steve in nj

This is my very first post since ending my first year of teaching. I am now almost two months into my second year, and there are things that are both going very well and things that are not. I have many thoughts on the issues that present themselves in my school. I am generally confused, but I know the person I am today is not the same person I was a year ago.

Today, a student, in response to my preventing him from running down the hallway, pushed me up against the wall and started to scream mother fucker at me. My visceral reaction was negative, but I did not respond with my anger. As I looked at this kids face, I did not see an aggressor, I saw a desperate human being. It was honestly the most unexpected thing that’s ever happened to me. My gut and adrenaline told me to put the kid in his place, but I knew that in reality, this child was responding to something other than me preventing him from running in the hallway. I stood there, pushed up against the wall, and even though his grip had put my shirt and my tie up to my neck to the point that i could feel it impeding on my airway, I knew that the better response was not the visceral response. And while I’m sure that this may seem to some as a form of submission, I elevated above the norm. He was expecting me to respond physically, which is inappropriate for a teacher. My physical self was not in danger. He was responding to something else, and I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A security guard took the student from me, and the student will be dealt with appropriately.

I am frustrated. Part of me demanded that I respond in a way that was not appropriate. Part of me is incredibly glad that I responded the way I did. Did “pacifism” work? Certainly, the student expected me to respond physically, but did my response only present me as a wimp in his mind? Or did it present to him someone who was above the norm? Is this questioning even relevant? I’m not sure.

I sing to my kids. A lot. Especially my third block. Sometimes, I sing because it calms them down. Sometimes, I sing because it calms me down. I pray everyday before school. I never use to do that. This act centers me. I cannot control everything. I can only control what happens in my classroom, and even then…

My students are having some success. My first block finished its second test with an average of 77%. My first, with an average of 81%. My third, with an average of 94%. I’ve never seen such high averages before. Maybe I’m finally getting this whole teaching thing.

One day, maybe I’ll write a book about my teaching experiences at school. My VP this year absolutely astounds me. I wish I could say the same for others. I was written up this year for not following district pacing. It doesn’t take much to realize that the district pacing was not implemented appropriately when it was revised this summer. My kids come first, not the district pacing. I wear that write up as my badge of honor.

ok, I need to go to bed. I’m exhausted.

So couple of points….

1) I’ll have to point to my initial surprise when I discovered that in response to my reference to my thinking about applying for Grad School and Seminary I made a reference to the Pacific School of Religion. Low-and-behold, someone from PSR commented on my site about PSR! What a sobering reminder of the open forum that the internet is. I mean, no duh, right? but still, I’m not even sure how I was found…

2) Grandma’s surgery was today, and as far as we can tell right now, it was a success. Grandma’s in pain due to the surgery, but she was laughing and being ornery after the surgery. That’s a good sign for Grandma.

3) I got to hang out with Jen today. We got dinner in downtown Tacoma, and then hung out later this evening. It was pretty much amazing. She’s a wonderful friend.

4) I got a crap-top of planning done today. I managed to outline the “essential” questions of the 6th grade curriculum and then create units around them both through the connected math series and supplemental. Then, keeping in mind when the state tests are, I planned backward and created the beginnings of a long-term plan, meaning I just placed the units where they belong with approximate timings. Next step, deconstruct each unit based on objective/learning goals and arrange them within the time period I have allocated for each unit. Planning is the easy part. Then I gotta implement. My goal is to finish this for the 6th grade curriculum by the time I leave for back to New Jersey. Then I will have the template and mental framework for how to create them for the 7th and 8th grade curricula in an efficient and time-saving manner. The 6th grade stuff has already spanned three days (probably like 15 hours total) and I’m 3/4 of the way done with the planning. So, theoretically, if I can get 7th and 8th grade done by the time I leave for Reno on July 1, I’d be a happy camper! I also started outlining a syllabus for 6th grade.

5) So, I totally forgot to pack boxers. I was the sketchy guy at Fred Meyers 5 minutes before they closed (because I didn’t have time to go to Freddy’s until I left Jen’s place in T-town) price checking Hanes. Only I would have this issue.

6) This morning I went and visited a teacher of mine from high school. I was so amazed by it because I have such a different perspective on teaching now than I ever did. Ms. Mouat let me step in once or twice and contribute, for what I hope was the better. I realized the incredible privilege that many of the students embody. or the incredible innocence and naivety. they looked like babies. haha. I was once like that. I had one good moment where someone asked what symbiosis is. I said, well, break it apart. when you hear the word bios, what do you think of? “biology” right, and what is biology the study of? “life” exactly, so we know that it deals with life. Now the tricky part. What about Sym. what words does sym remind you of? I forgot what the student said, but the point was we related sym to words like symmetry which helped us see that it relates to relationships between things. So we put it together and BAM!

7) Coming home later than I expected led to some interesting reflections. First, I was reflecting on going from urban Tacoma to rural Graham. I forgot how rural it is where I live. It was almost unnerving. But then I got out of the car when I got back to the house, and I was just incredibly overwhelmed when I looked up and saw the stars. I had forgotten about the stars and how incredible they are. I could see them all. Immense.

well, its been a busy day, so its off to bed! more work tomorrow!

As I have discovered, the month of June is the blackhole of education. I thought November was bad. Then I thought December was bad. But I was wrong. WRONG! June is by far the worst month to be teaching anything. just fyi.

It doesn’t help that it was bloody HOT AS HELL! I mean, 99 degrees, inside 110 degrees, school closed early due to heat advisory, but I still had to stay at school until 3.

Tomorrow we shall see relief. One of the ways I am celebrating my relief is by flying out of this town and heading back west to home. Well, I shouldn’t be celebrating. My grandmother is ill and is having surgery. I’m going home to be with her. Which sucks that she’s sick, but they’d drop what they were doing if something crazy was happening to me. I’m a bit worried, but I’m working hard to be optimistic. My roomie’s dropping me off at the PATH station at 4 tomorrow morn. I arrive in Seattle at 2:20 est. We’ll see how chiper I am when I land.

As far as my students, I have sobering news. We did not achieve significant gains this year in my classes. Well, I can’t say that for sure. I can say that they didn’t achieve a high mastery of the course content for this year. This doesn’t mean that we didn’t make progress in terms of previous basic skills they were lacking-but honestly, I doubt we did. I set myself up for failure in the beginning of the year through a variety of means, but next year MUST and WILL be different. Teaching is the first thing in my life that I’ve felt like I’ve put in hours and hours of work and got little in return on that investment.

I’ve started working on grad school apps for the 2009-2010 school year. I know they won’t be due for a while, but I need to get things in order so that I can increase student achievement while simultaneously getting the best financial aid package I can get my hands on. Mentally, I am more ready now for grad school than I ever was during my college times. Clarity has come to me in a way it rarely has. I’m looking at going to seminary first. So far, I’ve gotten information from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and the Chicago Theological Seminary in, go figure, Chicago. I’m going to look at other schools in Boston I think too.

Anyway, my computer needs to restart due to some installation of security upgrades or some BS like that. I hope all is well with you folks!

So, this month has been ups and downs. serious ups and downs. between the illness of a grandmother and my impending emergency return home, the financial difficulties of family members, the disintegration of the cohesion of my class, the math fair and the recohesion of my 7th graders, learning about a lot more students returning to Peshine who weren’t there in the past, to May Days and the introduction of the new ‘08 CMs to us “oldies,” this month has been insane. But I’m going to give you the highlights of yesterday.

1) Math Fair at NJIT. My students and I went to the math fair, and we had a BLAST! it was so awesome. My kids were great, and I just was like, “I need more field trips for my students! I have so much fun with them when we do…” I bought ‘em a pizza for lunch. heh.

2) May Days. We said good bye today to the ‘06 Corps Members and hello to the new ‘08 Corps Members. Seriously, our corps is probably the best out there, and I can tell already that these folks are going to be great. It was refreshing to see effective teachers and to see people around me exciting and idealistic. very cute. haha! naive too. but that was me too.

3) My principal has insinuated I jump on a grenade. Ok–metaphorically speaking of course. So, the biggest struggle I’ve had this year is teaching 3 different preps–meaning I teach all 3 grades of math. meaning three preps. meaning three times as work. meaning, in an inclusion setting, my life sucked a lot for a while. sometimes, it still does. but now I’ve got it “better” tho not great.

Well, here’s the conundrum/grenade. My principal has sorta suggested that I teach for another year all three grades (as opposed to just 7th grade like I was going to). Basically what happened is a bunch of new students who we didn’t have this year will be returning forcing a dramatic restructuring to accommodate all our students. One of the proposals therefore is to create an honors track. Basically it would work out that the honors teachers would be teaching one of each grade. The only teacher in my school who has experience teaching all three at the same time is me. So, I’ve been asked to do something wonderful and honorific–teach honors–while still committing myself to A LOT of work–even more than I have now because I’d have to go from remediation to enrichment all in one fowl swoop. I know that saying yes to this would also earn me bonus points with my admin, especially my principal.

Can Steve_in_NJ accomplish this? What will happen? this changes ALL my plans. but alas…. do I detect a bit of excitement in me that I haven’t been feeling in months?? do I detect lack of sound mind right now??

I’ll let you know what happens.

Oh, and below are pics of my kids working on the math fair project. the theme was careers in math so we chose casino game designer.

Holidays like Mothers’ Day use to really not be all that symbolic for me. When I was younger, it was a day I said to my mom and grandmothers “Thank you for all that you do.” As I grew older, I began to understood that Mothers’ Day was also a time to celebrate those stereotypical feminine qualities that we associate with mothers–nurturing, caring, etc. At some point, I recognized Mothers’ Day as a sham–a hallmark holiday designed for card companies, florists, and jewelers to make money off of people who were obliged to purchase something for their wives, mothers, grandmothers, etc. However, on Mothers’ Day 2007, the day grew to have a new meaning for me. Last year on Mothers’ Day, I graduated from college. While this may not seem all that exciting, I remember seeing how proud my mother was for my graduation. She told me that my graduation was the best gift any mother could ask for. Neither my parents nor any of my grandparents graduated college–and some even struggled with high school. This was an important point for our family.

Now I fast-forward to 2008. While my peers who are still in college are finding that their walks across the stage are coming rapidly, I find myself with another 7 weeks of school left. I am no longer “student.” I am “teacher.” Even though this distinction is often superfluous, it is adequate to describe my sensations at the moment. My childhood, for all its worth, ended on Mothers’ Day 2008. While I was not yet an adult, I began that transition, and a year later, I look into the mirror and think “crap?! what happened?” Instead of finding some schmub job for a year or two to work my way up the corporate ladder, I flung myself into teaching in an urban district. I did not fully understand the commitment I was making, and I still approached it as I approached college–a new adventure. But then I realized at some point during the rapid maturation I underwent that this is no adventure. This is life. I think what really got me early on in my teacher career as I would drive home was that this is my life, and this is the life of my children. Teaching is not an adventure. It is an experience. My existence here is not temporary but lasting. While I may leave the city and this state one day, it is part of who I am, and I will carry my students with me everyday. And while things may not always be going well, there is certainly a struggle to change things.

Its so easy to focus on the bad that happens. The first link is to a new story that occurred literally within 100 feet of my school building. The second was within blocks of my school.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/04/police_investigate_fatal_shoot.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/05/two_killed_in_newark_shootout.html

But when do we focus on the change? The good things? When do we get to say, we are making change here? Sometimes I feel like we’ve made no progress but for the last week, I have sat down with my students and we have spent a lot of time learning and working hard. Where are the news stories that say my students screamed in joy when they discovered that they were going to do a math fair project on probability and games of chance? The answer is no where. We don’t want to hear about the good. We only want to hear about things that confirm our presuppositions about people and places. I was talking to a counselor at my school, and a quote from biblical literature came to mind. It goes something like this, I think. someone said to Jesus, “can anything good come from Nazareth?” The idea was that Nazareth was a slum–how could anything good come from there? Yet the person who many hold as the God incarnate came from Nazareth. I mentioned this to the counselor saying that I am reminded of this because I feel like at times that people have no pride in Newark. You hear this with the expressions “It is what it is” and “Welcome to Newark.” Yet, while I am frequently guilty of coming to these statements myself, the counselor says to me, “But its changing. Remember the school shootings last summer where three college-students were gunned down? It showed people nationally that people are emerging from Newark as capable people.” I heard her point–and she had one–but in this instance, these good people were shot. It was a bittersweet analysis at best.

I don’t know. In the end, I’ve got nothing. I have no suggestions for how to make things better that don’t already exist. We live within this paradigm, and I cannot break away from it to realign how things ought to be. The world is not an easy place, and there are no easy solutions. If anything I have come away from this experience looking at how multi-valent experiences and lives are. If anyone goes through this and comes out the same person, I would challenge whether that person has truly tried. I am more conflicted about my views of the world than I was a year ago. I view the world with far more complexity. And the complexity is what gives me solace.

wow. enough of that ramble…