Tracking

One of the ways I motivate my students is with this giant wall tracking chart. At the beginning of the year each of my classes chose a class name, and then students submitted illustrations. The best ones (chosen by class voting) went up on the wall.

Once the classes had a name, competition naturally ensued. For each unit, objectives are posted on the wall, and class results are recorded. Blue means "We met our goal", Green means "We are close to our goal", and Red means "We kinda sucked it up on that one." Okay, really Red means "We are far from our goal".

Things have really been heating up lately, because the classes are all really close. I add fuel to the fire on quiz days by saying helpful things like "First period doesn't think you can catch them today. Actually, they said there is no way you catch them ever. Are you gonna let them get away with that?"

Originally I had to make up all the goading statements, but now my students are really getting into it. One of my classes is the Bananas, (thank God they don't sing that Bananas song "Go bananas, B A N A N A S"...I would have to leave.) and third period rolls in an JM goes "MISTER! Tell 2nd period I eat bananas for breakfast!"

Stress

My dentist is awesome. She is from Bulgaria or Estonia or one of those Eastern European nations that all blend together to me because I am so poor with geography. She has a pretty heavy accent, and regularly takes breaks while cleaning my teeth to ask my accusing questions like, "Do you drink the soft drinks?!"

When I answer that "No," I don't really drink soft drinks ever, she nods in dubious approval, and responds with a "Soft drinks are very bad. 80 grams sodium in each can. Bad for your heart. And caffeine! Ah! Soft drinks bad for teeth too."

I like her because she gives me information on every single thing she does. She asks about every aspect of my oral health, and then describes, in detail, how that will contribute to either bliss or my imminent demise. Well, she doesn't actual link flossing to my death or salvation, but it seems that way.

And she is extremely thorough. Since most people go to the dentist every 6 months, but rarely go to the doctor, she has taken it upon herself to take heart rate and blood pressure readings upon every visit. Apparently, there is something wrong with me, because in 6 months, my blood pressure went from "Really good" to "You are in the danger area. Do you smoke? Drink? Do you sleep? Ever?"

I think it is stress. For good or ill (and at this time, it seems ill) I have taken the TFA mantra, "I am the instructional leader of my classroom" to the nth degree. One of my roommates, who has a poor opinion of our public schools, says "You can't worry about them (the students). They choose to screw around, so you can't make them learn." Part of me knows this to be true. The whole, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" phenomenon.

But then the other 90% of me, the part responsible for my high blood pressure, says, "Yea, but isn't that why TFA accepted me? Because I would work relentlessly, I would continuously improve and do all the other rah rah stuff necessary to motivate and inspire and coerce (if necessary) my kids until the do learn?

And so I am stressed out. I am completely wound up. I am getting wound up just thinking about it. My kids need to pass the state test. They need to do well. They need to learn all of my material so they can enter 8th grade on level for a change.

But then I read this passage by Merton:

A simple intention rests in God while accomplishing all things. It takes account of particular ends in order to achieve them for Him: but it does not rest in them . Since a simple intention does not need to rest in any particular end, it has already reached the end as soon as the work is begun. For the end of a simple intention is to work in God and with Him - to sink deep roots into the soil of His will and to grow there in whatever weather He may bring.

A right intention is what we might call a "transient" intention: it is proper to the active life which is always moving on to something else. Our right intention passes from one particular end to another, from work to work, form day to day, from possibility to possibility. It reaches ahead into many plans. The works planned and done are all for the glory of God: but they stand ahead of us as milestones along a road with an invisible end. And God is always there at the end. He is always "future," even though He may be present. The spiritual life of a man of right intentions is always more or less provisional. It is more possible than actual, for he always lives as if he had to finish just one more job before he could relax and look for a little contemplation."
- Thomas Merton. "No Man Is an Island." Pgs. 72, 73.

What Next?

My commitment to Teach For America, and to my original placement school ends with the school year. My friends are all eagerly discussing their applications and interviews, cheering acceptances and morning rejections. I have applied to one position. I was rejected.

But this is not a post about rejection. Yes it sucks, but it does not control my life. It happens, sometimes a lot, and we have the choice to learn or not, try again or not. My thoughts are not on "what did not" but instead on "what I should".

I am envious of people who have a plan. I still remember the cutting words of my friend B., a pivotal person in my spiritual growth, who said, "What are your plans? You don't know? I've been telling boys I know that they should Be a Man, have a plan." It is one of those pithy sayings that makes one's spirits immediately sink. I fear that what was true for me then is still true now; I am big on dreams, pretty light on plans.

I have friends who tell me that I am good at finding opportunities, going or doing things that are out of the ordinary course. My mother says the same thing, which makes it definitely true. But even if I am good at finding opportunities, my current hang-up is on what opportunities I should find. What dream should I turn into a plan.

The normal things are guiding me. I want to get paid. Hopefully, enough to eat, have a place, take some trips, have Internet. I want to meet new and exciting people. I want community. I want to grow and learn. I want to see and live in the outdoors. I want to meet a girl before the questions from my family become to frequent and I stop wanting to visit as a result.

But more than these things, I want to be challenged and I want to know that what I do matters. My application to TFA was centered on these two ideas. Of course I got almost all of the other things as a bonus, but I was seeking a challenge, and significance in my life. And I don't know where I can find that again.

And it is not that my current job lacks significance all of the sudden. Or that I am some amazing teacher and it is no longer a challenge. Maybe I just want more...excitement. Maybe I just want the new car smell.

I guess this post kinda lacks a conclusion. Well, I don't have this figured out. If anyone does, please let me know.

Why the Balancing Act?

This earlier post talked about two sides, schools of thought, on education.

Here is a summary from one of the education blog reel I read. It emphasizes the human quality of teaching including the following:

I’m concerned with the jobs my students get - especially with the jobs my special education students get. But I’m more concerned with the sort of people they become. And what of the minimalist approach that looks at children and teenagers and thinks first (or only) about their place in society’s economy? I find it insulting to core. It makes me want to heckle public speakers and defend the values I imbibed as a student of the liberal arts.
- Dangerously Irrelevant Blog

For another view on this topic, this blog post by another TFA alum argues for national assessments.

Won't this just take teaching to the test to the nth degree?
Teaching to the test happens when the test doesn't reflect what otherwise should be taught. If teaching to the test becomes teaching students to pass a vital, standards-based, focused assessment each week, isn't that just teaching with a test?
- from the t.f.a. trenches Blog

I do not mean to set these two articles up as mutually exclusive. Instead, I have noticed in my own teaching experience that I struggle to strike a balance between the ideas of giving character and life type education and more formal skill and knowledge type education. There is a finite amount of time in the classroom, and every decision I make moves my students toward some end. With data in front of me and always at the forefront of my mind, I tend to get caught up in how far my students have to go, and how much we need to focus on skills. I forget that there is more to life, more that my students need to experience to be successful.

This is especially true in middle school. I guess my conclusion is that we need national assessments. We need the accountability. Our students are supposed to be receiving a service, a product, and only assessment gives the nation or the public or the consumer/student feedback on what that service actually amounts to. In this push to provide an excellent product, an excellent education however, we educators cannot lose sight of the fact that an excellent education is more than just making a growth goal or making a mastery number for the year or passing an exit exam. We educators must also make choices that provide opportunities for providing decision making abilities, ethics, communication, social structures. We must make instructional decisions that make life possible in our classrooms.

Balancing Act in Action

This post is wrapping up my teacher-talk on planning and NCLB. When last mentioned, a question about "What Ought to be Taught" loomed on our collective horizon.

This question has two sides, as I see it. The first, I shall term Accountability. The Accountability side of the debate centers on, well, accountability. "We need accountability for students, for teachers, for administrators and for schools, and shoot, while we're at it, we need accountability on the policy-makers and politicians setting this whole system up too," might be the call to arms for the Accountability Camp. They might take issue with what exactly should be assessed, but some assessment is better than no assessment, and let's be honest, this is a work-in-progress folks, so they will take the TAKS test, they will take the NY Regents, they will take the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, they will call for greater state-to-state alignment and national standards. They will call for merit pay because we should reward teachers who actually, well, teach...well. They will call for high expectations; high expectations for student learning, high expectations for teacher performance. The end game for Accountability is an excellent product; in this case, graduates that are capable of doing anything and everything and contributing to society (I assume.)

The somewhat-opposing view I will label as holistic (Note: I am completely making this stuff up. I am trying to put to words the sense I have of how things work, and I don't know how well it conveys the true nature of things.). This view is that students are Individuals, people. They have desires, needs, dreams, and education should lead them to self-actualization so that they can choose for themselves the path for their lives. As a teacher then, my role would be to help students to understand the world and their place in it, to help them learn to ask and answer questions that they themselves pose, to give the skills they need to relate to the world. Testing does not really fit into this structure.

I don't know that I have ironed out exactly what my view on the role of education is, but I know that Pure Accountability makes me feel empty when I teach, while Pure Holistic denies the reality of the system and gatekeepers that students must pass to advance into college or whatever.

A couple of weeks ago I had a lesson that did a pretty good job of balancing these competing purposes.

The lesson was the first of three or four dealing with the equivalence of rational numbers; this idea that fractions, percents and decimals all communicate the same amounts, parts of a whole, but are written in different forms. The objective for the lesson was for my students to see that all the numbers work the same way, and that we can compare them.

The lesson started with a situation.

"You just got a graduation gift of money. How much money do we have?"
Answers would range from $100 to $600. Surprisingly not one class went crazy on this.
"Okay, we have $500 dollars. We are going to put it in a bank account. Does anybody know why we might want to do this?"
Answers included so that we can write checks, to get a credit card, to save it for later. Roughly 20% of my students knew that bank accounts actually pay interest.
"Well, banks actually pay us to put our money there. If we leave our money in the bank, it will get more money for us and we don't have to do anything. So we have three banks to choose from. They have different savings rates. Which one should we choose?"
Kids knew that they wanted the most money possible. That was easy.

So, I conveniently changed the savings rates to easier numbers (none of this 0.32% crap), and made each bank use a different form of the rational numbers. As a class we went through and computed the first banks interest. As a table (group of 3ish), students did the second bank. As individuals, students computed the third bank. This took about 20 minutes.

"So which bank should we put our money in? Oh yea, Bank 3 gave us the most money! Cool. So let's review. We had a fraction a decimal and a percent, but they all gave us about the same amount of money. Hmm. We just spent 20 minutes figuring that out. Do you know we could have figured it out in 2 minutes?"

Groans echoed through the room. "Mister!" came the call from exasperated students.

I now introduce the idea of comparing rational numbers by changing them to the same form. We change them all to percents in 50 seconds, and have the best account in 70.

It was an early release day, so class was over at this point, but my students left knowing something real about the world (saving money in a financial institution helps me not to spend it AND it pays me money) and the saw something true about problem solving (there are many different ways to solve problems, just some are faster than others) and something content-wise (to compare rational numbers I need to have them all in the same form).

I felt extremely satisfied at the end of that lesson.

A Landscape

Nick wrote:

"Which begs the question, should that be the goal of teaching? A standardized test. Or should it be about "learning". In practice, very few students would learn just because that is what education is about. Those are probably already the top students, such as a Mr. Blair as a child. Do the standardized tests help the laggards though? Probably not, nothing probably helps. So you have this middle group. Does it help the middle group? This is not a simple question, and one that I think we can all have opinions to but no right answers. I have teacher friends who loath No Child Left Behind (I have not discussed with Mr. Blair). I don't have a real opinion about it, but I can say with confidence that there was a reason it was created."

I feel so lucky! I have had people actually posting comments on here, and not only that, but the comments are actually thought provoking and interesting and the beginning of a conversation. Granted, pretty much all the comments are coming from one person, who just happens to be a friend of mine, so really I could take this as a sign that we don't talk enough about "important" things...or I could just be glad I have comments.

So. The Goal. Of teaching. I think Nick has been pretty perceptive already with his breakdown of standardized testing; Standardized testing is not (IMO) meant to focus/motivate/assess individual students. It is meant to compare bodies of students. It is like any data metric; an average cannot tell us what is wrong in particular, but it can show the symptoms. I would view standardized testing's role as accountability and information; the tests hold teachers, schools, districts, states, and yes students, accountable for the materials that is 'supposed to be taught' in a given time period. It also gives information about student groups that are being under-served, specific weaknesses in content.

The problem is not that the tests exist. The tests ought to exist. The problem is in their use. First, they are used as a control device by the federal government. Schools are not a federal power, so the only way that the federal government can meddle, or attempt to meddle, is through money, whether bribes or threats. So the tests are attached to money. And this is where the problem comes in; as a teacher in a Title I school, our autonomy and our jobs hang in the balance if our students to do not perform well. If they do poorly, the government brings in oversight, pays for a program that we are forced to follow (this is how you raise your hand, this is what you say at 12:31.4 this is what you should ask, this is your homework), and then they will eventually cut all positions and restaff if it gets bad enough.

That creates a culture of fear and gives power to the test. Also incorporated in this is the very real nature of the tests as an individual gatekeeper; if the tests are being used for accountability, the students should feel some of that accountability as well. Hence we now have pass to advance in (I think) 3rd, 5th, 8th, 11th. Our kids are tracked (somewhat) based on results. More power for the test. More fear.

These are the things that are going on. I know the things my kids and I are accountable for. I know the level of depth we must reach. I also know where my students enter my class; they enter behind. We need to catch up.

As a result I am always balancing competing desires as I write a lesson:

• The desire for my kids to know the material
• The desire to honor and dignify my students as people
• The desire to not bore myself
• The desire for my students to do well on the TAKS test

I might also include on this list "the desire to not spend 100 years planning each lesson", which is something that I feel is both justified and at the same time somewhat lamentable.

There are times when I focus too much on TAKS, and I get fed up, because I am doing a disservice to my kids. And there are times when I focus too much on just knowing the material and having real-life applicability (honoring my kids status as People) and then we have a TAKS question and it is worded weird and my kids can't answer it.

What should teaching be about? Probably 90% the first three and 10% the last one. But my kids just do not cross-apply knowledge well. I don't know why. I can't remember if I had trouble with that or not. So I have to teach TAKS to some degree. The degree is always varying.

Next time: An example of this balancing act in action.

Backwards Design - Planning

Since Nick got me going on Test Creation, I thought I would continue to unleash all of my incomplete knowledge of planning. I aspire to be a cautionary tale, so hopefully this ends up helping somebody.

Here is my current planning cycle:

1. Beginning of the year: Look at all of the objectives that the State of Texas suggests 7th graders ought to know. These are found in the list of TEKS.
1. I then group these objectives into thematic units based on synergistic skills. So I put percents operations together with proportions because I plan on teaching percent operations using proportions.
2. Next I organize the units into a general order so that most basic skills are taught first. This insures that students have all the prior knowledge necessary for whatever unit they are starting. This is called my (cue theme music) "Long Term Plan".
   
2. During the year: Before each unit I read through all of the test materials and book materials for the learning objectives contained in that unit.
1. I go through the test creation cycle described in my other post.
2. I create quizzes that are very similar to the tests, differing only in their length and scope. They still scaffold from ground up to TAKS, but they will only cover 1 or 2 skills, and be limited to 4 or 5 questions total.
3. I look at my Long Term Plan to figure out how long I have to teach the unit. I break out my calendar and fit my test and quizzes onto it.
4. Before I put the rest of my lessons on the calendar, I break down the objectives into all of the skills and knowledge that my students will need to obtain in order to be successful on the tests and quizzes that I wrote.
5. Using this list of skills and knowledge, I fit them into general lessons and assign them to the remaining days on the calendar.
3. During the week: For each day I review what my students need to learn to be on track for the upcoming test/quiz, and review practice materials, previous lesson plans, exceptional lessons (from NCTM or other EduBloggers for example), and textbooks.
1. Knowing what my students need to know for a given day, I write some sort of assessment for that day. Sometimes it is the homework, sometimes it is just a question at the end of the class. Whatever it is, that is the daily progress to goal measurement.
2. With the daily 'assessment' written, the rest comes out in whatever it comes. Sometimes I will have a good idea of the practice I want to use. Others I will have an idea of the Introduction of New Material (the actual teaching) section. The important thing here is that I build gatekeepers into the lesson between INM and guided practice, guided practice and independent practice so that I know my kids will be able to handle the next step of autonomy without wasting a bunch of time.

So that's the process I've been running with this year. I definitely don't stick to it all the time, even though I should. Some units don't get all of the Unit Plan completed before we start; learning suffers as a result. I didn't start adding quizzes into my up-front planning until the end of November, so that would have helped earlier units. I didn't planning the INM to GP to IP gatekeepers until the end of October, so that definitely hurt instruction.

Backwards Design - Test Creation

Nick asked about assessment. He opened Pandora's Proverbial Box of Everything, so blame him when you start reading this and get bored. In an effort to save all you poor souls from reading, I will give the short answer here, and the long answer in a second post.

"This is interesting. How did you create a target quiz/test score from a needed score on what I expect is a different type of test entirely. Unless these test/quizzes are in the same format as the TAKS examine. Not questioning your methodology. I just wanna know how it was done, so I can use it in other applications." - Nick

There are four released TAKS tests. I also have textbook materials from 4 different publishers that are supposed to be aligned with the TAKS test, although any given learning objective has many interpretations, so there is a fair amount of variability between publishers. With these examples, I know what a specific learning objective looks like (in terms of assessment) for any of the 34 or so that my kids are supposed to know by the end of the year.

For any instructional unit, my assessment will have questions that scaffold from basic knowledge based questions up to the level that TAKS requires. I will have usually 4 questions per learning objective, with at least half of them being TAKS (literally off the TAKS test) or TAKS equivalent questions.

An example:
I have an objective: 7.1A compare and order integers and positive rational numbers.

My students need to be able to compare:

1. Fractions with fractions
2. Decimals with decimals
3. Percents with percents
4. Integers with integers
   
5. Fractions with decimals
6. Fractions with percents
7. Decimals with fractions
8. All 3 at the same time
9. All 3 with integers

So I might ask 1 greater than/less than question for the first 7 items. These will be easy, low-level. Then I will ask maybe four questions with #8 and four questions with #9. Probably 6 of the 8 questions would be TAKS or TAKS equivalent, with 2 being "put these in order from greatest to least".

The end grade doesn't exactly match with the TAKS test because of the easy questions, but it does give an accurate view of how well the student knows that particular learning objective. And really, the goal is not, necessarily, to predict how the student will do, since the type of questions on the test change almost every year. The point is to see what areas the student knows and doesn't know so that I can give targeted remediation to sub-groups of students so that they have the tools to be able to pass regardless of questions.

N. Y. C.

"We're not scaremongering / This is really happening / Happening / We're not scaremongering / This is really happening / Happening / Mobiles skwerking / Mobiles chirping / Take the money and run / Take the money and run / Take the money / Here I'm allowed / Everything all of the time / Here I'm allowed / Everything all of the time"
- Idiotheque from Kid A by Radiohead.

Radiohead plays. Shouts. It is the soundtrack of my exploration and discovery. The subway plunges into and through portals of clinical light back into darkness. This is my soundtrack for the exploration and discovery of New York City.

I flew up to NYC on a Thursday. My sub plans were in order, complete with contact information in case of emergency, referrals for the bad students, and an excess of work for all of my wonderful kiddos. It is harder to get into trouble when you are drowning in worksheets. Of course, sometimes you get into trouble because you are drowning in worksheets. So with sub plans in order, I left school at 3 pm to make it to the airport for my 5:30 flight to Newark International (EWR). I normally get out of school at 4:15, but since I had this flight I skipped my planning period, conveniently located during last period.

I made it to Bush in plenty of time to wait for 2 hours of flight delays. There was freezing rain in New Jersey. Planes couldn't land.

We eventually took off. I arrived at 12. I waited for the train. It came at 1.

The train from EWR is nondescript. There is nothing notable about it. It has seats. It has windows. In fact, the trip into NYC would lead one to believe, if one did not know better, that the train merely passed through some minor industrial and residential areas before continuing into some unknown countryside. This is managed by way of tunnels; it is very hard to tell that you are entering the most populous city in the US if you are underground. Underground there are no signs of millions of inhabitants. There are just walls. And lights. And the rushing wind as the train plows through then artificial (and in my case, actual) night.

No, the first signs of New York come after I disembark at Penn Station. I step out of the train, drag rolling luggage after me, and climb 2 flights of stairs. I see ticket booths. Changing boards of arrival and departure times. Some people. I climb another flight of stairs. To 8th Ave and 31st St. The city punches me in the face.

Buildings tear into the sky, tear at the sky. At 1:15 am Friday morning, the cacophony of taxis, people, assaults me. The city is alive, it is a living, breathing, moving thing, which demands action, and will continue to do so until I depart. But first I must sleep.

See, I am in New York City because Teach For America has its national office there. I need to be at TFA's national office so that I can interview to be a program director in Denver. Or Memphis. Every winter and early spring, for the past I don't know how long, TFA site managers converge on NYC so they can screen candidates for PD and RD jobs, jobs which basically amount to managing corps members (that's a PD) or recruiting college seniors (that's an RD). I am here because I might want to be a Program Director. I think I would be good at it. Turns out, either TFA doesn't think so, or the openings did not line up with my abilities. Cuz I didn't get an offer.

Interviews were Friday. They were fun. I thought I conducted myself well, giving a fair showing of my abilities and my faults. I do not like to mislead.

After the interviews, I called my buddy Ajay who lives in Manhattan. Hey Man, what should I do? Maybe go to the museums. Go here, catch this train, get off, take this shuttle, take this other train, get off, turn around, walk, click your heels.

The instructions continue. I botch em. I ride the subway, listening to Radiohead. Radiohead is my anthem for NYC. Its sounds perfectly fit the forced proximity, the spiritual, emotional, psychological detachment. You have to cope somehow when you ride the subway, packed into a car with no room to move, to sit, to breathe. Radiohead anthems.

I walk through Central Park. Miles to and fro. It's cold. There's snow. I see rock shear out of the ground. I think about climbing it. I walk to the Guggenheim. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the museum. It has a 4 floor spiral staircase. With a 50 foot diameter. Approximately. I didn't measure it or anything. I look at Richard Prince's art work. There are lots of prints of trashy romance novels. With nurses. There are some pictures of cowboys. I'd like to be a cowboy. Someday. There are silk screens of Found Jokes. They are all dirty. I laugh at some.

After leaving, I retrace my steps. I pick up my bag at the hotel. I walk across Manhattan pulling my suitcase. To Ajay's. We go out. We are looking for the Art Bar. Apparently it's close, but we walk for 30 minutes with no luck. We find the Village Vanguard. The greats played here; Coltrane, Dizzy, Davis, Marsalis. I stumble across it while looking for the Art Bar.

We decide we are lost. We get ready to call a cab. We see the Art bar. I'm starving. It's 10. I haven't eaten since noon. I meet his friends. I destroy my hamburger. We leave and go to some other bar. There is a birthday party for some friend of Ajay's. Some other people show up. We walk across the street to some German bar. They sell Liter Beers. Liter Beers are consumed.

We leave. We go back across the street to the birthday party. Dancing is happening. It's crowded. I dance around. No one is paying attention. I can't hear anyone. We pack up and head to the Beauty Bar. In a cab.

At the Beauty Bar, they are playing 50s music. Some early 60s. It's bop. It's On the Road. It's perfect. I dance. We dance. There are little chairs around the room, where ladies used to get their hair done. Those ones with the space helmet looking things on em. That go over your head. Over your curls. I dance some more. Some ladies prowl on me. I laugh. I dance. I ignore them.

We leave at 3:30. Ajay and I cab it to his place. I pass out in minutes.

Saturday comes, and passes at a steady but lethargic pace. We wake after noon, and make plans to eat brunch, even though I thought brunch was between breakfast and lunch, not after lunch, but maybe it is all about your intentions, and we definitely intend to eat brunch. We talk. Ajay and I. Dreams, jobs, traveling. Where could we go? Where couldn't we go? What could we do? Would they pay us to do that?

I pack my stuff, even though it is pretty much packed, and take a cab to Penn Station. I leave the city in the same nondescript way I entered. The city backs out of view through the windows of Penn Station as I descend the steps to the main concourse. A guy gives me his train ticket. He had purchased the wrong one. Thanks man. You don't have to pay me or nothing, I just don't want it to go to waste. Oh, um, okay.

"Everyone / Everyone around here / Everyone is so near / It's holding on / It's holding on / Everyone / Everyone is so near / Everyone has got the fear / It's holding on / It's holding on."
- National Anthem from Kid A by Radiohead.

The Laziness Aroma

I love tracking.

There I said it. Sometimes people look at me slightly askance when I talk about my myriad tracking systems, which range from the huge wall chart that takes up the entire south wall of my class, to individual student tracking for objectives, Critical Thinking Problems, and Mad Minutes, my own tracking of objectives and CTAs, and most recently, surveys.

Tracking is so great! I mean, I can open up my 12 mb Excel file and tell you exactly who did not understand how to solve percent problems when the problem was arranged such that we were finding the "whole" as opposed to the "part" or the "percent". I get pretty geeked about it. And actually, the "slightly askance" is more like the look at me like I need to be committed.

But this is not a post about tracking. This is a post about the survey.

I give a survey out at least once a marking period (9 weeks) because I want to give my kids a forum for voicing any needs that I am not meeting, and I also want to measure some more vague, non-academic things. I want to know if my kids think math is more or less important after 15 weeks in my tutelage. I want to know if they can tell that I care about their success. I want to know if they are willing to take risks. I want to know if they think they are working hard.

With the data in, I can tell you conclusively that students like my class a great deal more than they did at the end of the first marking period. There was an increase from 57% approval rating to a brisk 66%. On the downside, the "How much do I care about your success?" question dropped from 79% to 76%. And actually, all the rest of the categories saw a decline or no-change. So there was only the one bright-spot.

Well, almost.

One of my students in third period wrote that "What she likes most about this class" was "the laziness aroma."

Now I don't know what this is, but I am fairly confident that this student is not on drugs. That is the first consideration. Since no other students mentioned this aroma, I am guessing that she might have an over-active olfactory sense. Or not.

Any ideas?

Confirmations

This week I have been blessed by two independent forms of confirmation. Actually, come to think of it, there have been more than two, so I will put the total at 4, but I only will speak of two in this post. How's that for useless information.

On Monday, I taught a rocking lesson. There is no way around it. Basically, I had my kids read the story in the post above, and then we talked about changing words into numbers etc etc. What was even better though, is that my district math specialist, district math interventionist and school math specialist all visited my classroom on a walk through. And they came during my second best class. And they were rocking hard core.

My district math specialist said "This is awesome. I want to clone you."
me: "What?"
Her: "I want to clone you and put you in every school in the district. This is exactly the kind of stuff we need to be doing in our classrooms."

So...yea. That's a pretty glowing review.

The second confirmation was second hand, so that tempers it slightly. Basically, someone who's opinion I respect in TFA told my roommate and I that "It would be a shame if you do not go on staff next year. You might not be AMAZING teachers, but the things you are thinking about, the work you are doing, this is what this organization needs."

To temper these moral boosters, are three independent confirmations that I am a secret-selfish-jackass. What happens is that my default personality is such that I meet 95% of expectations (for personal interaction) placed upon me, but once the friendships/relationships become more important, I inevitably do a sabotage maneuver by not really thinking about the other person. I don't really have an explanation other than, "I don't think I have been challenged before." Which I think is true.

So the thoughts running through my head currently are "what does it look like if I really focus on something?"

Yea i'm late

sorry i haven't posted all month. school is cranking and i find that any energy i have when i get home i want to siphon (why is this not spelled with a y? can anyone tell me this?) into other outlets. pathetic i know. Of course, at this point, who really reads these things anyway? :^)

Lot's of updates, so I am going to brush over them all, and then, hopefully, just start posting regularly. That's the plan anyway.

• I joined an ultimate team! I played at sectionals this past weekend in Austin with Red Angus, a club team in Houston. They are pretty good, but definitely not Machine caliber.
• Austin is awesome. It beats Houston in every single possible category. If anyone is thinking of a move to Texas, Austin is my recommendation. And, the fields at UT were pillow soft. I layed out a lot.
• I caught a lay out huck for a score at sectionals. Go me. I also THREW a scoober score! Hah! And of course, I had the requisite "I'm tall and going to D you" action. Those are the highlights.
• This summer I hung out with this girl who is awesome. There was mutual attraction. But she was in GR. I left. Now she's dating some one else. Figures. :^)
  
• I started a Bible Study. Actually, I was prompted to start a Bible study after attending a small group from my church and being thoroughly disappointed and thinking "I could do at least 8.354 times better than this myself! And I will!" And I did.
• Our fourth roommate finally moved in! We now have 4 guys living in the most fly house ever possessed by TFA members in the history of the world. Seriously. Our place should be on cribs. We have a pool. It's a three story townhouse. We have a gourmet kitchen with a two level dish washer, wine fridge, double ovens, industrial gas range, and custom cabinetry. Not to mention the chandelier that hangs over the third floor bath tub!
• School is going sooo much better this year. Really there is no comparison with last year. It's like going from T-ball against 2nd graders to playing 1AA (I'm definitely not in the pros yet). Still, extremely good.
• I still don't know if teaching is for me. A friend of mine told me that she did not really start loving teaching until her 3rd year. That baffles me. Who knows.
• I am currently eying Denver, CO and Portland, OR as my next likely stops. They both rock, and they both have a Big Picture School. Assuming I want to teach. They also have engineering of some sort, since they are big, with Lockheed being in Denver, and I have no idea what, in Portland.
• I am still 6'7"
• I bought a mountain bike. I love to ride it.
• We are throwing kickin parties at our place fairly frequently.
  

Yea, that's about it, I guess. Umm...more later.

Loose Ends 4 - Now I have a job

This whole 'unemployed teacher' situation actually worked itself out a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot to post it. I think that I wasn't too flustered about the whole situation so when it was resolved, it did not seem like that big of a change. I guess it was though. Maybe.

So here is the sequence of events:

In February I got the flu, and had a meeting where a bunch of bosses told me to shape up or find another job.

In March, my principal told me that Alief Middle School currently did not have room for me, but I wasn't being fired. Instead I was being put into a teacher pool. I need disinfectant.

In May, I left school and Texas under the impression that there was approximately a 5% chance of having a math job at AMS.

In the middle of June, the TFA placement coordinator called to tell me that "Alief no longer feels confident about placing you. You can now go wherever you want." She brought up an engineering position at an HISD middle school. I give her the green light to pass along my resume and stuff.

I get a call from the principal of the HISD middle school. Turns out the position is not engineering. It's eighth grade math. But it has one or two robotics electives tacked on. I do a phone interview. There is no further contact for 2 weeks.

I talk with TFA placement coordinator again. She tells me that YES prep has an opening. Would I be interested. "Hell yes!"

I get a call from YES prep. I talk. We talk. We keep talking. We try and set up a live interview. I was going to FLY DOWN for an interview. It cost too much. Principal asks for material to show my skills as a teacher. I email him a bunch of stuff.

We keep talking. He asks for a sample lesson. I remember I have a dvd of a lesson I gave in Feb (around there anyway). I think the dvd is on my desk. I have my roommate deliver it to YES prep. It is the wrong dvd. The dvd is actually an advertisement for YES prep. Ha.

We keep talking. He asks how confident I feel moving to high school. I tell him that after initial misgivings, I am totally psyched for the position. He tells me that we are going to have a couple more conversations and then he will get an offer formalized. "At this point I don't want either of us backing away from this, because this is the direction we want to go". The direction he means is hiring me.

The next day Alief Middle School calls. Apparently, the 7th grade teacher who thought she was staying decided she was leaving. My job is now available. If I want it. Dangit.

After debating, I decide that even though TFA specifically told me I do not have to take the job, and that my duty to Alief is done, I feel like I ought to go there. And I am excited too. Well, sort of. I call AMS and accept the job.

I call YES prep and give them the bad news. He is very understanding. He says that the "quick hiring has turned into a more long-term process". I smile. Looks like I might get to work at YES prep HS someday anyway.

Oh and guess what. The YES prep HS is the only school in Houston to be ranked on Newsweek's top 100 schools nationwide. It's number 37 or something.

More Curriculum...and other stuff

This class is mind-blowing.

Seriously. My mind is blown apart.

The articles and ideas that we discuss just come through as true to me; ideas that make education into a mutual journey, that make it relational, that make it a search for truth, that give such dignity to the student.

An amazing quote that I came across today will explain some what I mean.

"The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day. Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat and unyielding, and, despite all its dimensions, valleys, pinnacles, and detours, life will seem to have none of its magnificent geography, only a length. It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between."
- Diane Ackerman

So as an educator, my job is not as some conduit of knowledge, pouring the things I know out like water into the gaping mouths of open, unblinking vessels. The vessels being the students. Instead, I am challenging my students to take risk, to become aware of the beauty that is around them, to challenge them to move in it and through it and become part of it.


This weekend I am up in Traverse City. One of my TFA friends comes up here every summer. I currently sit, watching the wind whip small whitecaps across Elk Lake, feeling the old dry sun warm my face and move the wind's crispness off of my arms, listening to the trees dance some ancient chant and call as they shake shake shake.

Or...

I currently sit
watching the wind whip
small whitecaps across Elk Lake, feeling the old
dry sun warm my face and move
the wind's crispness off of my arms,
listening
to the trees dance
some ancient chant
and call as they shake
shake
shake.

Curriculum Class

I am currently enrolled in, and have now completed my second day of a course at Calvin College titled (why do I want to say entitled? does that even mean anything?) EDUC 580 - Curriculum Theory & Development. I have posted the course description for your perusal.

• Participate in a study of theories and development of curricula for pre-school through grade 12 students in all content areas. In this course, you will become more aware of theories that inform curricula choices and contextual curricular issues, with special consideration of the more practical side of implementing curricular change. Discussions will be grounded in the integration of faith and learning including issues of social justice. (3 sem. hrs.)

So a couple of things jump out, which actual course experience has borne out as well; "Discussions will be grounded in the integration of faith and learning including issues of social justice."

!! Well. The integration of faith and learning bit is not quite up Teach For America's metaphorical alley, but issues of social justice? Come on! Can I guy get an Amen? (Amen. Thanks you in the back).

Furthermore, let's look at "with special consideration of the more practical side of implementing curricular change." Wow. That sounds suspiciously like "The education system is all #$%& up so reform is necessary, but we need to figure out what reforms would be good and how to get them going."

And sure enough, both of these things have formed a vital component to the class so far. It has been amazing! Who would have thought that I would ever write that about an Education course?!

I think the most influential aspect so far has been the reading of One Kid at a Time, by Eliot Levine. This book describes the development, operation and results of a new school model in Providence, RI organized by The Big Picture Company. This organization is starting schools across the country with a truly innovative educational approach that is all based on experiential, interest-based learning. You should check it out.

Locations & Musings

I am not one that usually spends a lot of time thinking about what could be, but I recently have thought quite a bit about the affect that location has played in my current position in TFA, my career trajectory, interests, friends, etc.

Right now I wonder if I would be teaching if I had not joined the co-op program at Purdue (and you can see right away the futility of this line of thinking, and yet, I am currently deep in it). I think that co-op and its unique mix of meaningful work experiences combined with inane absurdities and general drudgery is at least 50% responsible for motivating me to apply to Teach for America in the first place. If I didn't know that corporate engineering was lame, would I now be working at some engineering firm in Seattle, WA or Greenville, SC? Would the added responsibility and work-load of a full-time position make it actually enjoyable? I don't know, but it is interesting to think about.

Another affect of the co-op program was to move me every 3 to 4 months from one place to another (that's usually what moving does). I went from school to work, from work to school, and only my first year (fall '01) and fifth year (fall '05) did I complete a normal academic school year. My friends became concentrated in the co-op program. There were about 4 guys who rotated together, took ME classes together, did the house stuff together. Later on I took more advantage of enjoying the church community of which I was a part, but how did these relationships get stunted by leaving? Would I have different friends? Would I be married (good question since so many of my college friends are checking that box this summer or last)? Again, I don't know, but it is interesting to think about.

For a moment. And then I look up and around at this summer that is here and now, and the realities of the friendships that currently exist, of the work that I am currently doing, of the summer school that is starting in 3 weeks, and I am moving again.

TFA Year One - Recap

No writing occurred for the past three weeks on this blog. This is self-evident. All you have to do is scroll down and see for yourself that the last date posted was May 6th or something.

One of my friends told me the other day that he thought maybe some freak hurricane washed me out to sea and since I was the only fatality of this otherwise innocuous natural disaster, there was no press coverage. What else could explain, he continued, your lack of postings *and* non-existent cell phone?

In truth, there was no natural disaster. I was ruminating. And I my phone stopped working.

I struggled, during this past month, to put this year in prospective. I knew that I would be returning to the Midwest for June, and with that return would come many friends, family and just acquaintances that would call me to give an account of my toil.

And my struggle revolved around a couple of questions:

• How do I explain the impact that I had when all of my hard data shows that I had no real measurable affect on my students? For that matter, *did* I have an impact? What was it?
• How do I explain the reality of schools like mine, where students are driven by the test and not much else? How do I explain the youth addicted to entertainment, with no focus for anything that does not involve BET, a movie or video games?
• How do I explain the administrators and teachers that are on the ground, working for the best for the students, but at the same time, trying to preserve their jobs? How do I explain their decisions?
  
• How do I talk about Teach For America, when I do not see 'solvency' in my classroom, when I see progress yes, but not solvency in my school, when I don't know what solvency even looks like in the broad scheme of things?

I think I struggle with these questions because they are hard questions and deep questions. I want to write that maybe they don't have answers, but as part of this movement, as a member of this movement fighting for educational equality, I *have* to believe that solvency is possible in some form. Maybe I am just not smart enough, experienced enough, creative enough, something enough to think up a solution that could work. I don't know.

The reality of this year though, is that by the numbers, I did not really make an impact. Yes, 7 of my students passed the standardized test, where no one passed last year. But there are quite a few students who passed 2 years ago or 3 years ago, and did not pass this year. In terms of net improvement, I had 50% of my students increase their scores. That means 50% decreased. The actual number of questions increased was also balanced by the number of questions decreased. So statistically, numerically, I am a wash for year one.

Yes, I still had an impact on my students. One of my students wrote me a letter talking about how she did not know how to divide before this year (a 7th grader) and now she does, how she was bored and ignored the teacher and she found herself being interested in fractions (!). This is a real impact. And so many of my students come to spend time in my room before school or during advisory saying "I don't want to go to so and so, they don't like me". Time and again the tough students come to me.

And while this *is* important, I cannot stop looking at the numbers. I cannot stop looking at one student who will come and engage me in conversation and then sit and do literally nothing during all of my class, regardless of my pleadings. If they don't *learn* anything from me, any math...well, did I alter there course? Did I change their life options? Who knows.

Despite these things, I can honestly say that I loved this year. I am returning next year. I recommend Teach For America to anyone and everyone. While I think it is not the end-all-be-all of educational solutions, I am reminded of a quote that TFA espouses, that really struck me by Mahatma Gandhi; "Be the change you want to see in the world."

TFA is *doing* something. I am *doing* something. And the something is not sand in the wind. The something lives and breathes and dreams and fears and grows up and changes the world.

YES! College Prep

Today I visited Yes! college prep. Yes! is a charter school cut from the TFA fabric; high expectations, hard work, lots of support, sights on college.

I was inspired. For I remembered

• Students, just like my students, can have a joy of learning.
• Students, just like my students, can think critically about topics.
• Students, just like my students, can express themselves fluently.
• Students, just like my students, can succeed.

So now I am left with a "now what" kind of feeling. How am I going to coalesce my reality, my teaching environment with the culture of accountability, of achievement, of growth represented by the students at Yes! Prep?

It's never to late to make a change.

Play

On Friday I was really tired. I had stayed up until 2:30 am finishing this book I was reading. It was a good book.

Even though I was tired, I still made plans to have fun on Friday. I heard that my church was having a game night from 7:00 until 10:00, and earlier in the week games sounded theoretically like a good time, so some TFA folks agreed to go.

After school on Friday was a different matter. I had no energy to move, so even though I had some work to do in terms of putting my classroom back together (it's like an explosion went off in there at the end of every day), I just couldn't do it. Hoping that motivation might come, I sat at school for half an hour while I read espn.com. I almost fell asleep.

I made up my mind to leave school at 4:35. I debated between going home and sleeping forever, and following through on my plans. I went rock climbing as a compromise.

I really like rock climbing, but I am not very good at it. My strength to weight ratio is not high enough to make me capable of all the really cool stuff that rock climbers do, like dyno-ing. A dyno is what Tom Cruise does at the beginning of Mission Impossible II, in that part where he jumps from one ledge to another. I'm just not strong enough to do it. Or I weigh to much to do it. Either way.

Another observation, is that rock climbing seems to be gaining acceptance as a trendy spot for youth birthday parties. Maybe kids don't go to arcades anymore since everyone under the sun has some video game platform, but it seems like every time I am over at Texas Rock Gym, there is a herd of 7 year old children running around and screaming their heads off. Part of me laughs and enjoys watching the abandon with which these dervishes approach their play (getting to the point here soon) but another part of me recoils from the screaming, twisting, running, bouncing, here-I-am-but-now-I-want-to-do-that-give-me-a-cookie-now-I'm-done-bathroom-or-else energy. It ruins my controlled, purposeful brainwaves.

Mr. Beuthin, his roommate and I ended up riding bikes over to church. Do you ride bikes? You should. It's grand. We stopped at Pei Wei for dinner, and marvelled at what we currently believe to be free beverages and unlimited free fortune cookies. How do they make money? Seriously. I could probably live (for about 3 minutes) on beverages and fortune cookies. At least I would live a very knowledgeable life right?

Game night was held in the children's area of my church. When we got there I immediately started playing with the blocks. They had all sizes, but there were some 2 by 4 size blocks that I was using to make a giant something awesome. Someone commented that it looked like Jenga, and bam, giant super Jenga was born. We played giant super Jenga for about 20 minutes. It is very satisfying when a 4 foot high tower of 2 by 4s falls crashing to earth. Slightly dangerous though. Luckily, there were no casualties.

After game night, we rode home. We attempted to hold on to the back of this SUV, but that didn't work, so we raced him. He went home and cried to his momma after we smoked him. We rode by this big fountain and decided to climb some trees. At the top of the trees we had a tree shaking contest, an animal noise contest, and a peeing contest. I eventually decided that I was Rafeekee from the Lion King, and started chanting some mumbo jumbo, that unknown to me at the time, was actually the key to turning on the fountain. Marvelling at my power, I attempted to chant the fountain into spitting fire, but sadly, this never panned out.

We continued to ride our bikes around, travelling to this little park. On the way, I rode down a big hill and hit a giant mud puddle, effectively transitioning from clean-but-sweaty-Mr.-Blair to did-you-get-in-a-fight-with-a-wild-boar-Mr.-Blair. At the park we rode around on the basketball court running over cockroaches. They crunch and squish, squish and crunch in a very satisfying way. At the play ground we were secret agents infiltrating a compound, and we were careful not to set off the motion and pressure sensitive floors. Or to fall out the window and land in the lava. Both would have been a sad way to go. Home.

We wrapped up the night by attempting various gymnastic exercises on the crossbeam of the swing set, and by throwing a football in the parking lot.

Apparently, little kids are contagious.

Loose Ends 2 - Losing my job

This week, I am on spring break. The glory of being a teacher. I am definitely calling all of my engineering friends tomorrow.

So, everything seemed to be on the mend with my principal, and everything was running smoothly. Well, as smoothly as 6th and 7th grade classes could hope to run with a first year engineering major running the show.

I got an email last week from my principal, asking me to come speak with her during my planning period about employment. She used a different word than employment, but it currently escapes me. Whatever.

So I roll down there, after talking to that other TFA guy (Stockton), who did *not* receive a similar email. I meet the 8th grade intervention math teacher at the office. She is my counterpart for 8th grade math.
"You got the email too?"
Me - "Mmm hmm."
"Someone's in there right now."
Me - "Ahh."

After 15 minutes of nail biting I am in.
"So as you know, the district is switching to traditional schedules next year, so we are going to be cutting units at all of the secondary schools. As an extension of this change, the math intervention role does not exist next year. This program was federally funded, and we don't get the funding next year."

Poleaxed. "Okay."
"But don't worry you are not getting fired. We as a district are putting all of these teachers into a pool, and we will be filling future positions from this pool before we do any job fairs of any sort this summer."

Riping my fingernails out of my hand. "Okay."
"It is important to understand, these are not walking papers. You are not getting fired. We are going to be finding another school for you. Since you are in TFA, we have to find you a school with another TFA corps member, so that might be hard, but you are not getting fired."

Gouging my eyes with my thumbs. "Okay."
"So we are going to sign this paper saying that you understand this process. We are going to be trying to find a spot for you here first, but that comes on the basis of seniority, as determined by contract signing date."

So my job doesn't exist next year.
This means (by my estimation) that I have about a 5% chance of being back at my school next year. I would need 2 math teachers to resign before I would be offered a position, and that just won't happen.

My options are to seek positions at schools my friends work at, by having my friends put a word in with their principals. "You, I know this dude. He teaches math right? And he is way sweet. Get him over here." Well, something like that.

Or I could wait, and maybe my district would run out of slots. Then I might get switched to HISD or to YES!

At least one other TFA math teacher (at a different campus), has received similar papers.