Potential

All my students have potential. I tell their parents that. I think that is the most clichéd line ever. "Your son has so much potential. He just...." I think this New Year I'm going to quit saying that. I'm going to have my students live up to their potential in my classroom. I can't help what happens to them when they aren't in school. But I need to make my classroom an environment where students can come and learn.
This year has potential. My resolution is to live up to it. I need to establish discipline in my classroom. I have ideas. So far I haven't put them in to practice because I haven't established any consistent system that creates order in my classroom. My goal is to create structures that clearly let students know what is expected of them and what is going to happen if they don't behave accordingly.

10 and one half days until...

I hate to say I'm counting down the days, but I most definitely am. My troubles at school seem to be growing, but my support is as well. Two of my math classes are pretty much out of control. I can't get students to be quiet long enough to teach anything. Its a mess. In Freshmen Seminar students have stopped listening to me. There is a total lack of respect. All of this is making teaching very difficult.
Hope is not lost. I work with very excellent people who are willing to help me out in so many ways. From pulling kids out of my room to daily keeping me on track. Most of all I gotta be more stern. That's what it really comes down to.
Today I visited the Crossroads School in Fells Point. This is an excellent middle school. The school follows the expeditionary learning model . This school is the way I wish my middle school had been. The culture of the school at first seemed so radically different from any school I attended and a world away from my current job. The students were actively engaged in so many things that my students are apathetic to. I saw students engaged in a discussion of how they could have resolved a conflict better. Group norms seem consistently well established. The students seemed very conscientious of the typical teacher language that is being used. Discipline and order were not something established din some mythical way.
The quality of work these students were capable off blew me away. The math class I observed had students engaged with the work and thinking about and discussing math. The class talked about why you have to switch an inequality sign around if you multiply or divide by a negative. That was a level of thinking going on with the students higher than simply having them memorize algorithms and much higher then what I am getting in my class.
My goals currently are to improve the structures in my classroom so that more order and learning can occur. One thing I took from today was the importance of making it clear to students what is expected of them in both behavior and in quality of work. More concretely I plan by Christmas break to have structures in place so that students will enter my room, begin there work and know what we are doing for the period. Additionally I am going to instill the habit of leaving the room clean and the desks ordered. I've got 10 and one half days....

After these messages we'll be riiight back...

I only write on here when bad things are happening. This week has sucked shit. Last week wasn't much better. Scratch that Thursday and Friday of last week were great.
I took today off. I feel like I am digging myself a deeper and deeper hole in my classroom. I've begun to anticipate my class not paying attention and goofing off when I plan, so I underplan. I lower my expectations and I plan on not teaching. Believe it or not this doesn't work. I know it doesn't work. I've known that from day one. I just can't keep myself motivated to be energized and put the effort into teaching something when there are going to be too many disruptions for me to get the message across.
Freshmen Seminar is completely gone. Students aren't even listening to me. The impression I get is that students like me. They like me like you would like a bossy friend. They don't view me as their teacher.
All is not lost though. Don't think that I am giving up. It isn't even thanksgiving yet. There are too many intelligent students in my classroom for me to give up, or for me to continue like this. Next week should be pretty light and full of distractions, but following the thanksgiving break I'm going to change things. I'm going to get discipline under control. I'm going to be more firm with these students. I really need to realize the resources I have that can help me. There are people in the school that could help me get my classroom under control.

Hooray for the 10th of October

Today in Doris M. Johnson High School in Baltimore MD some students learned some Algebra. And they had fun while they did it. There were some students in the same class who didn't learn Algebra and might not have had as much fun as the rest of us. But if they've got something more important to talk about who am I to stop them?
Today went great. I don't know what I did. Maybe it was just that we were finally doing something different. Several students whose attention I don't normally get paid attention today. As usual several students did not. Some still needed to be put out of my classroom. But the rest of us we had fun. We played a game where I pick some sort of rule like adding three. The students give me numbers, I'll add three and give them answers. (If a student said '4' I would respond with '7') We ha a lot of fun. I made the game get progressively harder. In one class I gave extra credit to anyone who could come up with one I couldn't solve. We'll see how they did tomorrow.
I still need to find ways to get my classroom under control. Sooner or later they're gonna realize that some of the notes I have them copy down are a bit of a sham. If I put things on the overhead and tell them to copy it down they will. Even the kids who don't pay attention to anything else. I need some other way to get these kids to pay attention.

I need ideas

I am exhausted. I think one of the parts of my job that I am lacking in is coming up with creative engaging ideas for my classes. I need to take some time to sit down and come up with some good things for this next chapter I start in Algebra next week. We are actually starting Algebra. The first thing I need to do is introduce variables and the concept of equations and substitutions. Any ideas anyone has would be great.
Also I teach a course called Freshmen Seminar. This class is supposed to help kids adjust to high school and help them get team building skills and things along those lines. I've pretty much been making this class up as I go. Sometimes we play games. We can go outside. We can do a lot of things. I feel like if I didn't teach three sections of algebra I could teach the hell out of this. Instead I come up with lackluster ideas that the students don't want to do. If you have any ideas of team building games you played at camp or fun lessons to teach kids that would be great.

Talkin First Week of October Blues

So I skipped school today. It was the first time since.... well actually since last year that I've done this. I guess habits die hard. This morning though, I don't know why. I just couldn't get myself out of bed to go to school. This job is hard. Its not like there has been anything traumatic happen to me or anything super tough. It is just a lot of weight on my shoulders. After spending a day wasting time and complaining about my job nothing seemed any better. Luckily for me and for a whole bunch of ninth graders I called my mom. I love my mom. She is great. I don't know what she said, but whatever it was I have a completly different frame of mind now.
As far as Algebra is concerned The first unit test is this Friday. There is a test that the City handed out with the curriculum. It's hard. Not because the kids don't have the skills. Most of them wil likely be lost on reading the problems. I am going to make changes to the test keep some problems replace others. I need to take the time to teach my students how to read these problems. The problems are written the same way as the problems on the HSA will.
Alas I am still struggling to make math meaningful for them an me. I am going to email someone from the Algebra Project and see if he can help me out. If you aren't familiar with the Algebra Project check them out. They are great.

Tired All the Time

I feel like I've been exhausted all weekend. It's Sunday night and I'm just now getting things together for next week. The stress of everything is starting to build. I think part of the hardship I'm having is I don't feel comfortable enough with math to come up with creative activities. Not having a math background is making my life kind of difficult. I feel like I'm not sure what the big ideas I should be stressing or the concepts I should really be aiming for are. If I was teaching history... I've been telling myself that if I was teaching history everything would be easier. I don't think that's true. I would probably be dealing with a lot of the same problems.
A lot of my stress is coming from the classroom management end of things. SO everyone told me not to smile until Christmas. It's too late for that so what do I do now?
The other problem I'm having is a I just can't get excited about math. I thought I would be able to. Maybe its just what I'm teaching now. Maybe when I get out of this box plot crap and move on to introducing variables things will get more interesting. If I was teaching history we would be discussing reconstruction now. Reconstruction is something I can get excited about. I love history its great.
When people sit around and discuss what makes a good teacher people always mention the passion a particular teacher had for the subject matter. Teachers need to be excited about what they're doing. The other Algebra teacher has that. She gets excited when we plan things. Its great. I want to feel that way when I'm planning things.
Really the only class I find myself getting excited for is Freshmen Seminar. We discuss things in that class. Last week we went outside and went on what's called a Sherpa Walk. Tomorrow we are reading an article about Stephon Marbury's new shoes. If you haven't heard he is selling high end basketball shoes for 15 bucks. Check it out.

Testing

It seems that being the third week some of my kids are starting to test me to see how I will react to different things. 7th period is in to throwing things. Some of the kids refuse to listen. I've found that with a lot of them all I can do is consistently tell them to get on task. Two interesting things happened in my freshmen seminar class.
First I had a student tell me he wasn't going to work in a group. When I placed him in a group he muttered something under his breath, I can't remember what, but it was tot eh effect of he should beat me up. I think I handled well I just walked right up to him and said "what was that?" Like I hadn't heard him and was really just curious, he quickly caught on and said something clever.
Even more interesting was the discussion we had in class. The students were in groups and I gave them a scenario. I told them they were stranded on a desert island and they needed to create rules and laws for the society they would live under. At first that was all I said and I figured I'd let them run with it. I hoped that we could get into some discussion about how rules in my class were not arbitrary and in order to accomplish what we needed to we had to have some sort of rules. Instead some of the kids decided to take the chance to see what they could get away with. One group made rules that the island they landed on would be called the United States of Black People (USPB). In the USPB white people would be enslaved and the police force would be the Black KKK. A girl told me that she thought this was inappropriate, but I let it stay up so we could discuss. No one in the group would claim responsibility for writing it I asked them some could questions about what it would mean to have slavery, and what sort of police force you want to have. It was really pretty fun.
We sort of got into a discussion about race, which was not where I was looking to go, but I was ok with it. One thing that struck me though is when one of my students was talking about white racist police officers she looked at me and said "no offense". At that I paused the conversation. I almost wanted to laugh. This was the second time this had happened.
Earlier in the year during a discussion of Martin Luther King a student had said "He got killed by a white person,"looking at me"no offense." I had to stop the conversation I asked them why I would be offended at that. I knew there were racist cops. I stressed the fact that I was not responsible for their actions and that what one white person said or did was not a reflection on any one else. The same way that no one persons actions are a reflection on any race of people. All in all I thought this was an interesting experience.

Classroom Management

So I have survived the first two weeks of school without losing any limbs, or going completely insane. Actually all and all I feel pretty good right now. Tomorrow is the primaries and I have off. I've really never been so excited about the election process. I think this excitement typifies the way I have been feeling. I really feel like teaching is driving me from feeling down and exhausted, to moments of elation where I feel excellent. I think a large part of this has to do with my classroom management.
My management is something I knew would be lacking at the beginning of the year and it's really not much of a surprise that my classes are getting out of hand. Last week was the worst. On weds I lost complete control of one class. It was bad enough that I've been dreading going to school in the morning because while I eat breakfast I just anticipate the problems I will have to deal with.
But I am still excited to be doing this. I came home from school today thinking I've made progress in the management of my Algebra classes. I assigned seats, which I didn't want to do, but I think it is going to be beneficial for me and the students.
At lunch I was talking to an English teacher and she gave me a procedure that she uses to get her classes quiet. It works like this: I raise my hands the kids know this is the symbol to get quiet. I drilled it in one class, and kept my freshmen seminar class after because they failed to do it. I'm going to try and implement this on Weds in all my classes and we'll see how it goes.
Any ideas for other procedures to get students to be quiet and stay quiet are appreciated.
One thing that has helped is talking to other teachers about their problems. It puts things in perspective. It lets me know that my problems are similar to a lot of other first year teachers, and the students I have trouble with also have trouble with other teachers. I'm really just happy that I'm not alone.

Week one

I have been a teacher for one week. I am exhausted. I feel like I have so many thoughts that I need to reflect on that I should probably take about an entire week off so I could think about what I've been doing and come back on that third week of school ready to teach the hell out of this Algebra class. Honestly who thought teaching would be this physically exhausting.

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school. I feel like I have so much to say and could probably use a week to think about what went well and what I need to do in my second day to make this a productive year. Alas the second day follows the first meaning I have a lot to do by tomorrow. Right now I am simply feeling overwhelmed. Part of it is just exhaustion. Standing in front of folks and rambling about the importance of Algebra is much more physically exhausting than I anticipated. I'm feeling underprepared and I don't think many of the students cared at all about the activities we did today. I was hoping to build some sort of connection or get them interested in something, but honestly its the first day of school. Nobody wants to be there. On the positive side I got a lot of opportunities to talk to students and I felt like this was good.

First Day of Work Eve

Tomorrow is the first official day of work. I have to be in by 8:30. I can't wait. I say that now, but I keep going from being really excited to being really nervous. I'm not so nervous and excited about tomorrow. Students don't come until Monday, but the anxiety is building. I still have about a million things to do so that I'll be ready for the first day. I've noticed that as the start of the school year approaches I've gotten very good at finding distractions and not preparing guess that could explain some of the anxiety. I'm really happy with my school. I think I am really going to enjoy all the people I am working with and I can't wait to meet the students.

Success

(written at the conclusion of the Baltimore City Teaching Residency summer institute (8/5/06) . It is being posted now because I wrote it at my house before I had internet.)
One of the themes of the last week of framework sessions has been establishing authority in the classroom. The pedagogical framework of the BCTR seems to circle the importance of authority in the classroom. The curriculum that has been used for the summer institute was created by Teaching for Student Achievement(TfSA). The TfSA framework relies on the interconnected nature of high impact lessons and classroom management. Both of these are presented with the teacher being the primary or even sole authority and beholder of knowledge in the classroom.

While these arenot the ideals I wish to bring to education it seems that in the current structure this what is effective in creating successful students. How success is being defined is not made clear. The overall purpose of the TfSA approach is closing the achievement gap. This is a laudable goal the TfSA/BCTR approach cannot be the only successful one out there.

I am grappling with the question of what it means to be a successful student and how the power that exists in my classroom will shape that. I will have power in the classroom, I can attempt to mask that by being polite, but that won't change the fact that I am the one in charge. That is not to say that my class can not be an empowering experience for those who enter it. My vision of a successful student is one who leaves my classroom able to think about math.

My students success will be measured by many people with many different standards. The state will be measuring their success through the Algebra High School Assessment (a passing score is required for graduation). The students families, and likely the students themselves will measure it with the grades they receive. Those are not the only ways I hope to measure my students' success.

Math literacy is what I see as success. Now this isn't concretely quantifiable. In my eyes this means that students will leave my class at the end of the year with the ability to use math in their everyday lives. I want my students to leave school not thinking of math as a burden or a chore, but rather a tool for opening doors. I want math to become an empowering force in these students lives. The skills students learn in my class must prepare them to go on to higher levels of math learning, building a foundation for college. The majority of my students may not go to college, but I don't want this to be because I have failed to provide them an opportunity the math they need to make higher education a possibility.

Power in the Classroom

After reading Lisa Delpit's article "The Silenced Dialogue" I have been contemplating the way I will deal with power in the classroom. The focus of the article is the "culture of power" that exists in classrooms. It is clear that there is very real power in the classroom. Over the summer I have been grappling with the question of how to fairly distribute this power. At the current time I am still a bit of an idealist without any substantial teaching experience. I have told myself that it is important to let students control their own learning and empower students, by letting them control the classroom. As the summer has progressed I've realized the naivity of my ideas.

Delpit's article has led me to question many of the thoughts I've previously held about power in the classroom. In "The Silenced Dialogue" she states,
"Issues of power are enacted in the classroom. There are codes or rules for participating in power; that is, there is a culture of power. The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the culture of those who have power. If you are not already a participant in the culture of power being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier."
She goes on to discuss many teachers inability or unwillingness to acknowledge there power in the classroom.

One of my goals as a new teacher is that the experiences that students have in my classroom will empower them to continue on with their education. Delpit makes a fairly convincing argument that the best way I could empower my students is to inform them of the rules for participating in the "culture of power". Ideally I would like to destroy this power, or at least change it substantially so that classrooms become more democratic, but this ideal will likely not be reached in my first year as an Algebra teacher in Baltimore City. I will however do my best to make it clear to my students that their are certain things they need to be able to do to participate fully in our (the school's and society's) "culture of power". My ideas are continually shifting as to how I can best empower my students. As the school year rapidly approaches I hope I can prepare myself adequately to deal with the power I will have.

Highly Qualified

I've been meaning to reflect on the parts of the Baltimore City Teaching Residency(BCTR) I've participated in so far. I'm in the Math Immersion Program, which takes folks who aren't from a math background and trains them to become math teachers. This is done because Baltimore, like most cities has an enormous shortage in the number of qualified math teachers. The question yet to be answered is does this program bring in more qualified math teachers or just more bodies to fill rooms?
Today was the first day of the summer institute and it left me with a lot of questions about my status as a school teacher. A lot of the literature I have received through this program stresses the high need for qualified teachers in inner city schools, particularity in math and science. An article we read today cited a statistic that in schools with greater than 49 percent of the students on free lunch 40% of the math teachers were considered underqualified meaning they did not major or minor in the field they are teaching. In schools with less than 20% free lunch only 25% of math teachers were underqualified.*
BCTR and similar residency programs are designed to lessen the disparity in these statistics. My fear is that bringing me, with my bachelors degree in American History into a classroom to teach math is not helping this. The Maryland Board of Education has determined that after completing the Math Immersion program I will be considered highly qualified. Being highly qualified sounds nice, but ultimately it is a meaningless term that is easily circumvented to fill the real need for math teachers. While this program seems to be a reaction to necessity I am left wondering how the problem of underqualified teachers is going to be solved and if I am part of the problem.
Up until this point I've felt pretty comfortable with the idea of teaching math. In the fall I will most likely be teaching 9th grade algebra. For the most part my anxieties about teaching do not revolve around the content. Statistics about the problems created by underqualified individuals make me wonder if I will be a successful teacher. If I am what will this say about the importance of being highly qualified?

*The article I am citing is "Helping All Students Learn: CLosing the Achievement Gap" By Kati Haycock. The statistics I have cited come from page 16 of this article.

One, Two what is this?

The Baltimore Sun reported that a new study of graduation rates conducted by the journal Education Week found that the Baltimore City Public School System (BCPSS) had a 38.5% graduation rate. The city is disputing the numbers claiming that the graduation rate was around 54% the year of the study. While the numbers are being disputed it seems that the state of Maryland uses a method of measuring graduation rate that will inflate the numbers while the study by Education Week seems to deflate the actual graduation rate.
In all likelihood the graduation rate in 2003 for the City of Baltimore Public Schools was somewhere between 38.5% and 54% . To me it seems that either of these numbers are incredibly low. As a first year teacher entering the public school system with little to no experience in front of a class this seems rather intimidating. I expect the coming year to be challenging day in and day out and it is my intent to use this blog to write about the challenges and experiences I will have.