Tuesday, December 6, 2011

If you miss me at the back of the bus

When my father had lost the ability to make pithy comments about most things, let alone the ability to open the car door without assistance, we took him to his grandaughter's camp visiting day. There a bunch of enthusiastic fair-skinned, nine year olds belted out the old civil right song- If You Miss Me At the Back Bus
If you miss me at the back of the bus, and you can't find me nowhere
Come on up to the front of the bus,
I'll be ridin' right thereI'll be ridin' right there
I'll be ridin' right there
You got to come on up to the front of the bus
I'll be ridin' right there

My father's comment: “That's what I like about the Jews, they send their kids to camp to sing good socialist songs and you can't find a spot in the parking lot between the BMWs and the Cadillacs.

I take two buses home from school. I stayed at school until almost 6pm. I stayed for the Black Studies College course. The guest speaker spoke about prejudices and segregation. The after-school college class is filled with the kind of student who anyone would love to teach. It was a beautiful two hours in the classroom as the sun set behind us. It was a nasty, rainy day as I ran for the bus after it ended. But the driver waited and I scurried on. I found a spot in the back of the bus, between two members of the class. I joked about sitting on the back of the bus and enjoyed the good company for the first half of the trip. Sometimes I just love my high school students.

Next bus. Now the bus back was filled with rambunctious students heading for a basketball game. It wasn't nearly as enjoyable
They weren't my students.
I squeezed into a seat in the front of the bus and listened to my headphones for the whole way home.


Come on over to the front of the bus- I'll be riding up there

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Defeated

Louis had his head down when I entered the room Friday. He looked like I felt- defeated .

I knew why I was defeated. Clueless helper was back. And her help made me dizzy first, depressed second and then finally defeated.

Things have not been going well in the category of students with special ed services. Some combination of budget cuts and the inability of administration to make a schedule has resulted in what we call -lack of compliance -lots of lack of compliance and everyone complains to me.

I've been on the horns of a moral dilemma Should I report this obvious denial of services to students in need, or keep playing ball with an ineffective administration- hoping against hope they will eventually get it right. Okay I know what the moral decision is. But I did that once – I reported the abuse of power in another time in another school

And it was HELL. The subsequent school year was categorized by investigations , discipline reports, and threats of loss of employment,

For both the principal and me. And at the end of the year both of us left the school.
I maintain to this day the correctness of my actions, but I could not go through that again.

So I didn't report the principal.
But someone (and I don't know who) did.

Which made the Union come down- to solve these issues.
Which made overwhelmed adminstrator call her support people down.

Which produced Clueless Helper.

Which led to my dizziness, depression and defeat.

Clueless Helper's input:
Only highly qualified teachers should teach special education students in the content area. “With apologies to the Union,” she said, “when special education teachers teach content their students receive 80s and 90s on the report card but only score 20s and 30s on their state exams.” Then she added that she thought she could not teach special education math since she had not majored in math in college. She could however, teach general education students since they may be smart enough to pass the curriculum without a good teacher.

This is what I thought:
Students are granted special education services after a large battery of evaluations that determine their difficulty in assessing the general education with a general education teacher. Then when they cannot meet the arbitrarily determined state standards do we offered any other course of study other than the “rigorous college bound curriculum” everyone is subjected to?
No we have high standards for everyone.
So they fail continuously.
The ability to solve differential equations, adequately understand college level calculus and other advanced mathematics makes one a better instructor for students who cannot accurately sketch the fraction one half. Even is that other person is a learning disability specialist.
Looking at real data is only applicable to situations when it validates Clueless Administrator and her buddies' position. While she could only make conjectures on her ability to get students to pass the Algebra Regents, I have hard data that illustrates that I continuously do.
I thought that for several seconds.

The meeting went on for hours.

And we still didn't have a real schedule.

So that's why I was dejected.

And Louis.

I've been meaning to write about Louis for a long tme.

Five years ago Louis arrived from another country. He didn't speak English.
He didn't know what a fraction was. The ESL teacher put him on a computer ESL computer program. He didn't know how to use a computer.

But he was determined. He was in my room every spare minute. He would stay until six o'clock at night to put together a project. He would take all six hours to finish a exam allotted three hours (He was allowed double time). And he still failed.

After a year he could communicate in English a little better. He took the Regents again. He failed again. He took it over and over again. And failed every time.

I found his tenacity honorable. Most found it pretty annoying. Louis's dedication came off more creepy than endearing. His inability to communicate what he needed paired with his perseverance, made him come off as kind of a stalker. He would follow around the person he thought had what he needed, until they made every effort to avoid him or gave up and helped.
Most avoided him- I ended up helping just a shade less than the amount that would have preserved my sanity.

Louis passed classes. But he continued to fail Regents. He just couldn't remember, process, or write well enough to pass.

But he kept trying.
This year something changed. He kind of got it. He can do more of the academics. He figured out that I am the only one worth the effort of bothering. He leaves everyone else alone. And he figured out he's past the age of the average high school graduate. And he still hasn't passed a Regents exam

A long time ago I learned about BICs and CALPs. A second language learner can master the basic interpersonal communication skills pretty quickly, within a year or two. The Cognitive Academic Language Processing skills take five to seven years to master. Louis is just moving into that time period.

And he got the idea he's in trouble.
He is.

We have high standards. We expect everyone to go to college
We leave no child behind.

Except of course, if you are an annoying English learner with little formal education who happened to arrive in this country less than five years before high school graduation.

And that why Louis is defeated.

I have no pithy summary statement.
It's just sad,

Sunday, October 2, 2011

The Art Book Fair

If I stayed on the couch any longer I was going to grow roots. So Mr Teacherfish made me get up and we were off to the New York Art Book Fair at P.S. 1

The museum that houses P.S. 1 was once a public school. Helen our babysitter (my daughters are in their twenties and have long since passed the age of needing Helen's services but she remains forever in our hearts the loving babysitter) went there more than a half century ago. She lived in a two room apartment in Long Island City with ten siblings, no room for cribs, she once told me, “we kept the babies in the dresser drawers.”

But I digress.
Good writers keep to their topic when writing an expository piece, I tell the freshman English class. But it is freeing to have no aspirations to be a good writer, nor to receive a passing grade in ninth grade English, for that matter.

Back to the topic.
Long Island City has changed over the last half century, since the time Helen and her many siblings lined up at the separate Boys and Girls entrance to receive the free public education that entitled them to seek lives where babies could have cribs in houses with swimming pools.

And PS 1 no longer educates the children of fertile immigrants. It has become an avante garde art museum, the more modern extension of the Museum of Modern Art. Only the peeling paint in the overheated cavernous stairway reminds you that it was once a New York City public school

It was packed to the gills yesterday, with art book merchants and many, many of the children of the immigrants whose parents' successes had afforded them the opportunity of perusing their wares.

Us among them (slightly, okay considerably older than the average peruser).

Now the Philistine disclaimer. I have no idea what makes an art book have value. I don't know why a small book with one word typed on a page is worth five dollars. I also quickly realized that I could never even hope to have even those most minimal look at one one thousandth of the material displayed. So I gave up trying and used the strategy of looking at whatever I landed in front of, hopefully in some corner with a cross breeze.

And why does this entry belong in the Teacherfish blog?

I had decided not to buy any books, I had enough, I didn't know what I was looking at, and anyway I was there to just do something
That lasted five minutes. My purchase, a pop-up book of the Odyssey- perfect for the ELA class studying Greek mythology.
“What grade do you teach?' asked the merchant?
“12th but they still can't really read,” I answered. But that doesn't stop us from placing them in an a college credit course. We have high expectations for our students. (I didn't say that aloud-I hope.)

A lot of the books I surveyed had sketchings with sexual contents. The first year I taught, I had 18 middle school, limited skilled students who were boisterous, to use a positive word. And then one week Dominic, the leader of the pack became very quiet. He sat quietly working on something at his desk throughout the day. Without his antics the class settled down. I got a word in edgewise. I didn't look at what he was doing. I assumed he was doing school work, (okay- I was 23 less than the amount of years I have taught subsequently). I was happy he was quiet.

But at the end of the week he showed me a product. It was our class's personal magazine- Playboy for class 8-412 all the girls carefully sketched naked with a floaty pen that made the bikini on the sexy girl disappeared when turned upside down. I confiscated the pen and the book I told him I could destroy it or send it to his family. I didn't do either. I took it home, it still upstairs, I think, along with the pen.

I wonder if he was at PS 1 yesterday. He would be in his mid-forties now, a little old for most of the vendors.

At the end of our time there I found another small art book related to the Greek Mythology course. This one had nine myths illustrated with watercolor sketches. Each featuring the Greek gods doing what Greek gods do- have sex with other gods or come down to earth to do it with mortals.

“Should I buy this one too, for school?” I asked Mr. Teacherfish?

“Do you want to spend the rest of your career in an administrative office on reassignment?”

I saved the five dollars and we were off through the rain, to find something to eat.

They would have enjoyed it. They would have been engaged.If I stayed on the couch any longer I was going to grow roots. So Mr Teacherfish made me get up and we were off to the New York Art Book Fair at P.S. 1

The museum that houses P.S. 1 was once a public school. Helen our babysitter (my daughters are in their twenties and have long since passed the age of needing Helen's services but she remains forever in our hearts the loving babysitter) went there more than a half century ago. She lived in a two room apartment in Long Island City with ten siblings, no room for cribs, she once told me, “we kept the baby's in the dresser drawers.”

But I digress.
Good writers keep to their topic when writing an expository piece, I tell the freshman English class. But it is freeing to have no aspirations to be a good writer, nor to receive a passing grade in ninth grade English, for that matter.

Back to the topic.
Long Island City has changed over the last half century, since the time Helen and her many siblings lined up at the separate Boys and Girls entrance to receive the free public education that entitled them to seek lives where babies could have cribs in houses with swimming pools.

And PS 1 no longer educates the children of fertile immigrants. It has become an avante garde art museum, the more modern extension of the Museum of Modern Art. Only the peeling paint in the overheated cavernous stairway reminds you that it was once a New York City public school

It was packed to the gills yesterday, with art book merchants and many, many of the children of the immigrants whose parents' successes had afforded them the opportunity of perusing their wares.

Us among them (slightly, okay considerably older than the average peruser).

Now the Philistine disclaimer. I have no idea what makes an art book have value. I don't know why a small book with one word typed on a page is worth five dollars. I also quickly realized that I could never even hope to have even those most minimal look at one one thousandth of the material displayed. So I gave up trying and used the strategy of looking at whatever I landed in front of, hopefully in some corner with a cross breeze.

And why does this entry belong in the Teacherfish blog?

I had decided not to buy any books, I had enough, I didn't know what I was looking at, and anyway I was there to just do something
That lasted five minutes. My purchase, a pop-up book of the Odyssey- perfect for the ELA class studying Greek mythology.
“What grade do you teach?' asked the merchant?
“12th but they still can't really read,” I answered. But that doesn't stop us from placing them in an a college credit course. We have high expectations for our students. (I didn't say that aloud-I hope.)

A lot of the books I surveyed had sketchings with sexual contents. The first year I taught, I had 18 middle school, limited skilled students who were boisterous, to use a positive word. And then one week Dominic, the leader of the pack became very quiet. He sat quietly working on something at his desk throughout the day. Without his antics the class settled down. I got a word in edgewise. I didn't look at what he was doing. I assumed he was doing school work, (okay- I was 23 less than the amount of years I have taught subsequently). I was happy he was quiet.

But at the end of the week he showed me a product. It was our class's personal magazine- Playboy for class 8-412 all the girls carefully sketched naked with a floaty pen that made the bikini on the sexy girl disappeared when turned upside down. I confiscated the pen and the book I told him I could destroy it or send it to his family. I didn't do either. I took it home, it still upstairs, I think, along with the pen.

I wonder if he was at PS 1 yesterday. He would be in his mid-forties now, a little old for most of the vendors.

At the end of our time there I found another small art book related to the Greek Mythology course. This one had nine myths illustrated with watercolor sketches. Each featuring the Greek gods doing what Greek gods do- have sex with other gods or come down to earth to do it with mortals.

“Should I buy this one too, for school?” I asked Mr. Teacherfish?

“Do you want to spend the rest of your career in an administrative office on reassignment?”

I saved the five dollars and we were off through the rain, to find something to eat.

They would have enjoyed it. They would have been engaged.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

How to Use a Remote Control and other Useless Advice

We used to have a fuzzy television set with six channels that you changed by leaning forward and pressing the buttons at the base of the TV. But then the twin towers fell. And we lost our reception.

So we got cable. No point in being depressed, terrorized and having lousy reception..

Then since we had cable tv we needed a 50 inch high definition TV. You can't sit close enough to a 52 inch high definition TV to change the channels by leaning forward, and anyway it came with a remote control

Okay so I lived all those years without a remote, and this one had a series of buttons to press in a certain order but I mastered it. You can teach an old dog new tricks.
But sometimes I cannot perform the series of button pressing in a rapid succession therefore delaying the viewing pleasure of the immediate audience. Which causes my husband to 1) take the remote away or 2) explain for the forty millionth time how the remote works..

I know how the remote works! I just have technical difficulties.
I respond to the offer with the counter offer that if he touches the remote or instructs me one more time the TV will change channels every time he sits down.
And this story belongs on my school blog why?

When I had the fuzzy, little TV set, I also had a special education supervisor, who made the schedule and distributed them the first day of school. Students with like disabilities were placed in programs with similar needs and a class was formed a staffed. But now in the name of great leaps forward in education of students with special needs, students are assigned schools, the school can group then anyway they want (as long as their needs are met) and it is my job to figure out the schedule.
I couldn't. Suffice to say I could not make the numbers add up. Not enough students in anyone category to form a group, but the student's difficulties with the learning process had the annoying habit of not disappearing because nine other similar students had not enrolled in the school.
The principal (who couldn't do it either) invited someone from the network to come down.


And here is her words of wisdom

Good Morning Overwhelmed Teacher,

It was a pleasure meeting with you and MS Teacherfish yesterday afternoon.

To do a brief recap of our meeting:

We discussed:
· Amending IEPs according to each student’s skill levels and the services the school can provide to support each student
· A bridge class of 8th and 9th grade students who are self contained cannot be done
· In 9th -12th grade students can be in the same subject class as long as each student needs the specific course credit
· If there are any students in a class who is less than 16 years old then there can not be more than a 3 year age difference.
· To build capacity of subject area expertise it is best practice for Special Education Teachers who co- teach ICT classes to teach the same subject for Self Contained classes

Please feel free to contact me with any other questions or concerns.

Clueless Helper


Still no schedule. Still no way to figure it out. But now I think I knew exactly what I knew before she came to help.

I know how special ed works! I just have technical difficulties.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Metaphoric students and moving balls

New school year- again. Here comes the Common Core Curriculum, new teacher evaluations and another year of trying to survive the anti-teacher education climate.

But our principal was a physical education teacher. So we began our professional development series with a team relay race that required us to move various-sized balls in tubes, across the gym.

On Tuesday, the new organization sheet had me as the high school special education teacher. On Thursday when classes began, I was told to teach sixth grade Social Studies, oh and maybe Technology ( but not in the tech room).

The old me would have had a fit. The new me---
Well it was kind of was like a treasure hunt game. First I had to figure out what periods I was supposed to teach those classes, remember my assignment was high school special ed, then I needed to figure out what room to teach them in and lastly (the most tricky part) I was supposed to find the students. (Just for the record, the students were, not even one time, in or on the way to the room where the secretary told me the class would meet)

But I am a good treasurer hunter, and a fair "winger" of unplanned lessons.
I read the Social Studies class the book Squids Will be Squids, by John Sciewska.

Then I asked: How can stories tell us about their author's culture?

And many kids gave good answers, but one said, good stories relate important information about culture through the use of metaphors and similes.
(Maybe I should wish that the principal doesn't actually figure out that I should be the high school special education teacher!)

So that is what the "moving the different balls through the tube relay race" was all about, it was a simile or maybe a metaphor, on how working as a team we can "move" children. (If you are a not a NYC teacher, you may not know that in any year the sole purpose of a teacher is to "move" a student from the category of proficiency s/he placed in the previous year to the next higher level)

BTW- I figured out early in the race to maneuver my body so my back was to the other contestants, place my finger securely on the open ends of the tube and pass it on before anyone noticed.
Hey - after thirty tears of teaching I was not about to crawl around the gym floor chasing metaphoric students or runaway balls.

And, Michele Rhee, Atlanta and Philadelphia administrators- I am not drawing any conclusions about the relationship between standardized tests and "moving" students progress and cheating!

But remember- that at least one very bright sixth grader thinks that an author's story relates information about culture through the use of similes and metaphors.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

On wearing uniforms

I didn't believe in uniforms for public school students. I kind of thought the good thing about going to public school was that you didn't have to wear a scratchy plaid jumper and woolen knee socks. I wore jeans and t-shirts, my kids wore jeans and t-shirts and nothing itched.

But I'm getting used to the idea. In fact I found my school shirt and khaki pants today, so much easier than dressing up for the first day of school and the philosophy that students who adhere to uniform rules tend to adhere to other rules is growing on me.

So there I was in my school uniform giving out high school schedules today, this first day of school. Delia was looking for her schedule when the assistant principal sized up her version of the uniform- a pair of snug tan pants, a stretchy white tee and a spandex cardigan. Delia has the shape to pull it off- the outfit would have worked according to any teen fashion magazine. Delia didn't look slutty- just luscious.

But not according to Ms. AP. She fussed.

Delia's defense- I woke up in a bad mood - I've already given my mother attitude and now (Ms. AP) you're starting with me. And my mother doesn't have the money to buy any more school shirts.

More fussing- from both of them.

I said: Come on Delia you only got to get through ten more months before graduation and if you shut up and apologize and tell Ms. AP that you will gladly wear the school shirt I will buy you one.

So she did- but not too fast.
And an hour later the bill was in my mailbox.
And Delia was in the school shirt -open, with the tight tiny teeny tee shirt and the bottom emphasizing stretch khaki pants.

She still looked luscious.

Another year begins.

Monday, June 6, 2011

When Life Gives You Lemons



It's hot in New York.
This is the time of year I read blogs about teachers all over the country being out of school and the end still seems light years away for us.

And most of the day is still spent in unairconditioned rooms.
But this guy showed up on the corner a few weeks ago and he sells delicious fresh squeezed lemonade.

The junior girls and I went for a walk to the Day Care Center a few blocks away looking for summer volunteer work. (For them, not me I don't even want the paid job)
On the way back I managed to make a ten dollar bill magically disappear at the lemonade stand.

What happened to the one cup for a nickel?

We switched the mandatory extended day session (mandatory for teachers- It appears to be completely optional for the students) from test prep for the middle school to Regents Prep for the high school.

At least its supposed to be- anyway. The ninth period makes students magically disappear.

But I have a loyal following- the eleventh grade resource room students.
Three young people who arrived from Haiti with lots of enthusiasm for an American Education

And very little preparation.

So we cover World History in a nutshell every day.

It goes something like this.....

Me: pointing to the map of South East Asia. What country is this? (note the geography question)

Them: silence

Me: come on

Them: Africa,

Me: Africa is a continent not a country

First Student: South Africa

Second Student: No South Africa is a continent stupid


And so on until we establish its India

Me: And who is the famous world leader we studied from India? (World leader question)

Them:

Me: Come on - think about the clue. it sounds like this...me pointing to the treat bag

First Person: Mahatma Candy

Me: Close enough, and what was Gandhi's big accomplishment? (history question.

And so on until we have run out of time and energy (mine not their's)

The other day because of the mandatory assignment of teachers and the not so compulsory attendance by students, three teachers watched as we circulated through our free association, capture what you can, try to remember something- crash course on World History.

I had forgotten. Not how hard it was for students with little formal education, second language issues layered over learning disabilities- to access a curriculum, but how I could continue a rapid fire barrage of questions and hints and encouragements without getting frustrated.

The other teachers were amazed.

But I loved this.
I miss my old self contained class.

When life gives you lemons....

Go buy an overpriced cup of lemonade.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

The end of the world as we know it

Okay so it is May 22, and I am still here.

I took the bus home from a meeting late into the evening one night last week.
Nonetheless, the bus was crowded even though it was past 9pm. The man standing in front of me was bedecked from head to toe in clothing that admonished; Repent- Rapture is coming May 21, 2011.

That particular bus heads straight into the heart of the Observant Jewish section of Queens. All around me the pious (wow -three vowels in a row- got to remember that word for scrabble game) were deeply absorbed in well worn books printed in both Hebrew and English.

"They live their live's as if the Messiah will arrive any day," my husband explained when I related the story.

And the bus moved silently towards everyone's home.

Me- I played games on the new phone the whole way.

If the world ended yesterday-I'd not being going anywhere good.

I suppose I need to write lessons for the week to come.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

A leap of faith




The world of New York City Schools used to be organized geographically. A school was located physically and administratively in a district with neighboring schools.

No more.

For reasons only Bloomberg could begin to explain, the current organization of schools revolves around networks. The workshop leader today asked what network each of us belonged to - I could give the network leader's name but not the number. I wrote it down when she told me.

I have forgotten it already.

But because the network we belong to is based in the Bronx, I got to take two buses, through today's monsoon (presenter's word-not mine) to a workshop in the Bronx.. The good news- ride too long to return to school for the afternoon.

And I got to eat lunch at the Arthur Avenue Market.

I took the picture of the market while perched on the narrow stairway, hesitating to make the final step after shooting the photo. The man waiting to enter encouraged me to, "take a leap of faith."

So what was so important that I had to brave the torrential rains, cross the river and check the Hop Stop directions on the phone, 50 times?

Information on how to write an IEP that meets the state requirements for transition.

Now I wouldn't doubt for a second that that transition for a student with special needs is of the upmost importance. And I wouldn't doubt that a genuinely appropriate IEP for a student with a third grade reading level would address the real vocational as well as academic needs of such student.

And that is why all the exemplars we looked at had programs that offered specific courses for specific interests and training, courses like keyboarding and real math for the real world, cooking and welding.

But this is New York City. Almost everyone at the workshop was from the small high schools- where everyone is "college bound."

Can't subtract without a calculator? No problem, we have high expectations for you so take Algebra II (yeah, yeah so you didn't pass Algebra I - get over it). Want to be beautician, take college bound chemistry- why? See above.

So three hours of transition IEP writing later - I was back into the storm, literally and figuratively.

Will I write IEPs that are genuine and appropriate and meet the transition needs of Kenya and Elma and the like?

I'm gonna have to try. The state might audit us.

I need to take a leap of faith!

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Smart Phone Dumb Teacher

Okay I was tired of Kenya making fun of my $19 phone. I know the teacher's contract. I know by virtue of my age and tenacity I make the most money of anyone in the school,(except the principal and custodian).

But I had the cheapest phone. I wanted a Smart phone. I didn't need a smart phone. I figure it this way. I spent the first 70% of my life with a phone that went brrrinnggg, brrrinngg. It was attached to a wall in the foyer of our four room apartment. I put my jacket on my head when I didn't want my mother to hear what I was saying. She probably heard anyway- truth to be told I had a very boring adolescence. The only secrets were in my head- I didn't do anything she couldn't have listened in on. The next 25% percent of my life I spent with a continuing progression of basic cell phones, almost all of which came to untimely ends.(Which is a very good incentive to buy the cheapest model available.)

But everyone else had a sexy phone. And I wanted one too. So we spent a sum total of 10 hours at various cell phone outfitters until my husband got the best deal. In his opinion. The argument that I made the most and had the least- phonewise anyway- didn't inspire him to open his wallet any wider.

Okay so by Tuesday- I had my smart phone. I did miss a few phone calls because I didn't quite know how to answer it fast enough. I couldn't get my voice messages since on Wednesday night a parent called to tell me her son was missing and in a panic (mine as well as hers) I entered some password into the voicemail set up that I could not replicate ever again. I couldn't get the phone service to reset the phone since I could not answer the question- what was my husband's nickname as a child.
The name I did give the not-so-helpful assistant on the help line- was something that started with a verb that referred to fornication and ended with the noun that describes the exit organ of the digestive system. And there were quite a few adjectives in between.

Oh yeah- missing child, not really missing- just detoured in the pizza store on the way home from after-school.
And my husband reset my password using some secret 7 digit password.(Due to anonymous nature of this blog- I will reveal that the very secret password is the number 1 through 7 in consecutive order- had I known that earlier the not-so helpful-assistant might have continued to think that I was respectable lady)

Wednesday was the administration of the State Tests. Lots of blogs I browsed this week, talk about the aggravation, the futility, the burden of the ridiculous pressure the whole education community suffers from high stakes testing.

Those blogs expressed that point far better then any attempt I could make to do so. My comment on the high stake tests- Teachers as well as students suffer greatly from the enforced abstention of texting during the hours of the test.

And me did I abstain?

Actually if I learned anything this week it was that no one texts me.
(Not even my husband, who upon hearing we had free texting and I that I am the only breathing soul in the school who receives no text messages all day long, promised to text me he loves me at least twice a day)
No such text received yet.

So here's how all the above fits in with Teacherfish blog.

I decided that I would use my new smart phone, to capture pithy observations as I flitted through my day sans computer but with cell phone in hand. I downloaded a notepad app, practiced swyping and made this valuable observation while riding to school on Thursday:



17 minutes A day.that's the amount of time the average hhigh school student spends actually reading. Ij heard that statistic when I was in graduate school. That was more than three decades ago. But I thought of it yesterday when I was rewarding with wilma and kenya.s group.
I gave up. I gave up on english class. They weren't reading seventeen minutes, they weren't reading seventeen seconds. So I took them out. And now w read. Maunder bort seventeen committees worth, but everyone reserves every everyday.

I was thinking about that because I berated a story on the need

Gourd that reason I started taking the ki,.<

I think I heard a story on NPR about the irrelevancy of teacher education programs and actually teaching. I think I was trying to make the point that I still was affected and made decisions based upon the very excellent training I received 35 years ago

What I do actually know was that I missed my stop and had to walk back quite a bit to school.

Oh and Kenya was only slightly impressed by my new Smart phone. Apparently my husband's choice of the budget service did not make his cut.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Tupac and April

The poetry unit got off to a bad start. The tenth grade English class didn't respond any better to the poetry in the English text book, than they did to Romeo and Juliet. And they didn't like Romeo and Juliet.

Poor Romeo, all he wants to do is get laid and it costs him his life, I told them. But if it ignited a glimmer of interest we soon ran a muck in Shakespearean language, and the questions at the end of the unit and even Leonardo DiCaprio's impassioned plea on Venice Beach, "I am fortune's fool" did not rouse a love of the bard.


Onto April and poetry. Pablo Neruda told us how poetry changed his life as a teenager.We listened Lil Wade use the F word repeatedly in some rap song - everyone knew well except me.

No dice.

Kenya had his head down, Elma told me repeatedly it was the most boring thing we ever did.(Hard to get under the bar, the Romeo and Juliet unit set)
The dean was making frequent and more frequent visits to room. (We have a low keyed- talky dean who had group gripe sessions similar to the ones I remember as a teenager in the socialist camp my parents sent me to)

It didn't help.

And then I rode the bus home with math teacher.
Yeah I said math teacher. Long story worthy of its own blog entry.

In his sonorous deep Jamaican voice he suggested I look at Tupac -The rose that grew in concrete.

Now if this was a Hollywood movie- or if I was young skinny ingénue blown into the English class to save the world- that would have been the moment that changed everything.

But I am a chubby middle-age woman who looks a lot (or it least I think I do) like the the "overpaid" senior teacher who is under attack by our mayor and anti-union politicians around the country.

But Tupac, he did change everything. I was the cause of much mirth throughout the unit since I never did figure out how to say his name quite the right way.

The dean still needed to make frequent visits.

The room still looked like a war zone when the period was over.

But Elma and Kenya and 80 other adolescents (my class and 2 others) read and wrote poetry.
And talked about it. Sometimes even in the cafeteria.


Maybe April really isn't the cruelest month.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Never wear Prada

Co-teaching is like a marriage-when its good its very good and when its bad you want to poke your eyes out.

I heard that line for the first time the summer before I taught my first inclusion class. Up until that being a special ed teacher meant you got your own room with your own set of SweatHogs. (You have to being nearing retirement to get that reference- but SweatHogs were the band of misfits students in a late 70s tv sitcom where John Travolta got his start.)

Anyway life changes- Once I wrote the whole history of my career in special ed (at least up until the time I wrote it.)

The computer I wrote it on no longer loads up- it probably exists in our basement where my husband collects broken computer equipment but I can't get to it

It probably isn't that interesting but it traces my progression through Special Education classrooms from a converted kitchen classroom in a broken down house blocks away from the public school building, to a basement storeroom, to a space in a "wing" separate from the mainstream school right up to the point where if space would allow my self contained special ed class would be located right next to the mainstream ones. If space didn't allow then I got to teach in a converted bathroom lounge. (Long story- Maybe I will post it someday)

I taught special education in all those places.

But back to my co-teaching is a marriage story. The first time I heard it my soon to be co-teacher leaned forward and whispered "I'm divorced"

But she worked out Not all do. Today I was with Elma's class- co-teaching. Or thinking about poking my eyes out actually.

After the literacy coach and I spent two precious planning periods working out lessons for this week, the co-teacher somehow chucked it all and did a freelance lesson on making up themes for Romeo and Juliet.


So while Kenya napped and Nathan texted away on the phone, I searched the internet for ideas that made sense. One teacher message board site had a clip from a teacher who said he used fables to illustrate the idea of theme:

Me: You know the story of the Tortoise and the Hare?

Elma: The one where the Tortoise starts off slow and the rabbit gets all Gucci and Prada and then goes to sleep and the Turtle wins?

Me: Yeah that one- I think? What do you think the theme of that story is?

Elma: Never wear Gucci if you're in a race.

And never try to salvage a bad lesson in the middle of a co-teaching class.

Especially if there are sharp objects around.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Why people should.....

Why people should teach Shakespeare:

ROMEO
With love’s light wings did I o'erperch these walls,


Teacher: What animal is Romeo comparing himself to?

Class:

Teacher: Come on what animal has wings?

Elma: An angel?

Urv: A fly?

Frank: A cow?

Elma: Oh my God I am SO through with this class.

Why people should teach sixth graders after a long day with the above tenth grade class:


Cute sixth grade girl whose name I can't remember yet: They told me you were a very boring teacher but you're funny!


Why people should ride the public bus after a long, long day with above:


Me: Can you move your book bag so I can sit on the seat?

Bookbag young man: (after getting up and letting me sit) Can't you sit on another seat? Can't you move to the back of the bus? Can't you stand?

Me: I could do all those things, but didn't your mom teach you to give a seat to your elders? You're young and healthy.

BYM: Are you calling me ugly?

Me: No healthy, you look strong and handsome to me.

BYM: Handsome- can I have your number?

Me: You could but rumor has it I'm very boring!

Monday, February 7, 2011

Town Hall

The new clueless chancellor came to our neighborhood, to a school not far from my house, one where I used to work. I entered the door by the auditorium, the one I stood at so many mornings, making the sixth grade monitor (yes we used to have monitors in those days) smile, when I would sing, "I hear you knocking but you can't come in," until the clock hand hit precisely the right number and I swung the doors open and welcomed the onslaught.

Tonight the doors were open wide, but school security officers were nowhere near as welcoming. I found a seat with the other UFT teachers while the chancellor found the right moment to enter. And when she did she came down the aisle shaking hands and greeting people.

Probably the highpoint of the meeting for her.

She began the meeting with a slide show highlighting all the great accomplishments of the Bloomberg regime. She attempted a polished, confident demeanor, but used the archaic name for the Inclusion classes, tripped over the pronunciation of inquiry and read the number 2003 as two thousand zero three. (I used to teach third graders in that building to read four digit numbers).

And then things went downhill. The local politician thanked her for coming and then asked her about the overkill of standardized testing, and test prep in the schools. "When I went to school," he said, "test prep consisted of the teacher telling us to bring a sharpened number two pencil." She was asked about school closings, lack of communication, programs for the gifted, teacher tenure, budget cuts and PCBs in the schools. The answer to everything was "teacher effectiveness"- wait- she liked the PCB questions, she had a lot to say about that. She tried to respond to questions with highly undeserved assuredness, responding to one that she should know, she had been on the job for five weeks now. She told us that study after study proved that "teacher effectivenss" - read no tenure, no seniority made all the difference but refused to site one study. In fact that is what she did best, not answer questions. Usually words would leave her mouth and float into the audience- fooling absolutely no one. I can't recall one response that got even a smattering of applause. The woman next to me said she looked even uglier in person that then on tv and as the hour went on the sinews in her neck vibrated more sharply than the violin strings in the endless concerts I had sat through in that very auditorium. At one point she was pressed hard on the overcrowding issue and she repeated for the sixth time that six schools had opened in the district during the Bloomberg era. Someone behind me yelled out "there is always birth control," the line the chancellor had tried as a joke in an earlier townhall meeting. The stare that came our way could only be described as deserving of the "if looks could kill..." axiom.

And then it was over, someone with a very heavy accent was going on about how she believed charter schools were actually a good thing and the chancellor turned from the podium, and skiddled skaddled up the stairs behind the stage with her minions following The crowd booed. And it was over-no friendly down the aisle handshaking this time.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Appreciation

Ninth period, Friday afternoon as the clock ticked closer to the start of the three day Martin Luther King weekend. I stood at the window separating the frozen world from the steamy classroom. It’s been one those winters in NYC where the mayor declares a weather emergency but keeps schools open, where exiting or entering the bus means scaling blacked iced snow pile. The eleventh grade had just finished reading The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison.

Ms. Eleventh Grade teacher lectured on. We had finished the Bluest Eye, we were on to Macbeth, we were preparing for the Regents, we were reading literature.

“But did you like it?” I interrupted. Errol didn’t. He said no, he wouldn’t read anything else by Toni Morrison. Errol hadn’t read the Bluest Eye. He had been back in Jamaica for a few weeks, and had missed the last third or the book, I wouldn’t entertain him, wouldn’t entertain his opinion, “talk to me when you actually read the book”

But most of the class liked it. Two months of carefully sieving through Morrison’s poetic prose (oh an oxymorn!), a tree worth of charts including the Black-O-White a meter – Shirley Temple swung the meter hard to the white, while Pecola, the hapless heroine, pushed the meter all the way to the black. Packets, of marigold seed pasted to the board , the Dick and Jane books lined up on the chalk board ledge – all the main characters condemned to their sorry fates, only Claudia the intermittently appearing narrator surviving the torments of 1941 Lorraine Ohio to tell us the story. And we were through.

Ms. Eleventh grade teacher, back on after my interruption- paraphrasing the afterword . Toni Morrison explains why she wrote the book in 1971 because she remembered a dark skinned classmate who always wanted blue eyes. And then without missing a beat, Miss E. was explaining why we unfortunately we would be writing a Regents-like essay about the book. Groans all around.

Buzz killer alert- party pooper. 1971? 1971 I sat in the student’s desk at a high school a couple of miles to east-I, the only authentic possessor of a blue eye in the room. All of a sudden I was possessed by a sense of the dramatic. I interrupted again.

It was an honor to read the Bluest Eye with this class. I got a glimpse of a world more than a half century away through the eyes of modern African American teenagers. Day after day, people made astute noticings, asked amazing questions, plowed through the twists and turns of the plot with only occasional yawns and sighs. I was privileged to make that journey with them. I was honored to have shared their thoughts- from a bunch or gangly “I can barely fold myself into the chair, I don’t read anything that isn’t produced from a series of thumb strokes,” teenagers, I had the joy of living in their thoughts. It’s a cold cruel world out their, I continued and the only way you can make the world realize your thoughts are as profound and important as I learned them to be is to write. Don’t keep your greatness a secret-write.

And my spiel was over.
Something that never happened to me before happened.
Everyone clapped.

Appreciatation for being appreciated.

I passed retirement age I can go now- anytime.
The new IEP computer system, the principal I can’t reach, the overall morass of testing and more testing aside.
\
Sometimes it all bearable.