, in the least. I talked to one girl's aunt (who she lives with) and will call the other's mom tomorrow morning at school (she works until late at night). This is not the first time I've contacted either of them, and the story doesn't seem to change much each time.
As a kid who one of the few bright spots in that group told me, in the other cluster his friends live in fear of the tickets. In our cluster, these kids have 2 or 3 tickets already and haven't even paid those. I told him that when certain teachers, administrators and even parents let their kids get away with too much, this is the result, and I deal with it the best I can. Even that great student was indignant about the fact that they kept coming back into class without any consequences at all! I told him he was right, and to think about the parents that pay the tickets *for* their children, which completely negates the consequence, and the teachers that let them get away with this behavior last year and the year before. He suggested I teach elementary "because the kids are better behaved there." It was nice to have a conversation with a kid who gets what's going on, and it was one of the clues I've been getting that I'm really winning some of them over.
On Friday after the Ch 9 Quiz, we watched about half of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Historical Perspective, a pretty well put together overview of Dr. King's life. It doesn't include the complete "I Have a Dream" speech or his "Promised Land" speech, but talks about their importance while quoting only a few lines.
As a follow up, this week we're listening and reading along with the entire "I Have a Dream" speech, discussing the ideas in the speech, and then they'll be doing a short assignment to wrap up discussion of Dr. King. Of course my copies weren't ready for today, so we spent a long time discussing, which many weren't prepared to do on a day of testing. They'll either have to write their own "dream" speech, illustrate a scene of racial discrimination and equality, or write their opinions on how much of Dr. King's dream has come true. They can also come up with their own assignment. It's open ended and not meant to be very long, but it wouldn't be a good lesson without that sort of wrap-up.
After testing we'll have to jump head first into the next chapter, because the test I have to give them (as per department policy) is almost 60 questions, about double what it was last year. A lot of the questions are completely unrelated and completely unlikely to ever be on the TAKS test, but my dept. head believes in adding rather than editing. I'm basically going to take the next 2 weeks to do that (mainly early 1800s Industrial Revolution and items from the same period).
The rest of this week shouldn't be that bad. Tomorrow, actually, if the 1st & 5th after lunch schedule holds, will be great. 1st and 5th are my cluster and personal planning periods, respectively, which means I can pretty much hit the road. They also decided to spring tutorials on us at the last minute, as usual, even though we were told that there wouldn't be any after school tutoring during the benchmarks. I'm just canceling mine for tomorrow. I have a TFA meeting in McAllen that evening, and I'd like to have time to take my car in for some repairs and actually relax for a few minutes before I go. Thursday will be testing and probably one day of tutorials, and then Friday will be the new material. I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing but I have 2 days to figure it out.
I actually cooked dinner on Monday night, which is rare because although I can cook when I have a recipe in front of me, I often don't want to put in the effort (especially when I get home at 6pm!). But since I had Monday off for the MLK holiday and because testing would make planning easier this week, I cooked. I made Mexican Lasagna and a Fruit and Vegetable Fiesta Salad using recipes I got from the Food Network. Everything came out well, and my roommate and I washed it all down with sangria. It was great, and there were plenty of leftovers for tonight.
Saturday is the first meeting of my TFA discussion group on "Motivating Students to Succeed". I'm excited about it, especially since I think I've finally made those important breakthroughs. I was starting to doubt my abilities during the last semester. When they were asking for new groups, I wanted to contribute, but I didn't and still don't feel very confident in most of what I do--at least not confident enough to try to tell somebody else how to do it. The only thing I really believed I was good at was investing my students and building strong personal relationships with them. It wasn't so much a teaching strategy as a necessity in my view, and since I'm willing to do just about anything to help my students, it wasn't hard to do. It just took a little bit to convince everyone that I was sincere, and as I mentioned above, I think my group this year knows that now.
It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. I'm also waiting for a call back from a waitress I asked out last weekend--which could make the weekend all the more interesting. Last weekend was awesome: I have managed to become a minor karaoke celebrity at this hole in the wall joint in Weslaco. I actually had people I didn't know requesting me to sing for them! I love that place almost as much as I love karaoke itself. Almost. I'll keep you posted.
Today is the second anniversary of the publication of Ten Cheap Lessons: Easy, Engaging Ideas for Every Secondary Classroom, my teacher resource book. I've been so humbled by what readers have had to say about it over that time:
Last year, I released an updated Second Edition, with additional lessons and a spiral binding for easy copying (as a teacher, I know we need to copy a lot). The download version of the Second Edition is just $5, which means you save a dollar but get more content!
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