Riddle me this

Here's a riddle my seven year-old friend told me.

A man runs 90 feet then turns to his left.  He runs another 90 feet and  turns left again.  He does it one more time and then runs home.  Two men with masks  are standing there,  What are their jobs?

I like to use this riddle when we start our unit on quadrilaterals.  If you don't know the answer-I will put the answer at then end of the post.  But the next section should be pretty much the clue that gives it away.

Its baseball season around here.  Not MLB, the Mets had a characteristically bad year, and the Yankees an uncharacteristically bad one, so no one is following the playoffs  too closely.  What people are following is the baseball tryouts.  I think I've said put your glove away almost as often as "put your phone away."

The skill level range from Carlos in the inclusion class who is convinced he will be captain to Bobby who really wants to get there but not sure  he can make it (to the field, not the team).  Dan said it was okay if Juan followed him to the field but he was going to go fast so Juan had to keep up.  Juan wasn't worried. Dan was wearing the neon blue baseball team pants .   They're not in the same  class as Bobby,  I couldn't find Bobby- he would have to find the coach. Just for the record the field the team practices in is not some emerald pasture behind the school.  Its a bus ride away in a city park.  So much  pressure.

If you think baseball is hard- you should try math.

Wednesday was one of those days I thought I was a really great teacher.  The self contained class was working on a foldable on angle relationships.  It involved watching videos and copying stuff from a template.  Two skills that they mastered.  It was going really well. People cooperated, people persevered, even helped each other.  A perfect day.  Of course there was chaos in the hallway and there was a variety of thumps and yelps against our door, which made me (stupidly) open the door.  I complained to the security guard that that I couldn't teach with such disruptive behavior.  She peaked into the room and said, "but they're behaving beautifully."
Never mind.

Thursday we worked on applying the rules to math problems.  Okay, so now I think I am  only a pretty good teacher. It didn't go terribly, it didn't go great, but I can see how complementary sounds almost the same as supplementary.

Thursday afternoon was the mandatory Danielson training.  This is the place where I learn how to be  a good teacher.  The topic was classroom environment.  I learned that highly effective teachers have classroom routines suggested by their students so that taking  attendance doesn't interfere with instructional time.

Friday we worked on using the foldables to solve the angle relationship problems.  I couldn't  find my attendance sheet.  I dropped the box of markers, I could't find the templates we used on Wednesday and I didn't have the right color  paper.  (So I teach in five different classrooms- highly effective teachers don't make excuses)  Kenny said I was boring and put his head down to sleep.  Bobby couldn't concentrate because he was  worried he couldn't find the baseball field.

Okay-- maybe I'm a highly ineffective teacher.

So it goes.  Another week begins tomorrow.

Umpire and catcher, the man ran the bases, and  arrived at home-plate -where the catcher and umpire were standing, wearing protective masks.  The baseball diamond is really a square,

Equalization, equality and life.

Equalization kicked in this week.
Like everything else in education it isn't anything like it sounds. What it means is students get their programs switched around so that class sizes are supposed to be equal.

What it means to me is that new people show up in the Resource Room at the exact moment I think I've gotten through initial assessments.

Monday Simon showed up.
Me:  What year are you in?
Simon:  Sophomore year.
Nina:  Weren't  you a junior last year?
Simon:  I mean senior, I'm a senior.

And I think no one ever pays attention to my questions.

But I assure the group that it is okay to count backwards sometimes.   I , myself, have that plan for birthdays I tell them.  I will subtract a year at each birthday until I reach 39.  Then I add, I wonder who will make it to 39 first, them or me.

Nina:  How old are you?
Me:  Its not polite to ask a woman her age, but we should reach 39 about the same time.
Simon:  Then you're 61.

Now why is "What year are you in?" a difficult question, but when it comes to calculating my age he can do it with lightening speed?



Fourth period I teach geometry to a  self contained class. The theory is we give the same  "rigorous, college preparatory,"  curriculum to all classes.  Even the ones that by definitions are composed of students testing way below grade level.

And I am told a  highly effective teacher closes that achievement gap.

I am not sure exactly how to digest this information but thanks to such wonderful blogs like,Math= Love and i is a Number I've have a few new tricks up my sleeve.. This week we did the line segment addition postulate.  I had students cut out rulers, paste them in their notebook and paste various line segments underneath to illustrate the postulate.

.

When I taught early childhood special education, we did almost the exact same activity with Cuisenaire rods.

After we finished I sat with Efraim and worked these problems.

Efraim told me he had no idea how to do them.  Unlike the my  blog writers mentors (who just to continue the algebraic  age  puzzle)  are probably about the following age:

Mentor blog writer = My age

                                     2

I was not having a lot of success.

Maybe I should have gotten out the Cusinaire Rods

Meanwhile Kenneth was  sitting behind us calling out the correct answers to the more complicated equations , and insinuating that this was  "f*******" kindergarten.

So what equations can I use to describe this situation?

None at all.

Forget equalization.

There is nothing equal about any of this.

You can equalize class sizes- maybe

But you can't equalize brain cells.

Efraim and I will work more on the equations.

I will speak with Kenneth about appropriate language, and give him something harder to keep him busy.

I will make sure Nina and Simon apply the same speedy calculations to their current math classes as they do to figuring out my age.

That's just what special education teachers do.

But it won't be equal.

Life just isn't that fair.

PS:  I'm not quite 61, yet- I said  about  the same amount time - not exactly.

       

Epigraphs and evaluations

Once, a long time ago my mother returned from the funeral of my kindergarten teacher.  The good teacher had long since retired from the teaching. My mother was impressed by how beautifully the cantor sang.  "I wonder if he will sing so beautifully at my funeral?" my mother pondered. "The good thing," she added, "is that I will never know,"

Will someone place on my tomb stone that I spent forty years teaching school?

The good thing is I will never know.

Maybe they will etch  in my Evaluation score.

New school year, same old stuff.
Except now it is piled higher and deeper. We had two days of staff development which involved almost meeting the new principal. The well liked, very capable "old" new principal (he was there for a year) was replaced over the summer by an even younger, greener new principal for reasons that were never explained.  The new one was only allowed to address the staff for 7 minutes surrounded by a cadre of "network" people who made sure he didn't say too much.

The rest of  time we spent learning about the evaluation system.   NYC Educator and Diane Ravitch do so much better of job of explaining it, than I could, that I won't even attempt to.  Suffice it to say I sat on the committee that was to determine the Measures of Student Learning method  our school was to use.  Here is what I learned:

• There really aren't any choices (the city? state? only allows certain "third party" measures)
• Everyone will be measured by the scores of students on state exams whether or not   
•  the teacher actually teaches the subject being tested,
• the student placed in the rigorous high school level course can actually read or has the prerequisite skills for the course 
• the student attends school more than 5% of the time,
• the exam has ever been made public, evaluated by anyone but the publishing company who wrote it, or field tested it before being administered to the whole state
• Trying to impose reason or logic on any of this will do nothing other than make your head hurt.

So I started teaching again.

I have a "Tinkerbell" schedule.  I fly into one room and forty-five minutes fly out to the next-eight times a day.

And the attendance office wants to know why I can't ever find my attendance folder?

I teach two periods of  resource room, the program that is predicated on the idea that you can solve the problems of a student who is three years below grade level in reading and math by sitting in a hot, stuffy, sub-divided  room with seven other students for forty five minutes a day, and help them pass a "rigorous" college preparatory program in five different content areas.

This year I thought I would begin by evaluating reading skills individually.  

And so I found myself sitting with Matthew  a tenth grader who "read" through a seventh grade passage and barely got 70% of the words correct.  I got to the last  comprehension question of the long list that followed the passage.

Me:  What is the difference between touch and pressure?

Matthew:  Touch is when someone puts his hand on something and pressure is when someone asks you too many questions.

I guess Matthew and the rest of us are feeling some pressure.

PS:  I could not find the cantor that sang at my my kindergarten teacher's funeral when my mom died.  The cantor we had did sing beautifully, though.

...But you can't make him swallow

Evan can't wait until next year, he tells me.

Next  year he can fail me.  If I can fail him then he can fail me.

"I don't fail you," I remind him, " you earn a passing grade, or you don't."

Evan didn't.  

He has this phone problem.  Everyone at school has a phone problem, including many teachers.  Its an addiction.  I worked with one teacher who spent her day on the cell phone updating her Facebook status.  I was the union representative then,  so when the very kind assistant principal handed me a printout of her status - updated hourly, including large chunks of time when she had teaching assignments, I went to speak with her.  I don't remember exactly what I said, but I remember the phrase "theft of services," coming up.  The conversation had two results.  One- I was immediately "defriended" and two- she ate all day long.  She was a size two, most of the students out weighed her by a factor of two.  But being detached from her phone meant she could only get through a day by using her fingers for feeding instead of texting. Its an addiction.

But I digress.   

Evan would love to eat all  day long. I probably wouldn't  even stop him (and he has a considerably larger frame to fill) but he doesn't even have the self restraint of my former coworker.  So many of our days go like this.

Me:  Evan put your cell phone away.

Evan:  I got you miss, (and then Evan does not put his phone away)

Me:  Evan put your cell phone away or I'm calling the dean

Evan:  How come you're always picking on me?

I could go on but the conversation doesn't change much.

And Evan doesn't have a  steep learning curve- not for math, not for cell phones.

When the dean gets called, he gets a five day suspension from school.  (In all fairness  to the school's disciplinary team, Evan is always given the choice of surrendering the phone for one WHOLE day, or being excluded from the daytime school- he could attend the late afternoon session, for 5 days.

Evan will never surrender his phone.

Several weeks ago Evan entered the room with the cell phone out.  (See above for ensuing conversation).   Evan then plugged the cell phone into the outlet. (Imagine the ensuing conversation).

Then the cell phone rang.  I told him if he picked it up I would call the dean and he would be suspended.

Suffice it to say I am a woman of my word.

The governor imposed a teacher evaluation of the New York City Department of Education last week.  Plenty of blogs have done a far better job than I would of illustrating the city teachers' reaction-  here  and here and here are just a few.

Among the many other intricate and confusing aspects is the piece the city requested about including student surveys in the evaluation.  Evan heard the news- and he's happy.  He's going to get his revenge he tells me as I hand out the final.

The surveys will count for five percent of the evaluation.  I have fifty students a semester.  I am generally popular.  I sing, I dance, I give you my cell number and I help you do your final.  So even if Evan gave me the very worst evaluation the most  it would count for is  2% of 5% that would account for .001 % of my evaluation.  And that would assume he wasn't suspended the day the surveys were distributed.  I want to explain  this to Evan, but that's what he wants- to distract me from giving the final. Anyway he wouldn't get the math.

"Do the final"  I tell him.  "I'll show you with what you missed.  You can find me later and I'll help you."

But he doesn't.  I tell the story to the principal.  I remind him of all the students who have "stalked" me over the years looking for that promised help. The ones who squeaked out an eleventh hour passing grade.

But not Evan.
The principal says, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

Its more like: You can lead horse to water, pour it down its throat, but you can't make him swallow it.

Maybe I should text Evan the lessons to his cell phone.

Is that all we could do?

The subway series was in full swing this week.

The Knicks and the Rangers got themselves eliminated from the playoffs, so all that was left to talk about in 5th period math was baseball.

Terrel was recounting the unbelievable success of the Mets.  He gave the pitch by pitch recount  (and thanks to an inherited affinity for the Mets coupled with a disdain for the Yankees- I was able to ascertain the veracity of the report).

Terrel can't remember which line is the X axis and which is the Y, and counting up the boxes for a rise over run calculation of slope, is way out of his league, but even his least favored sport- baseball, was getting an accurate and complete review.

I asked, "Terrel, is there any sport you don't follow?"

"No Miss,"  Terrel answered with a shrug and head thrust.  Terrel has this tic that makes him the kind of person you worry about sitting next to on the bus and then hate yourself for being that way.

"I'm trying to figure out rugby." he added. "But, I haven't gotten all the rules down yet."

So I asked him if he saw the movie Invictus, about Nelson Mandela rallying a post -Apartheid South Africa around a predominantly white rugby team.  

He didn't.  He thinks he's heard of Nelson Mandela and South Africa.  Apparently social studies is no less of a struggle than math.

I'm glad he's happy and talking this week.  Last week the current event horror story of the week had a direct impact on him.  A fourteen year old girl was shot to death on a public bus on the way home from a sweet sixteen party.  Perhaps the bullet was meant for the girl next to her, perhaps it was random. I don't watch carefully, the "if it bleeds it leads." stories on the local news.

But Terrel was devastated.  "She was like a little sister, to me Miss," he told me."I was going to take her for a tattoo and now I'm going to the funeral." 

I told  the principal the story, and we looked at Terrel's academic records.  Terrel has passed everything and has lots of a academic credits. But with the exception of the math Regents his highest Regent grade is 12.  Way below the chance level.  

How could that be?

I cannot speak for anyone but myself.  

I will give Terrel a passing grade.  He comes everyday, willingly gives a complete and thorough sports cast and then makes an attempt to do the math. 

I cannot, in all good faith say he earned a high school credit worth of math, but I cannot live with the thought of not giving him a credit for doing what he could and never not showing up for another day of trying to do it all again the next day.  (And an audience for the sport's news of the day)

The principal shook his head as he read the record.  "If this is all we could do for Terrel, was this the right place for him?" he asked.

The principal and I came to the school late in Terrel's high school career, but I don't think we could have done any different.  The current climate of No Child Left Behind and the other nonsense means Terrel has no choice but to take a series of college prep classes that he passes but does not understand.  Then the gate of standardized testing slams shut in front of him, not allowing him to graduate with a "real" diploma.

The city promises it is opening more career and technical high schools next year, too late for Terrel, but who knows if others like him will get a better chance of course work that might make there life easier. 

I will make sure Terrel registers with the office for vocational training.  

Then when he leaves  I will wish him well. 

And hope that he will have a place in his future to be safe and happy and audience willing to listening to the recount of latest game.

Sarcasm Part III - In Spanish

I explained earlier how after careful thought and consideration (and the fact that no one else agreed to do it) I got to teach a non-special education, bilingual geometry class.

It goes something like this- I explain something in English, someone translates it into Spanish. Everyone laughs.
What I said was not funny in English.
So I translate it into Spanish.
Everyone laughs again.

Now I am sure they are talking about me.
Is this how non-English speaking kids feel in English classes?
I think  I am getting paranoid.

It would be unpleasant- except it isn't.  This group is the sweetest one I have.
They arrive one at a time (everyone in our school does- punctuality is a lost art).
We sit in semi-circle (all ten of us- my special ed tradition extended into the bilingual classroom). And each entrant comes in stops at each desk and if male - kisses all the girls and shakes the hands of all the boys, if female- kisses everyone.

Except me.
I am sad.
Why am I not worthy of handshakes and kisses?

I ask.
Everyone laughs.  I must be a very funny teacher.

Friday we are working on a group of problems finding the missing angles in a polygon.
Sr. Alto, a quiet, tall Dominican young man who earned his name because he often arrives before the kissing cycle which results in him being asked to reach the folders stored on top of the locker, has worked through the first set.  Carla is holding his papers in one hand and writing away on her own paper with the other.

I suggest she try the problems herself.
"No Miss,"  I show him how to do it, now I write what I tell him".

"Oh, and I fell off the turnip cart, yesterday."
I try to translate that one- but quickly realize I have no idea how to say turnip in Spanish.
And the sarcasm is lost in translation.

So the period goes on. I lose the page on the Smart Board once, accidentally erase the writing twice, and trip over the wires three times. (a typical day- did I mention how much I miss my chalkboard?)

There is another set of problems to work out, Sr. Alto is working away.
Carla not so much.

I ask if she is again explaining to him how to do it.

She turns and asks the assistant in the back of the room, "Como se dice.... (how do you say?)

The best the assistant can offer, is "lies".

"No, that's not it," she replies, frustrated.

"Sarcasm?"  I offer.

"Yeah-sarcasmo!"

"Very good,"  Violeta offers, "Now you understand our Spanish!"

Time to look up the Spanish work for turnip!


Sarcasm Part I and II here and here

Sneaky Reading

The year is rolling to a close.  A friend posts the remaining number of days above the time clock, and the spring weather has decreased our already dismal attendance.

Regina  finds herself alone in my tenth period math class often.
I ask a question as she comes in that one day is going to get me in deep trouble.

"Reading or math?"

Regina is not half bad in math.  She "passed" the state Regent's exam in January.  By passed, I mean, she scored enough point to earn credit when her IEP is taken into consideration.  It doesn't exactly qualify her as an algebra genius but most of the students in the self-contained special education program don't even reach that level.

We moved on to geometry.  Which means we spend a lot of time coloring foldables (my new addiction) about angles and postulates and theorems and things like that.  And Regina gets it.

But when tenth period rolls around and the halls have become deserted by all but the girl's track team, who practice in the hall since the boys get the running track, Regina often finds herself the only student  in the math room.  The first day in September I asked Regina to read aloud, she refused.  She came up to me later and explained she didn't know how.  She spent the first thirteen years of her life in country where education was not a regular thing and arrived in our school system long after the grade where reading instruction is a given.

I try to sneak it in.  Sometimes we stay late.  Sometimes I think maybe its more important to know how to sound out two syllable words than identify  corresponding angles. I am aware it is not my decision to make.  Its not Regina's either.  I am her math teacher, her schedule says tenth period geometry.

We sneak out of the math room and hide behind the barriers in the Resource Room.  There Regina figures out that pan and cake makes pancake.  She knows the word or.  When you have no phonic skills you get good at memorizing sight words.  But it is a revelation that  an h  in front -and some letters in the back make horse.  Or now store and  forum become readable. Regina reads through a whole a story we found in an ancient stack of unloved readers.  The pages are yellow.  The stories refer to such  anachronisms as video stores and beepers.   They are not the shiny new complex non-fiction texts that the Common Core staff developer urges us to "scaffold" for our "challenged" readers.(Not that I have to worry about that - I'm a math teacher.)

But Regina gets through the whole page.  She will never again say she can't read. (Okay so it was probably on a second grade level- but it was a lot of words and she understood what all those previously mysterious symbols were trying to convey).

She beams.  This is happiness.

We got away with it.  We did reading instead of math.

We didn't get caught.

Back to triangle theorems tomorrow.