We started a new semester this week. Because we are on a block schedule, I have all new classes. It is a bit of an adjustment. Last semester I had all Algebra 2 classes. Now I have two Pre Calculus classes and a Geometry. Guess what is different about my new bunch? They care.
It’s such a nice change! Almost every student turned in an assignment today. They take notes. They listen. They remember exponent rules. They try. They smile.
Nice.
When you know their lying, what is the appropriate response? And what about the fact that they’re so good at it, they believe their lies? I bet many could pass a lie detector test. If they honestly believe their lies, how would you detect it?
Yeah, sure… Your dad is calling you right now from Liberia.
What? You were at your Grandma’s funeral? So why was your brother in school all day? Later the story changed to being gone because she has liver cancer (what she told a sub).
I always want to say, “Do I look stupid?” But of course, with kids these days, they’d probably say “yes.” What happens when you call them on their lie and it’s actually true? Because that would truly be horrible, we dance around the lies. Sometimes I have a chance to follow-up and check out the facts. Most of the time, I really don’t care. But when you don’t catch them in the lie, they think that it’s ok. I really don’t have time to be the lie police.
When you think about the implications of this culture of lying, it’s rather scary. I have already dealt with kids that don’t think that copying is cheating. They don’t think that there’s anything wrong with cheating copying. Why do you care?, they ask me. If it doesn’t affect you, what does it matter?
Excuse me if I think right and wrong are important concepts.
This post was originally written in June of 2008.
I had a student once. Her nick name was Tiny. She was small in stature. She was sort of a tomboy. I started getting to know her when she was a freshman. She was in a class of mine. But it wasn’t math.
The very first year I taught, I had to teach this class for freshman called “Connections.” It was a class for every freshman, but the sections were spread out among all departments. Since I was low on the proverbial totem pole, I got stuck teaching it. I taught it the last hour of the day. I don’t think there’s anything worse than having freshman at the end of the day. When people saw the kids walk into my classroom, they’d shake their heads and say a prayer of thanks that it wasn’t their classroom. I had every “thug” kid you could think of in the freshman class. There were only a handful of them that made it all the way to graduation.
Tiny was special. She started out the day with Algebra 1. She had my dad. She ended the day with me. So her day was book marked with the same family. She’s the kind of kid that you would think would never amount to anything. She had a smart mouth. She was not afraid to stick up for herself (read that as fight). Just by looking at her and knowing her, you’d lump her into the category with the rest of the thugs. Probably won’t amount to anything…
Over the course of her high school career, she was in my class several more times. She was in my class as a Geometry student and an Algebra 2 student. Math wasn’t really her thing. But she’d try and put in the effort. I’d make her stay after school and take her time on tests. As a result she did fine.
Tiny taught me too. She the one that taught me about “Ebonics.”
If someone says, “She’s a duck” it’s not good. That refers to an ugly duckling. “Gotta Bounce” means I gots to go. “Finna” comes from “I’m fixin’ to” as in “I’m finna bounce to da crib.” And so went my education of teenage speak. She’d often joke around and respond to some of my questions with, “It’s cuz I’m Black.” She was completely joking. So I joked back… Yeah, because your Black.
While I was changing combinations on Friday I saw some graffiti in a locker. It said, “Tiny and Dejah BFF.” So I kept changing the hundreds of combos with thoughts of Tiny.
Each year there is a teacher that speaks at graduation. The teacher that speaks is nominated by the students. I’m actually the one that counts the ballots now. But at the time I didn’t. The “winner” is usually someone who has seniors. I get some nominations every once in awhile. My first one was from Tiny. I keep them in a file labeled “read when you have second thoughts about teaching.”
Ms B is a very good person. She’s been my teacher since my freshman year. She really enjoys her job and the subject she teaches. Ms B always stayed after me to push myself. She showed me she really cared. She always knew when something was wrong or she’d notice when I was having a hard time on a certain assignment. She’s a good teacher. She takes time to help you. She explains things. She’ doesn’t just give you an assignment and expect you to do it. Some of the teachers act as if they don’t care if you’re having a trouble with their classwork or not. Ms B does and I appreciate everything she’s ever done for me. She never gave up on me or did she allow me to give up on myself.
You don’t necessarily make connections with every kid you teach. But when you do, it’s indescribable. We all say that we go into this profession to “make a difference.” The cynic in my chuckles every time I read a letter written by a prospective student teacher that mentions this. The truth is: you do make a difference. The amount of which, varies from kid to kid. Some kids, you just click with. Some you don’t. It’s a good thing that there are lots of us for them to choose from. The bottom line is that hopefully you click with a handful and your colleagues click with the rest of them. And teaching in the inner city, you are sometimes the most stable adult figure in their lives. That’s pretty powerful.
If you had met Tiny as a 14 year old you’d never expect her to make anything of herself. Over the years I’ve kept in touch with her via email and I’ve sent birthday and Christmas cards to her parents house. The last time I saw her was when I took her out for lunch in December of 2005. She had just graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Sociology and Criminal Justice. Her plan at the time was to go back to grad school and get her Master’s degree. She was planing on being a probation officer.
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Today I got a call from Tiny. I haven’t been able to find her for a few years because her parents moved. It was so good to hear from her! She’s currently living in town and looking for a job as a probation officer. Even though she’s now 26, she still calls me Ms. B. 
Every once in awhile I am struck by how truly stupid some people are. I had a situation happen on Monday and I still have no idea how to write about it. Part of me wonders if I should. I can’t even come up with the proper adjectives to describe just how bone-head this was…
Here goes…
There really is an art to social skills. Knowing how to read people, putting someone at ease, being able to carry on an interesting conversation, politeness, and very importantly, knowing the boundaries of appropriate and inappropriate conversation are skills that many do not possess. Like anything else, people run the gamut of the spectrum of abilities. I had an encounter with a new low.
Monday night I got a phone call. A friend had passed my number off to a single guy that her husband knew from work. I had agreed that it was ok for them to give this guy my number. So I at least knew this was coming.
After the intro, he says, “I hope it’s not too late to call.” What are you supposed to say to that when it’s almost 9pm? Technically, I suppose he just made it under the 9 o’clock wire. But honestly, yes, it is too late to call for a “get to know you” call.
We do the usual conversation about where you are from, family, holiday activities and then move on to the job questions. This guy is a project manager. I asked him about his current contract. He proceeds to tell me… now you should have the voice of the Charlie Brown teacher in your head. I make a mental note to never ask him any details about his job ever again.
Now it’s his turn to ask me about my job. I think the only thing he knew about me is that I’m a teacher. Where do you teach? What do you teach? After I say that I teach math, I get the standard response of whether or not the person listening likes math or not. This case – not. What does he ask me next? Before you go on, make sure you set any liquid down and can’t mess up your computer with your reaction to this one…
…
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So… Have you ever had sex with a student?
I am not making this up.
I wish I were quick-witted and had snappy responses. It usually takes me a couple of days to come up with what I should have said. Have you shut your mouth yet? I know most of you just had your mouth open at that jaw-dropper.
I was so shocked that I didn’t know how to respond. I think I said something like, “Are you seriously asking me that?” To which he digs the hole even deeper and says something to the effect of, “Doesn’t it happen all the time? You see it on the news. Older woman, young guy….” and he keeps going about some news story that was just on, even though it had nothing to do with a teacher and it was an older man. Then he makes some reference to the one well-known case that was news years ago nowhere near here. I know that I said, “The idea of that is so appalling that I don’t even know what to say.” This doofus still didn’t understand that he should just shut the fuck up. I made my exit and said that I had had a long day and still needed to do some lesson planning for the next day and got off the phone.
After making a phone call to a different girlfriend and describing this unbelievably horrifying conversation I had to find something to do so I could calm down and try to go to sleep. So what am I doing to take my mind off of this? Calculating the variance and standard deviation for the homework problems for that day.
What this guy did is wrong on so many different levels. Even if he did think he was making a joke, it’s still inexcusable. It’s not something to ever joke about. And if he thinks it’s ok to make that kind of a joke, there is something very wrong with him.
My friend was extremely sorry that I had to endure that half hour conversation with a guy she had never met. Hey, I was just glad that it was only a phone call and I shouldn’t have to worry about ever meeting the guy. I must say, it has given me the most jaw-dropping story that I’ve told in a long time.
Some people…
Aunt Wori? Can we play with your puter?
It’s amazing how easily a 4 and 7 year old navigate a computer. From what I can tell, the mirror effect is their favorite.
Do you remember what it’s like to be seven? I don’t. I’m not sure what age I figured out that Santa wasn’t real. I don’t think we left cookies and milk out for him. My niece was so excited tonight. Even though she got gifts from her grandparents and aunts and uncle, she’s still looking forward to what Santa will put in her stocking tonight.
Before she went to bed, she had to make sure that Santa would be able to make it from the fireplace to where the cookies were waiting for him. Here’s what she did…
There is one thing that this little girl is really good at…
Giving directions.
This is one of the latest buzz words in my district. So how do you suppose they decide if I’m culturally proficient? Well, they hire a bunch of consultants, of course!
During the first few weeks of school we were required to do a survey. The survey was linked to our email accounts and we had to have a specific individual password to take it. We were assured that our responses would be kept confidential, blah, blah, blah…
This was one of the strangest surveys I have ever taken. Here are the five choices for our responses.
Disagree
Disagree somewhat more than agree
Disagree somewhat and agree somewhat
Agree somewhat more than disagree
Agree
WTF? Just the choices alone make you think that they’re trying to trick you. At the end of the survey they were asking specific questions about race and how you handled situations that turned out well and also turned out poorly. It was the strangest survey I’ve ever done. Plus, while I took the thing, it made me angry that they were even asking a bunch of questions.
I really wonder how someone would determine if I’m culturally proficient. I’ve been teaching in an urban district for 13 years. Our population is roughly 30% Asian, 30% African-American, 26% Caucasian, 13% Hispanic and 2% Native American. Our students speak over 103 different languages and dialects.
I am a minority in my classroom. For 13 years, I have learned about my students and their cultures in a variety of ways. I’ve been to their homes for graduation parties. I’ve been invited to their quincineras. I was invited to the Karen New Year celebration last year. I often have conversations with my students about their cultures. I even travel to places around the world where they are from. But yet, time and time again, their lack of test score performance is being blamed on my lack of cultural competence (and a whole host of other things outside my control).
During the course of the school year everyone in my district is supposed to be trained to be culturally proficient. I am quite curious how this is going to work. The few that have been through the training haven’t been impressed. And as with many things in a large district, somebody thought this was the magic bullet to help close the achievement gap and bought this program without any thought to implementation.
I have no idea when I’m slated to be trained to be culturally proficient. In the meantime, I guess I’ll just keep plugging away, teaching mathematics under the assumption that I’m a racist… Hmm… I guess the title of my blog is pretty appropriate.
I made a confession to my students this week. I’m hooked on the Twilight stuff. I had never read any of the books or seen any of the movies. I was wondering what all the fuss was about, so I put Twilight on my Netflix queue. Over Thanksgiving weekend, I popped it in the DVD player. I was expecting to just be rolling my eyes at the whole thing. Vampires? C’mon. Let’s get real.
So I watched the movie.
I completely understand why teenagers are hooked. It’s got the good vs evil with the lines sort of blurred. There’s a typically forbidden romance. The characters are high school students and have to sit through boring classes just like they do. The characters are ones that they can relate to (minus the vampire qualities).
Once I understood the draw, I went further. I saw New Moon. Then I got the first book. I read almost the whole thing on Sunday. Monday, I started book two. I finished that one Thursday night. They are complete fluff reading. Escapism. Entertainment. For a long time I’ve been on a non-fiction kick. So I haven’t read any fluff in ages. Honestly, it’s nice to just escape into a book and not think about other stuff.
When I made my confession I had a variety of reactions. Mostly disbelief. How could their teacher be reading something they read? And like it. We joked around quite a bit throughout the week. I had one girl ask me if I’m “Team Jacob” or “Team Edward.” I confessed… Edward.
I’m almost kind of embarrassed to admit that I’m enjoying reading the fluff. But in telling my students, I became more human to them. Ms. B likes to read the same books I do. We have something in common. How could that be?
I have one boy who is asking if he can borrow the first book. It’s close to 500 pages. I’d bet that Herman has never read a book that long. We all know the statistics about how people who read for pleasure have higher test scores, etc. I’ll be loaning the book to Herman. I’m just amazed that he wants to read it. Did you hear that? He wants to read. I guess I’m promoting literacy to top it off!
On Wednesday this week we had an early release day and had some professional development. As usual, it was a round robin sort of thing where we go in groups to three different presentations. The topics for the day were all about literacy, vocabulary and facilitating classroom discussions. This is all good and well. I believe that we all need to pitch in and work on getting our students to read and have all of those literacy skills. But with everyone working on literacy, I couldn’t help it when a thought popped into my head.
As a member of the math department, I’m on an island with 11 other people. Occasionally we get visitors on our island from the science department. Sometimes we even get a Social Studies teacher that needs to borrow some calculators for game that involves a few calculations. Most people avoid our island. This is probably due to some sort of math phobia that they’ve acquired over the years. We navigate off the island and delve into other topics and teach new vocabulary and critical reading when problem solving. But we’re pretty much on our own when it comes to math.
In the days of high stakes tests we all need to pitch in and create a productive learning environment for our students. It’s easy to see that the chances of improving our reading and writing scores are pretty good. Everyone in the building is paying attention to literacy. Math? Hmm… Like I said… We’re on an island with few visitors.
As a math teacher, I always try to clear. I communicate my expectations to my students. I use multiple representations for math concepts. I repeat myself over and over. When teaching, one needs to be extremely direct and very clear. But in some situations, being vague works to your advantage.
The one area of my job that is rather ambiguous is my work day. My day is expected to begin 15 minutes prior to my first class and can end 15 minutes after the students leave. What is the reality? I arrive 40 minutes prior to my students, which is before 7am, and I leave anywhere between 3 and 5pm. On Sundays I can spend a little time or a lot of time prepping for the week. It often depends on what classes I’m teaching as to how much time I work on Sunday. The point I’m trying to make, is that even though I’m not required to be in the building and working a full 8 hours per day, I definitely put in the time.
Of the over 3000 teachers in my district, we all put in this kind of time. We do it because we are professionals and we care about kids. In other districts, teachers are required to be in their buildings for 8 hours. My required “in the building” time is not 8 hours. It is understood that even though I’m not required to be in that location, I will put in the time to get the job done well.
Why aren’t we required to be in the building for exactly 8 hours? Years ago, teachers fought for this “undefined” day. We are professionals. We get it done. The benefits of this kind of set-up are much more than the powers that be realize.
Don’t we all know that we set high expectations and low and behold, they get met? When we are treated like professionals instead of clock punching hourly employees, the expectation is that you will put in whatever time is necessary. And guess what? It happens.
By this point in my life, I’ve figured out where and when the most I’m productive. For me, I’m productive after school and I tend to get more done when I’m there. But if it’s 90 degrees and humid in my room, I’m not going to stay in that building, being miserable just to work there. On the same note, if it’s the dead of winter and they’ve turned the heat down and I’m freezing while sitting at my desk and entering grades, I’m heading home and doing it there. If I’m at home and I’ve been ruminating over some teaching idea, I can work it out there. I don’t have to go into work to do my job. And as every teacher knows, your job and responsibilities are always in the back of your mind. The only time I am completely free of that is summer vacation.
But even when you are on your own time you’re finding ways to learn and improve yourself. Many teachers spend time in the summer (or on weekends and evenings) taking classes. After school we’re going to professional development on our own time to become better at our jobs. So any argument that we’re not putting in the time, is not going to hold water.
I would hate to see the benevolent attitude of our teachers change because we went to a specified work day. And I think it would. We are very giving of our time, but it’s on our terms and it needs to stay that way. The one thing that we do have control over is where and when we are doing all of the extra hours that it takes to prepare and doing the work of educating our kids. In this case, ambiguity is a wonderful thing.
