6 posts tagged “teaching”

I am starting to do a fair bit of thinking and planning for next year. Now that I understand my school and the students better, it is time to rewrite my classroom rules. Originally, I began with some vague, pretty-sounding sentiments about “respect” and figured that would do. Now that I know better, it is easy to come up with six specific, pointed rules that cover at least 90% of the incidents that annoy me and generally detract from the classroom environment. Stating my rules so unambiguously should make them more enforceable. Drum roll, please!

1. If you have not done your homework, do not complain.
2. Listen and be quiet when the teacher is speaking.
3. Ask permission before leaving your seat.
4. No food, gum, or drink.
5. No insults or hit-backs. Retaliations will be punished!
6. Head up at all times.

I am especially happy about the innovation of Rule #1, as it has been such a problem in Algebra II, with my surly and lazy students complaining, “This is not Advanced Algebra!” and so on, that it deserves top-billing. I am seriously planning to give consequences for it next year. I like how it is not so authoritarian as to say, “No complaining,” but rather establishes a prerequisite effort required to make a valid complaint. The wording of Rule #6 is chosen so as to make it especially unambiguous and enforceable, rather than something subjective like “Pay attention,” or “No sleeping.” I swear, I will warn them once, and if they put their head down again, I will write them up for “failure to obey teacher” and send them out! “I’m not sleeping!” is not an excuse.

1. Fully implement MYP units, guiding questions, and assessments for at least Algebra II. Finish with a course plan that could be followed by another teacher. I know my way around the curriculum by now, and I have a few decent ideas. The difficult part is filling in the gaps with good ideas. I am off to an okay start so far. Took my students on my first field trip on Monday, to Wal-Mart where they weighed products off the shelves to determine the mass tolerances for commercially-packaged foods.
2. Contact all parents before the end of the first nine weeks. Contact parents of failing students immediately after they fail their first test. Late last term I did good job of contacting almost all my students' parents. Now I just need to start earlier.
3. Start a board game club. This is a plenty-good idea and something I would enjoy. It has been easy to put off, though, and I have simply lacked the initiative so far. Sigh.
4. Take better care of myself. Ever since I began teaching, I have eaten just once a day on school days. Since living in Mississippi, my lifestyle has been sadly sedentary. Perhaps all this has contributed to my low energy levels and sometimes poor mental health. Certainly my nagging groin injury and chronic back problems contribute to my lack of exercise at times, but there is no excuse not to be swimming. I need to get over it and buy myself a Delta State pool pass.

Today, my work space is more organized than ever. Largely representative of some newfound contentment-slash-productivity, my teacher desk and environs now feature the most clutter-free square footage ever seen since long before yours truly began his present employment. In the past I have fondly clung to the notion that the less cluttered one's desk, the less important one's actual work, but honestly my clutter had become a drain on my productivity and was for some time. I used to sit at a student's desk just to grade papers during my planning period because clearing a space on my own desk felt akin to shoveling snow during a blizzard, only more depressing. So I organized all my hanging-file drawers in approximate descending order of timeliness and importance.

Desk Drawer

1. Discipline Forms
2. Calendars / Duty / Emergency Procedures
3. Current Memoranda
4. Library / Printing Office
5. Academic Referrel / TST
6. Teaching Evals / Employment
7. MYP (IB Middle Years Program)

File Cabinet: Boring Drawer

1. Checksheets / Rubrics
2. Syllabi
3. Graph Paper
4. Activities
5. Teaching Tips
6. Current Worksheets
7. Old Lessons & Tests
8. Products / Catalogs
9. Textbook Control
10. District Forms
11. District Info
12. Overheads / Textbook Pages
13. Progress Report Forms

File Cabinet: Student Drawer

1. Sp.Ed.
2. Medical Info
3. Exemplary Work (old)
4. Graded Tests (current term)

So what's in your file cabinet?

Current form combines with introspection to convince me it was not circumstance that made me so unhappy all these past months, but rather my perception of it. The circumstance has not changed at all, but my view of it has, which has made all the difference. At the moment, I feel pretty good, if humbled by recent lows. Confident yet humble, that's about right. Certainly a lot less needy, circumspect, even, of troublesome emotional attachments. I've found my Zen, so to speak.

Regarding plans for next year, recent contentment has led me to reconsider the most profound and revolutionary choice of all: Staying put. I've never done anything like that before. The subtle and not-so-subtle nuances of self-improvement motivate me, and right now, at this moment, there seems a lot less need to run so frantically around. 

I called a bunch of parents today, in regard to my third block Transition to Algebra class, to let them know their children are failing. (Good for me!) Told the students they must be at my review session, starting today after school, in order to retake the test they failed a couple weeks ago. (A number of those most likely to turn it around and manage a passing grade in the end did come, and we had a good session.) Counselor came to speak to the class, as per request of me and the special ed teachers, to "give them blessings" or whatever you call it. She asked me to leave, so she could "talk like black folks," so I sat in the hall for at least twenty minutes waiting for her to finish. After she finally left, no sooner had I resumed my example, explaining all about domain, range, and intercepts, when a workman comes into my room without knocking, proceeds to whip out a power grinder and literally saw, without fanfare or warning of any kind, through the metal hinges of a window, throwing sparks all over the back of the classroom and causing a near stampeed, as some of my students were sitting no more than four or five feet away at the time! It was insane. I went over to this man to have a stern word or two. He was apparently an inmate worker, judging by the green- and white-striped pyjama pants one of his coworkers wore. Leave it to Mississippi to think inmates roaming around a school, unsupervised for all intents and purposes, with power tools, is a good idea! Needless to say, the utter disregard, no only for my instruction, but for the safety of my students, really infuriated me. Well, infuriated me in the sense that I told him we need to have some "communication," then tried my best to finish the lesson amidst the power tools, shouting workmen, broken glass, and me telling the students to move their desks as far away as possible from the windows. It was one of the more classic Delta teaching moments I will never forget. Wish I had my camera.

I was a teacher in Africa. It was terrible. I was terrible. Peace Corps is a large bureaucracy of questionable merit. The best parts about Peace Corps are the free ticket to the other side of the world, the passport and work visa, the measly living allowance, and best of all, the community of other volunteers.

I have become a better teacher in the two years since I returned. Now I am getting the travel itch again. I have considered several options: Teaching in another part of the US. Teaching at an international school for diplomats' children and the like. Even joining the military! Then just the other day, another thought struck me: another tour in Peace Corps? Maybe a different country in Africa. Man, I never thought I would consider Peace Corps again for a long, long time.

As bad as it was, as bad as I was, I can look back now and feel nostalgic about it. I can picture my sandlot front yard, the creaky wooden doors, the stench of raw sewage leaking across the way when the wind shifts, climbing the water tower to get cell phone reception, jogging past the stark desert beauty that surrounded me in all directions, getting off school at 1:00 in the afternoon, the random generosity of someone offering me a beer or a piece of fish, hitchhiking to and fro, and of course the pointless staff meetings every single morning where for some ludicrous reason I never hesitated to speak my mind.  If I had it all to do over, I would feel a lot differently toward my students. I would play soccer with them more, invite them over more often, etc. I would love them, instead of hate them. Some of them might even come to confide in me. I would walk over to the "resettlement camp" at least once a week. It makes me weap to read what I just wrote.

What would it be like if I had a second chance? Anyone hear me on this one? Any RPCV's out there?

Peace Corps Namibia (2003-2005)

1. Love your students. You will never be bored if you get to know your students. They will repay your efforts to reach out to them. They will love and respect you, if you give them the time and a reason to. Forgive them their immaturity and their imperfections, even as you expect better. Show them the best parts of your personality, and they will show you theirs. Enjoy them!
2. Altruistic satisfaction. You may face moments when you feel inadequate, especially at first, but you will never face moments when you question the meaning or value of your work. You are building futures. People, children, raw human potentials, directly benefit from the work you do. Try doing a job without that. If you have any idealism in you at all, you will quickly see how empty and pointless it feels.
3. It gets easier and easier. The longer you teach, the less effort it takes, the more comfortable you feel, and the more you enjoy it. The things that seem so stressful and hard at first eventually become like dust in the wind.
4. Love your subject. Math makes so much sense to me, sometimes it is hard to believe they actually pay me to do this. What about you?
5. Seeing the light bulbs. There are few moments in the workday so precious as witnessing a student get it because of your efforts.
6. Summers off and other vacations. Teachers get more paid vacation time than any other career. Where else do you get over two months at a time off every single year? Teaching is an ideal career for travelers.
7. Set your own work load. Feeling overwhelmed? Ease up on your grading. Really far behind? Give a bunch of completion grades. Feeling like shit? Call in sick. How hard you work is determined largely by your own ambition and conscience. Very few jobs are so forgiving. (A tip for the rookies: You do not have to take work home with you unless you want! Savage never did, and Teacher Corps just loved her! I dare you. Try it!)
8. Independence, authority, and power. Most teachers exercise nearly complete autonomy and authority within their classroom. 90-99% of the time, no other adult has any idea what you are doing. That is a hell of a lot of power! Few other jobs are so poorly supervised. (Another tip for the rookies: Pay lip service to the inane orders, remember to say yes, sir, thank you, sir, then do what you want! Follow your conscience. 9 times out of 10 no one knows the difference.)
9. Short formal work day. How many other jobs do you go home at 3:30 if you want? Yes, you may have grading and planning to do, but you do it when and where you want.
10. Job portability and security. Good teachers are in constant demand all over the world. You can go anywhere, literally anywhere people live, and find a job. Never worry about losing your job because the economy sucks. The pay is steady and adequate, if not stellar, and the benefits are generally quite good.
     

Anyone got something else to add?