So I’m having my students write essays about school. As I have written previously, “Edison” is currently grappling with its school culture, and so we have been engaging our students in a conversation about what they experience at school. Building on that energy, I’ve been having my students write about school, what they see and hear and feel in their classrooms.
So far they have been relatively interested in it. It’s not as engaging for some of them as I thought it would be, and I’m starting to understand why: mostly they take school for granted. They just sort of swim in it. The other day I told them a little parable about fishes. It goes like this.
Two young fish are swimming through the sea. They come across an older fish, who stops and asks them: “Hey, how’s the water today?”
They both stop, look at each with a confused look and, not wanting to look stupid, say: “it’s fine,” and then they all swim away. When the older fish is out of earshot, one of the younger fish says: “what the hell is water?”
And the other fish just shakes his head.
A couple of my students thought the story was “stupid” or “weird”, but a few of them were able to pick out the pieces. One student blurted out: “so...school is the water, right?”
**
What has been most interesting so far is what they have to say about the relationships between teachers and students. I keep hearing about two teachers: Mrs. Dryer and Mr. Monahan. Over and over again I have heard them say or have seen them write things like “Mr. Monahan is crazy” or “Mr. Monahan is mean” or “Mr. Monahan hates us”. And, of course, I always take what students say about teachers with a grain of salt--as I would hope my colleagues would for me. I am not present in his room and do not know what his goals or values or habits or procedures are.
Because I don’t have a classroom of my own, I work in the library when I’m not teaching. I sit here and read papers and plan. The library contains 40 computers that are used for testing and for some classroom activities. Yesterday I was working in the library and Mr. Monahan brought his class in to work on the computers. Many of my students were in his class.
Mr. Monahan is, in fact, insane. In the 25 minutes I observed his interactions with students (I tried not to, but it was like trying not to watch a four headed owl devour a six headed snake), he let loose an unending stream of admonitions, directions and reminders. The students were supposed to be working quietly on some math project, but the students were never granted even a moment of silence; Mr. Monahan ensured that by raising his voice and yelling at a child to “sit still” when a child moved in his chair and the legs made a squeaking sound.
At one point I observed him talking to the clock on the wall.
He became irrationally angry at a child who had a question about how to login to a website: “if you
had been listening last week when I told everyone then you wouldn’t have to ask me that!”
He has hair like Albert Einstein, and he wears khaki shorts and sandals with socks (I kid you not) and a plaid shirts pleated with wrinkles, giving him a sort of mad scientist impression. But when I think of Einstein, I always imagine him with a smile. Mr. Monahan does not appear to know how to smile.
Seeing him with the students reminded me of one other thing: I pass this man every morning in the hallway, and every morning I nod and smile and say “hello.” Not once has he looked up from whatever path on the floor he was following.
All of which leads me to the conclusion my students have already reached: that he is, in fact, insane.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
The Teacher and The Technology Coordinator
Callie is a technology coordinator for the district; Callie has helped us with some of the technology we are trying to use in the classroom. This morning it dawned on me that Callie is not and has never been a teacher.
The web-based school interface Edison is trying to use is called edmodo. It's fairly user friendly. I've been asking my students to use it to submit final work (writing assignments), mostly because it streamlines the process. (I am continually amazed by how much time I waste simply sorting through papers.) It also has this nice feature where you can annotate a document using edmodo, which, again, streamlines the whole process of commenting on and handing back student work.
The catch is: students have to know how to export their files as a .pdf in order for me to annotate on their document.
So I mentioned this to Callie this morning; she stopped by just to check in and see how the kids were doing with the computers and with edmodo. And I said: "fine." She mentions the whole annotation thing to me (she has this tendency to point out things to me that I already know about), and I said it was a great feature. I mentioned the whole export to .pdf thing to her, and she said: "all they have to do is export it as a .pdf". At which point I remember Benjamin, who can barely type, and how it took him almost half of the period on Thursday to type and save a six line poem. And the image of him (his scrawny little arms popping out of his bright red muscle shirt) struck me as sort of funny, so I smiled and responded: "Well, that's another step altogether."
And then she said, a little incredulously: "It's easy. Just make a screen cast video and put it up on edmodo."
I caught myself getting defensive. What she was proposing would be easy for my most technologically skilled students (and certainly for a technology coordinator), but for many of my students that process (exporting a file as another format) was beyond their developmental reach. Callie didn't seem to understand that. She seemed to think that all that was required in order to teach students like Benjamin how to do it was to throw a video up on the web.
And, I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work that way for many of my students. I'm not letting myself off the hook yet for not teaching them how to do it, but for now I will content if they can save their files and upload to our class web page.
Besides, the point of this is to write poems.
The web-based school interface Edison is trying to use is called edmodo. It's fairly user friendly. I've been asking my students to use it to submit final work (writing assignments), mostly because it streamlines the process. (I am continually amazed by how much time I waste simply sorting through papers.) It also has this nice feature where you can annotate a document using edmodo, which, again, streamlines the whole process of commenting on and handing back student work.
The catch is: students have to know how to export their files as a .pdf in order for me to annotate on their document.
So I mentioned this to Callie this morning; she stopped by just to check in and see how the kids were doing with the computers and with edmodo. And I said: "fine." She mentions the whole annotation thing to me (she has this tendency to point out things to me that I already know about), and I said it was a great feature. I mentioned the whole export to .pdf thing to her, and she said: "all they have to do is export it as a .pdf". At which point I remember Benjamin, who can barely type, and how it took him almost half of the period on Thursday to type and save a six line poem. And the image of him (his scrawny little arms popping out of his bright red muscle shirt) struck me as sort of funny, so I smiled and responded: "Well, that's another step altogether."
And then she said, a little incredulously: "It's easy. Just make a screen cast video and put it up on edmodo."
I caught myself getting defensive. What she was proposing would be easy for my most technologically skilled students (and certainly for a technology coordinator), but for many of my students that process (exporting a file as another format) was beyond their developmental reach. Callie didn't seem to understand that. She seemed to think that all that was required in order to teach students like Benjamin how to do it was to throw a video up on the web.
And, I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work that way for many of my students. I'm not letting myself off the hook yet for not teaching them how to do it, but for now I will content if they can save their files and upload to our class web page.
Besides, the point of this is to write poems.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Out of such chaos, strangeness and beauty
My sixth grade class was a disaster today. Here's what happened. About 25 of my 35 had to finish up this round of OAKS testing, but because everyone in the building is testing their kids, the library (where they usually do the testing) was full. So Laura had to keep the 25 kids in the classrooms with the COW (computers on wheels, moo) while I took the 10 students who weren't testing out into the commons. I had planned a leisurely hour of poem writing, with just a few students. We were going to whisper because the commons is shared space with four other classrooms.
So we began. And things were just fine. But then other students kept finishing their tests (pesky students!), and Laura kept sending them out into the commons. As their numbers grew, my plan (which was for 10 kids) quickly became untenable, and then we didn't have enough paper or chairs or pencils, and then, of course, every time a new student arrived there was another round of "what are we doings?" and the little subsequent flare-ups, and, of course, they had just come from testing, which "sucks" (to use their lingo), so they were wired and a little off-the-wall, and so, with maybe fifteen minutes left in the period, I had 30 of 35 kids out in the commons--with not enough chairs and an insufficient plan and an ever-increasing decibel level. And of course I started to feeling extremely self-conscious about the noise they (we!) were making; why couldn't I control 30 11 year olds in an unfamiliar space without the proper furniture or materials! How bad does this make me look!
There came a moment when I was either going to laugh or scream.
So I laughed.
And then I put them into threes, and gave them all of these wordles I made from poems. I asked them to make poems using only words from the wordles. I had them sit or lie on the floor in the commons, with space between them and other groups.
And then something miraculous happened: they all started to talk and write.
I hesitate to say too much about the poems. I think they're amazing. And I have no idea how such interesting little poems emerged from the utter chaos that I oversaw between 10:52 and 11:50 a.m. today.
*
The postman likes creaky white branches.
He sleeps days and years.
His death was ancient.
He migrates into bitter bottoms.
The music is everything against his religion.
He runs laps through chump.
He plays in salty snow without getting news.
*
Time seems long
talking glass
*
Strong creaky octopus
Bitter things lie
Freedom sold away
Blueish sky loves bread
salty pink branches
staring onto better days
tears drop onto floors
Empty bohemian jars
Last night friends swept odd furniture
*
creaky bitter feel right
porch cup edge
white salty postman
*
The death is like broken glass
Everything sounds like waves
death loves wine
*
Death is a jar
a standing salesman raised the help
everything else is against old wooden father
The hallway is a wild edge
last night everything regrets freedom
*
The pink octopus swallowed the curtains
in the night,
then splashed into the salty waves.
leaping leaves swayed on creaking branches,
windy sounds drift across seas.
*
Strong suction cups
stick words away
like leaping octopus
went
turning echos
broken sand fields
pulled among bleached windy oats
pink welts threatened Ezra
wind ripped things
swallowed lost
feet splashed across
*
the ancient death is the treetops
of the darkness. Right flashing rooms meant
wolves wild dogs penetrate the darkness.
So we began. And things were just fine. But then other students kept finishing their tests (pesky students!), and Laura kept sending them out into the commons. As their numbers grew, my plan (which was for 10 kids) quickly became untenable, and then we didn't have enough paper or chairs or pencils, and then, of course, every time a new student arrived there was another round of "what are we doings?" and the little subsequent flare-ups, and, of course, they had just come from testing, which "sucks" (to use their lingo), so they were wired and a little off-the-wall, and so, with maybe fifteen minutes left in the period, I had 30 of 35 kids out in the commons--with not enough chairs and an insufficient plan and an ever-increasing decibel level. And of course I started to feeling extremely self-conscious about the noise they (we!) were making; why couldn't I control 30 11 year olds in an unfamiliar space without the proper furniture or materials! How bad does this make me look!
There came a moment when I was either going to laugh or scream.
So I laughed.
And then I put them into threes, and gave them all of these wordles I made from poems. I asked them to make poems using only words from the wordles. I had them sit or lie on the floor in the commons, with space between them and other groups.
And then something miraculous happened: they all started to talk and write.
I hesitate to say too much about the poems. I think they're amazing. And I have no idea how such interesting little poems emerged from the utter chaos that I oversaw between 10:52 and 11:50 a.m. today.
*
The postman likes creaky white branches.
He sleeps days and years.
His death was ancient.
He migrates into bitter bottoms.
The music is everything against his religion.
He runs laps through chump.
He plays in salty snow without getting news.
*
Time seems long
talking glass
*
Strong creaky octopus
Bitter things lie
Freedom sold away
Blueish sky loves bread
salty pink branches
staring onto better days
tears drop onto floors
Empty bohemian jars
Last night friends swept odd furniture
*
creaky bitter feel right
porch cup edge
white salty postman
*
The death is like broken glass
Everything sounds like waves
death loves wine
*
Death is a jar
a standing salesman raised the help
everything else is against old wooden father
The hallway is a wild edge
last night everything regrets freedom
*
The pink octopus swallowed the curtains
in the night,
then splashed into the salty waves.
leaping leaves swayed on creaking branches,
windy sounds drift across seas.
*
Strong suction cups
stick words away
like leaping octopus
went
turning echos
broken sand fields
pulled among bleached windy oats
pink welts threatened Ezra
wind ripped things
swallowed lost
feet splashed across
*
the ancient death is the treetops
of the darkness. Right flashing rooms meant
wolves wild dogs penetrate the darkness.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Creatures from Another Planet...
I made this little video to introduce an essay project I'm having my
seventh graders do. The idea behind the project is to have the students
explain what school is and what it feels like to go to school to someone
who knows nothing about school. But since everyone in this country--and in most places on this planet--spends such an incredible amount of time in school, it was hard to find an audience that the student could consider that had no prior experience with school.
Thus Malakingo23, High Chancellor of the Kobolese, was born. I'll let him or her (my students couldn't figure out which) speak for his or herself:
The kids found Malakingo23 pretty strange. Some thought he or she was "creepy". Many noticed that sound came out but lips didn't move. They also had lots of really funny practical questions. Like: "Why did he come seek you out?" Or: "Why is it humanoid?" Or: "Why would an alien care about school?"
A few of them, of course, picked up on the fact that I had made the video; they're just past the age where they believe in the Easter bunny, but I bet they still like to hunt for eggs and eat the candy, which is kind of what I was going for. I obviously didn't expect them to really believe that a creature from a planet named Kobol had come to collect evidence about school. But I wanted to give them something strange, something "unschool-like" to shoot for. Of course what they are going to be writing about is "school"--and their experience of it.
It went much better than I expected it to. I suspect that I'm still partially oriented towards 9th graders; I haven't put my finger on the 12 year old mind yet, but I'm getting there. It was just goofy enough and just serious enough that I suspect many of them will find some fun in trying to explain what they experience everyday at school.
One of my students asked me "why do you want us to write about school?" And I hadn't really thought about the answer to that question, at least not consciously. But I had an answer, and I was pretty happy with the way it just kind of flew out of me. The reason I want them to write about school--and this school and their experience--is that I am extremely interested in what this place is like for them. As my regular readers know, I often feel like a creature from another planet here. And I suspect that the students do, too. So that was my answer: I want them to write about this because I am genuinely interested in what they have to say about it.
And that seemed to satisfy her curiosity.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
"Teachers waste a lot of class time talking about rules"
My first day back at Edison Middle School was a professional development day; it began with a presentation by an "expert" from the school district. First she showed some data about the number of referrals teachers at Edison had written on kids so this year (well over 1,000, mostly for little things like "talking back" or "disrespecting teachers"). Then she presented a series of numbers about time "lost" in the classroom to things like "transitions", "breaks" and "behavior management". She also made a big deal about how some ridiculous percentage of time was "lost" when students gave "incorrect answers" (as though making mistakes was a waste of time!).
Then it got even stranger. She proceeded to lecture us--a room full of classroom teachers--about the most basic classroom management techniques and procedures (making goals and expectations clear; providing positive examples). For two hours, we sat and listened to this "expert" (who was ph.d psychologist, not a classroom teacher) lecture us about things that I suspect everybody in the room either already did or chose not to do because we had methods that better matched our personalities.
Not once did she stop to ask us what we did in our classrooms or how we thought about or handled "discipline" or "behavior." It was a little bit like what I imagine my students sometimes experience: teachers talking at them about things they already know or don't care about without ever asking them what they think.
Then Andrew led a presentation about class meetings. A colleague had had two students throwing racially charged language around during class, and it had happened more than once. The teacher was concerned about the climate of his classroom and, rather than merely reinforcing the "rule" about not saying hurtful things, decided to tackle the climate of the room. So he sought out Andrew (who has been teaching at Edison for 27 years) for help in figuring out how to do that. Andrew presented the format (essentially sit in a circle and have a civilized discussion), and then the faculty had a discussion about how we felt about how the school year was going.
I'm used to those kinds of conversations; they were the primary mode of engagement at the school I used to teach at. Most of the faculty at Edison were not used to interacting with each other in this way, and, it turns out, most of them really enjoyed it. I won't say too much about that conversation, because the point of this entry is that today we had a similar conversation with the students about how they feel about the culture of the school. The faculty were so charged up about the conversation we had that we all unanimously agreed to have class meetings with all of the students in the school.
I led mine today with my 3rd period class, a group of 35 11-year-olds. I had them move the desks around, forming a large circle, so we could all see each other and have a conversation. And then we dove in. They talked for almost 35 minutes. And they had the following to say. These are my notes, mostly direct quotes and paraphrases.
When asked: "How is the year going?"
too much HW
too much fighting
too many bad words
the classes are too long
the classes are boring
it feels like the teachers aren't even trying to make it fun
we want more pizza parties
too much work
too many school days
teachers are always talking over kids and yelling at us
teacher talk too much
teachers are going nuts with referrals
the teachers need to "give us a break"
I got a referral for chewing gum on the first day
teachers should stop lecturing us
we should be allowed to go outside for longer
a teacher cussed at me
it sucks when teachers hate you
teachers waste a lot of class time talking about rules
we need more breaks
less rules
it sucks that the teachers yell at us to be quiet when we're trying to take stupid standardized tests; it's like all we can hear is teachers yelling at us
too much writing
we need free-time
we want more time to talk to each other
When asked: "what is going well?"
Nothing
PE
the transition time between classes is long enough
the beginnings and endings of class have been pretty smooth
many of us like each other
[then the conversation pretty much died]
When asked: "what do you think new students think of us?"
depends on who they talk to; if they talk to the nice kids they will think we are nice; if they talked to the mean kids, well, they would think we are mean.
they would think it's terrible
they would be concerned about all the fighting
they would feel pressure about having to join the right clique
it would be frightening to have to fit into a category
it's boring
they would think we act weird
that they would rather go to [another school]
they might like it for two months until they get to know the teachers
if they get the right teachers they might be okay
[at this point the only new student in the room spoke up and said:] it's overwhelming; there are a lot of people here, and there are a lot of people who aren't polite or welcoming.
When asked: "What can you do to make the climate more welcoming?"
choose our words carefully
not seek revenge
be friendly
[And then the conversation just died...they had very little to say about what they could do]
Though it was clear they weren't entirely comfortable with talking to each other (of my 35, only about 15 spoke), I was impressed by how well they listened to each other. It was the first time in my experience here at Edison that I have been in a class where the students spoke more--much more--than the teacher. And, sure enough, though I had to speak with two young men about their behavior after class, I didn't have to resort to any of the "behavior management plans" that our "expert" presented on.
We just had to give the students questions they cared about and a structure in which to respond. The next time we do it, I will be thinking about how to get the other 20 kids more involved in the conversation.
Then it got even stranger. She proceeded to lecture us--a room full of classroom teachers--about the most basic classroom management techniques and procedures (making goals and expectations clear; providing positive examples). For two hours, we sat and listened to this "expert" (who was ph.d psychologist, not a classroom teacher) lecture us about things that I suspect everybody in the room either already did or chose not to do because we had methods that better matched our personalities.
Not once did she stop to ask us what we did in our classrooms or how we thought about or handled "discipline" or "behavior." It was a little bit like what I imagine my students sometimes experience: teachers talking at them about things they already know or don't care about without ever asking them what they think.
Then Andrew led a presentation about class meetings. A colleague had had two students throwing racially charged language around during class, and it had happened more than once. The teacher was concerned about the climate of his classroom and, rather than merely reinforcing the "rule" about not saying hurtful things, decided to tackle the climate of the room. So he sought out Andrew (who has been teaching at Edison for 27 years) for help in figuring out how to do that. Andrew presented the format (essentially sit in a circle and have a civilized discussion), and then the faculty had a discussion about how we felt about how the school year was going.
I'm used to those kinds of conversations; they were the primary mode of engagement at the school I used to teach at. Most of the faculty at Edison were not used to interacting with each other in this way, and, it turns out, most of them really enjoyed it. I won't say too much about that conversation, because the point of this entry is that today we had a similar conversation with the students about how they feel about the culture of the school. The faculty were so charged up about the conversation we had that we all unanimously agreed to have class meetings with all of the students in the school.
I led mine today with my 3rd period class, a group of 35 11-year-olds. I had them move the desks around, forming a large circle, so we could all see each other and have a conversation. And then we dove in. They talked for almost 35 minutes. And they had the following to say. These are my notes, mostly direct quotes and paraphrases.
When asked: "How is the year going?"
too much HW
too much fighting
too many bad words
the classes are too long
the classes are boring
it feels like the teachers aren't even trying to make it fun
we want more pizza parties
too much work
too many school days
teachers are always talking over kids and yelling at us
teacher talk too much
teachers are going nuts with referrals
the teachers need to "give us a break"
I got a referral for chewing gum on the first day
teachers should stop lecturing us
we should be allowed to go outside for longer
a teacher cussed at me
it sucks when teachers hate you
teachers waste a lot of class time talking about rules
we need more breaks
less rules
it sucks that the teachers yell at us to be quiet when we're trying to take stupid standardized tests; it's like all we can hear is teachers yelling at us
too much writing
we need free-time
we want more time to talk to each other
When asked: "what is going well?"
Nothing
PE
the transition time between classes is long enough
the beginnings and endings of class have been pretty smooth
many of us like each other
[then the conversation pretty much died]
When asked: "what do you think new students think of us?"
depends on who they talk to; if they talk to the nice kids they will think we are nice; if they talked to the mean kids, well, they would think we are mean.
they would think it's terrible
they would be concerned about all the fighting
they would feel pressure about having to join the right clique
it would be frightening to have to fit into a category
it's boring
they would think we act weird
that they would rather go to [another school]
they might like it for two months until they get to know the teachers
if they get the right teachers they might be okay
[at this point the only new student in the room spoke up and said:] it's overwhelming; there are a lot of people here, and there are a lot of people who aren't polite or welcoming.
When asked: "What can you do to make the climate more welcoming?"
choose our words carefully
not seek revenge
be friendly
[And then the conversation just died...they had very little to say about what they could do]
Though it was clear they weren't entirely comfortable with talking to each other (of my 35, only about 15 spoke), I was impressed by how well they listened to each other. It was the first time in my experience here at Edison that I have been in a class where the students spoke more--much more--than the teacher. And, sure enough, though I had to speak with two young men about their behavior after class, I didn't have to resort to any of the "behavior management plans" that our "expert" presented on.
We just had to give the students questions they cared about and a structure in which to respond. The next time we do it, I will be thinking about how to get the other 20 kids more involved in the conversation.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
"Smell My Finger"
I was seated at my desk at the front of the classroom, when I saw Kaley enter the room. She stopped at the desks of three of her peers, offering her pointer finger to each of her classmates to smell. She reached Laura, who I suspect was her primary target, back by the computer cart, helping students get computers out and ready for class.
"Smell my finger," she said cheerfully, producing her finger as though it were some sort of rare gift.
"I'm not going to smell any part of you," Laura responded gruffly. The kids know by now that Laura has no sense of humor for such things; I suspected that I would be her next stop. And sure enough, she turned away from Laura and headed toward me, an attention seeking missile weaving through the desks.
"Hey, Gil, smell my finger," she said with a smile.
"I will not," I replied. A chemical smell lingered in the air--the chemist's approximation of strawberry.
"I just used hand sanitizer, but it smells like perfume. Go ahead, smell it!"
"I can smell it from here, and, frankly, I'd appreciate it if you didn't stick your hand in my face, Kaley."
"But doesn't it smell pretty?"
"It smells like chemicals, Kaley," I said.
On her way back to her desk she proffered her finger to four other peers (all of whom smelled her finger willingly, then recoiled at it) before finally giving up on the spectacle of her smelly finger.
"Smell my finger," she said cheerfully, producing her finger as though it were some sort of rare gift.
"I'm not going to smell any part of you," Laura responded gruffly. The kids know by now that Laura has no sense of humor for such things; I suspected that I would be her next stop. And sure enough, she turned away from Laura and headed toward me, an attention seeking missile weaving through the desks.
"Hey, Gil, smell my finger," she said with a smile.
"I will not," I replied. A chemical smell lingered in the air--the chemist's approximation of strawberry.
"I just used hand sanitizer, but it smells like perfume. Go ahead, smell it!"
"I can smell it from here, and, frankly, I'd appreciate it if you didn't stick your hand in my face, Kaley."
"But doesn't it smell pretty?"
"It smells like chemicals, Kaley," I said.
On her way back to her desk she proffered her finger to four other peers (all of whom smelled her finger willingly, then recoiled at it) before finally giving up on the spectacle of her smelly finger.
Monday, April 9, 2012
It came from my noodle...
Most of my students were down the hall today taking the OAKS, a standardized test required for all students in Oregon. The students who hadn't met or exceeded the benchmark were "given the opportunity" to try again. So most of my students were down the hall with Laura. All but nine of my 36 sixth graders were off testing, so I was given the opportunity to get a sense for where these nine children were at as far as poetry went (it's national poetry month!). I asked them how they knew something was a poem, and they said:
It goes down the middle of the page.
Shows your emotions.
It’s expressive.
It goes down the page like a waterfall.
The words go well together.
?
It doesn’t have punctuation.
People talk about their feelings.
Sometimes it can rhyme.
It shows your inner self.
You can use pencils and pens when you write it.
!
It’s in deep thought.
They’re strange.
Sometime they don’t make sense.
You can write something true or made up.
It comes from your heart, not your brain.
It comes from your hand.
It’s on paper.
It comes from your noodle.
Shows your emotions.
It’s expressive.
It goes down the page like a waterfall.
The words go well together.
?
It doesn’t have punctuation.
People talk about their feelings.
Sometimes it can rhyme.
It shows your inner self.
You can use pencils and pens when you write it.
!
It’s in deep thought.
They’re strange.
Sometime they don’t make sense.
You can write something true or made up.
It comes from your heart, not your brain.
It comes from your hand.
It’s on paper.
It comes from your noodle.
Then we wrote poems with the title: "It came from my noodle..."
Together we came up with the following rules for the poem (the first three rules were mine):
10 lines long
at least one word per line
no more than four words per line
it must feature your favorite color
it must use the word banana or shenanigans
at least one word per line
no more than four words per line
it must feature your favorite color
it must use the word banana or shenanigans
Here's what I came up with:
It came from my noodle
Out of the darkness
of clouded bananas,
it came singing.
From the noodle's
depth, it came hungry.
It's song was like
the songs of birds
with bent beaks
under a pale
and scorching sun.
We had fun today, one teacher and nine students. Then 27 more students and another teacher came back, grumpy from thirty minutes of reading comprehension questions. And I turned the class back over to Laura, who put in a movie.
I take over full-time on Thursday, after the tests are complete.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Failure
Winter in the Willamette valley is cold and dark and rainy. Winter in the intensive Master's and certification program I am in is stressful and overwhelming. The program asks that students teach one class, produce a work sample that demonstrates the capacity to, well, teach (mine was 130 pages), and then take three classes in the evenings. This term I took two methods classes (teaching social studies and teaching writing) and a course on ESOL. For each of those classes I had readings to complete each week and obligatory two page response papers or discussion preparations or what I came to see as written surveillance mechanisms to ensure that we were doing the readings (these writings actually caused me not to want to read, and I abandoned the practice at the end of the term). In addition we had larger projects to do and ridiculously specific lesson plans to write, get feedback on and revise. And the reflections...oh the reflections...a relentless onslaught of reflection. I also had 24 9th graders to teach--and of course I was much more interested in them than I was in reading yet another book by Linda Christensen (whose work I adore).
I have not written in this space since February 7th. The last thing I wrote about was parent-teacher conferences. It's been a long time since then. When I started out with this blog I had intended to keep a record of my experience in these schools and in this program. But--as is often the case when working in schools--the practical realities of the job smashed loftier ambitions. And while I know my five readers weren't up late wondering when I would be writing next, I'm bummed that I wasn't able to keep up during the winter. It was an extremely interesting experience.
I want to fill up this space with stories about those 9th graders. I want to tell you about how I slowly won over Isabel (the girl with eyebrow stud), about how I failed to win over Priscilla (who wrote on her course evaluation that I was a "sucky teacher" and that I should "go back to DC where I belong"), about how seriously they took our mock trial of Odysseus. I want to describe for you how boisterous they were, how they could never get settled at the beginning of class. I want to describe their humor and how, though they irritated each other often, they actually liked each other.
But I'm past all that, past all those children. I had six weeks with them, six weeks only, and now those weeks are gone. I connected with a few of them, but I suspect that most will not remember me. Maybe, years later, one or two of them might look at each other and say: "What was that teacher's name, the one who moved the desks around all the time?" And the other might reply: "Mr. G. That was Mr. G." I'm not being dramatic or sentimental. I barely remember most of my teachers in high school; I don't know that I would have remembered me.
I did learn quite a lot from them--about their lives, about their school. Some of my students lived in trailers and had parents serving in Iraq. Some of my students were in foster care; others were being raised by their grandparents. Some of my students loathed school with a passion that I have never experienced. They were hungry, worried about what might happen over the weekend, wondering if they would ever escape this school, this town. From these children I learned to listen, to ask questions and to remember that, despite my good intentions, I cannot really know what these children's lives outside of school are really like.
Some of my students hated reading. Some of them loved it. Most of them did not care at all about The Odyssey. Some of them loved writing. They wrote about their families, about ponies, about being lost in a desert, about being slaves and prisoners, about being teenagers. Others hated writing, complained it wasn't relevant ("When I am ever gonna need to write when I work at BiMart?") Some of them did exactly as I asked them to do, and some of them rebelled at every turn. From these children I learned that all children are alike in some essential ways. From these children I learned to listen, to ask questions and to remember that what adolescents crave, more than anything, are reality and empathy.
I also learned about failure. In the private school where I learned to teach failure was extremely rare. Certainly students failed quizzes or tests or individual assignments. But a student actually failing a class was uncommon, I suspect because the adults were more tuned into warning signs and could adapt to the child earlier and in greater depth. I also think that, culturally, failure isn't as acceptable in private schools as it is in public. I'm somewhat uncomfortable with that generalization, but it rings true to me. At "Edison" high, many, many students failed. When I took over my class, 30% of the class was failing. At the end of the term, 16% of my students failed (that's four human beings, and I can name them). My CT said: "That's a pretty good percentage." In my eight years teaching in private school, I remember only failing one student for a term, and that was after intervention after intervention. I remember his name.
My spring schedule is much more civilized, so you, gentle reader, can expect regular commentary about my experiences at Edison Middle School, and most won't be as long as this one.
I have not written in this space since February 7th. The last thing I wrote about was parent-teacher conferences. It's been a long time since then. When I started out with this blog I had intended to keep a record of my experience in these schools and in this program. But--as is often the case when working in schools--the practical realities of the job smashed loftier ambitions. And while I know my five readers weren't up late wondering when I would be writing next, I'm bummed that I wasn't able to keep up during the winter. It was an extremely interesting experience.
I want to fill up this space with stories about those 9th graders. I want to tell you about how I slowly won over Isabel (the girl with eyebrow stud), about how I failed to win over Priscilla (who wrote on her course evaluation that I was a "sucky teacher" and that I should "go back to DC where I belong"), about how seriously they took our mock trial of Odysseus. I want to describe for you how boisterous they were, how they could never get settled at the beginning of class. I want to describe their humor and how, though they irritated each other often, they actually liked each other.
But I'm past all that, past all those children. I had six weeks with them, six weeks only, and now those weeks are gone. I connected with a few of them, but I suspect that most will not remember me. Maybe, years later, one or two of them might look at each other and say: "What was that teacher's name, the one who moved the desks around all the time?" And the other might reply: "Mr. G. That was Mr. G." I'm not being dramatic or sentimental. I barely remember most of my teachers in high school; I don't know that I would have remembered me.
I did learn quite a lot from them--about their lives, about their school. Some of my students lived in trailers and had parents serving in Iraq. Some of my students were in foster care; others were being raised by their grandparents. Some of my students loathed school with a passion that I have never experienced. They were hungry, worried about what might happen over the weekend, wondering if they would ever escape this school, this town. From these children I learned to listen, to ask questions and to remember that, despite my good intentions, I cannot really know what these children's lives outside of school are really like.
Some of my students hated reading. Some of them loved it. Most of them did not care at all about The Odyssey. Some of them loved writing. They wrote about their families, about ponies, about being lost in a desert, about being slaves and prisoners, about being teenagers. Others hated writing, complained it wasn't relevant ("When I am ever gonna need to write when I work at BiMart?") Some of them did exactly as I asked them to do, and some of them rebelled at every turn. From these children I learned that all children are alike in some essential ways. From these children I learned to listen, to ask questions and to remember that what adolescents crave, more than anything, are reality and empathy.
I also learned about failure. In the private school where I learned to teach failure was extremely rare. Certainly students failed quizzes or tests or individual assignments. But a student actually failing a class was uncommon, I suspect because the adults were more tuned into warning signs and could adapt to the child earlier and in greater depth. I also think that, culturally, failure isn't as acceptable in private schools as it is in public. I'm somewhat uncomfortable with that generalization, but it rings true to me. At "Edison" high, many, many students failed. When I took over my class, 30% of the class was failing. At the end of the term, 16% of my students failed (that's four human beings, and I can name them). My CT said: "That's a pretty good percentage." In my eight years teaching in private school, I remember only failing one student for a term, and that was after intervention after intervention. I remember his name.
My spring schedule is much more civilized, so you, gentle reader, can expect regular commentary about my experiences at Edison Middle School, and most won't be as long as this one.
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