Who says kids lack manners and grammar skills?

Alternate Title: Ewwwwwwwwww...

Dear Ms. ***** I have to tell you something private.

There was a condom on the back door nob. And you touched it. So I think you should wash you should wash your hands or do something. That is why nobody goes through the back door.

Sorry.

From: Girl #1 and Girl #2.

p.s. you are welcome.

Findings

My new incentive system has worked well in one class and not so well in the other. I wish that I'd kept some data of the "before" and "after" (because I don't have enough data to deal with already) because this data would actually mean something to me. I do know that at least three kids who got fifty-fives in the first marking period now have averages of 75 to 80 because they have been doing all of their homework and classwork. I have fewer kids coming late; there are only a couple of holdouts. And I haven't had to give out a pen or pencil; that situation was really making me want to tear my hair out from frustration.

I am not a fan of teaching after lunch. Usually, it would take me ten minutes to get the kids quiet, at least. Then they would be so hyped up that it was hard to get anything done. Now, it's like walking into a different room. Most of the kids have books out and are reading and it's actually quiet. I began throwing bonus points at the groups who did this on their own because they took it upon themselves to make sure that they all had books and began to read as soon as the previous teacher left. And the behavior is also significantly better. Usually the noise would be coming from all over the place, making it hard to pin down which kids were actually talking. Now, I have entire groups that are completely silent while other groups are noisy, so those noisy groups don't get their conduct point. It's been interesting to see which kids have thrived and which kids haven't done as well as I'd hoped. Some of the kids are really stepping up, leading, organizing, supporting the others, and that's really gratifying to see, that they are getting something out of this that might actually be useful in the real world.

It's not perfect, but it's made a huge difference. In the other class, where the idea was less-than-successful, the math teacher and I had grouped the kids by ability. There are about six kids who are really strong academically and they are well-behaved, so they were sitting together. There is one group of kids who are seriously behind, and we wanted them together to facilitate differentiation. But when I tried to move to the new system, only the strongest group did well; the others were a mess. I think they'd been better behaved before. The math teacher gave them new seats, which are slightly better. I'm doing the reward (a field trip to see The Tale of Despereaux and lunch) with those kids on an individual basis. This allows me to exclude the girl who made a point to say loudly, "Mr. Science is the only cool teacher." Because she knew that I am now emotionally mortally wounded over not being the cool teacher. Tomorrow during lunch, I am going to hurl myself dramatically off the roof for all to see. If I survive, then next month I am going to make another attempt with that class to implement my system.

Of course, it's not perfect. Interestingly, I noticed that the two groups who so far have the most points are single-gender. One group is all girls and the other group is all boys. There are two mixed-gender groups who have both had multiple meetings with me (at their request) and at the heart of the problem in both was boy-girl conflict. So I'm thinking about doing something I've never done before: grouping by gender. I am going to keep the successful groups intact but make some changes to the others.

Overall, I do feel really good about the results. It's helped me stay more on top of grading, because the kids are very eager to know how many points they got. As soon as I have a prep, I check all the classwork and homework and it's not hanging over my head. And a couple of kids in particular have really amazed me. I think that they really don't want the other members of their groups to be upset with them, and that's motivating them to do for themselves, knowing that they are helping the others.

If only I could stay in my much-improved bubble all the time...

Middle School Logic

In the last two days, I've confiscated an iPod (because the girl put it away when asked, but then took ten steps away from me and took it out again) and a phone (from a girl who was texting during my class). I learned something very important: when you take something from a student, it automatically belongs to someone else. Thus, it is expected that you will return the item immediately to the guilty party because the person you took it from was not the owner.

Of course, this is the mindset of the middle schooler. Naturally, I laughed the laugh of the evil, not-cool teacher, and walked away.

Is diagnosing teacher burnout like determining recession?

Two Christmas vacations from now, will I be on a long-awaited, child-free vacation with my husband, drunk on daquiris, and realize that I've been living burnout for most of the last decade?

Supporting Detail One: I've been misspelling simple things. As an English teacher, and an often-maligned city teacher, I'm always very mindful of using language correctly. And I'm a good speller by nature, so when I make these errors I know that I'm in need of serious rest. The test prep books that were chosen (by someone else who doesn't even use them, of course) really suck, so I printed all the old ELA exams for my grade from the state website. I'm using them for practice and assessment, and after I labeled one of the sections I realized that I'd written "ASSMENT" instead of "ASSESSMENT." Though I can't say for sure if I can attribute that error to tiredness or if it reflected my real feelings about testing.

Supporting Detail Two: During seventh period today, the only day and time of the week that I believe in Satan, I found myself wondering, If I fall out the window "accidentally" is that considered an on-the-job injury?

Supporting Detail Three: Now that I've been able to log on to Acuity, I actually find it useful. This is the weakest example of the three, because I still have lots of valid reason to bitch about Acuity.

TGIF.

A Post, Just For The Hell Of It

My new reward system went into effect today. It worked better with my morning class than my afternoon class, but that's typical. Teaching in the afternoon is nearly impossible.

I had fewer late students this morning, which was also a positive, but it's also occured to me that it's ridiculous that I have to jump through all these hoops to get the kids to do the things that they are supposed to do.

I've been a good little soldier and have been attempting to use more data. Of course, it took me about three weeks to be able to log on to Acuity. No one could figure out why, but then I realized that my old DOE e-mail account is somehow lost in cyberspace, replaced with a newer one I had no idea about with both my maiden and married names. In the meantime, I still haven't been able to log on to ARIS.

I suppose that the millions the Tweedians coughed up for these programs wasn't enough.

More importantly, I wish I knew when I was supposed to have time to look at all this data. While I don't think it's the be-all, end-all that the brainwashed educrats think it is, I do think it can be useful. But we get no time to look at it, or think about what it says, other than the fact that Johnny can't read because he doesn't come to school have the time and does nothing when he's there.

Each week I'm tempted to boycott our weekly common conferences. It's wasted time, really. There hasn't been a concrete agenda in weeks. And the programs were done in such a way that not all the teachers on a grade are at the meetings, because many of them are teaching. Last year, as difficult as it was, I found solace in the other teachers on my team. We all taught the same kids, and while a focus on instruction would have been more beneficial, at least we were able to discuss the kids who were challenging us the most and come up with ideas and solutions. We were truly a team. I don't have that this year, even though I am fortunate to have a great working relationship with the math teacher for the grade. We're a team of two, at least.

Otherwise, I feel like I am totally on my own. The curriculum guidance is non-existent, and we're always being hammered on using the data and using technology without any real conversations about how to implement these things.

Today I started my full-blown, hard-core test prep. It bores the shit out of me, but at least I don't have to think quite so much. So maybe this month I will be able to figure out ARIS. If, of course, I'm able to log on.

Alarming Information

We had parent-teacher conferences last week. (Did I mention this already? The weekend has not been nearly as restorative as it should be.)

So. One of the things I want to tackle with my new system is lateness. It's a huge problem, and nothing that I did helped. A few of the kids are working on twenty latenesses for the year. Nothing is being done at the administrative level either. Lunch detention didn't make a difference; it just meant that the kids were late AND bitching and moaning about how unfair I am.

Even though I'd spoken to parents over the phone, I made a point to emphasize the issue during conferences, and I was stunned at the number of parents who explained that their kids were late because they, the parents, didn’t always get them up in time. On Friday, one chronically late student was later than usual with a note from his mother, explaining that she overslept, and was unable to get him up. Keep in mind that I teach sixth graders, and many of them are responsible for walking younger siblings to and from school. They have their own apartment and house keys. Hell, I didn't have a house key all through high school, something that still makes me the object of ridicule among some of my friends. But my mother no longer woke me up when I was in sixth grade; I was on my own.

So, these children who have iPods and cell phones that are more sophisticated than mine don’t own that other very high-tech gadget, the alarm clock.

The Year So Far

I was so excited to teach sixth grade this year. My last group of sixth graders was wonderful; granted, they devolved into snotty, entitled, hormone-charged brats by eighth grade, but when they were sixth graders, I loved them. Generally, I like the age group and I developed several units that they found engaging, units I'd tweak, improve and reuse.

So at this point, with about a quarter of the year finished, I’d say that I’m disappointed. While I do have a tendency to look back with rose-colored glasses, I don’t think I’ve ever been this continually frustrated with my students. Overall, their behavior is not good; calls to parents and lunch detention haven’t helped. They don’t listen at all. I have lost track of the number of times that I’ve asked them to do something simple, like take out materials, hang up jackets, go back to their seat. They look at me and continue doing whatever they were doing and I have to ask at least once more.

Of course some of the kids are wonderful, hard-working and well-behaved. But there are more who don’t fit into that category. As for the parents, they seem to fall into two extremes: helpful or not. I’ve been using an online grading program this year, and it’s been a life-saver. There’s a component for parent access, so I was able to get several e-mail addresses so that I can send them grades and behavior logs. I’m more optimistic about those parents, but then there are parents who know that their kids are struggling, either with behavior or work, and they don’t want to get involved.

I need to do something. A few weeks ago my husband mentioned an article in the New York Times sports section about Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama’s brother, who is a college basketball coach. The article mentioned Robinson’s policy of punishing late players by making the whole team run sprints. He said that they were all punished to remind them that they were accountable to each other.

It got me thinking about accountability, and these kids, and how they’re really not accountable to the system. Their parents aren’t either. Teachers are the only ones who really get the heat when the scores are bad. And that’s a problem for a lot of reasons. Granted, the kids get bad grades, but most of them don’t seem bothered by them. They know they will go to summer school and get passed on to the next grade, especially the kids who are already multiple holdovers.

I thought about making the whole class do lunch detention the next time a few kids were bad. Then a light bulb went off in my head, reminding me of how pissed I get when my school implements things on the fly, and in a half-assed way. So for the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about how I can make these kids accountable to each other.

I think I’ve hammered out a decent plan. It still needs tweaking, and I won’t bore anyone with details, but I have hope. Instead of the whole class, the kids will be in small groups of four or five kids, and they will be accountable to their group for work, behavior and punctuality. They’ll get points for doing what they’re supposed to do. I know that I’ll have to build in some lessons about teamwork and what to do about the kids who absolutely won’t come on board. They will all be working towards a point goal instead of competing against each other. I’m aiming this more at those middle kids, the ones who aren’t doing terribly but aren’t working to their full potential. So far this year I haven’t taken any trips, because the kids just haven’t deserved them, but trips will be the monthly reward.

Once the ELA is over I think I will also enjoy myself more. I’m about to cast everything aside and do nothing but test prep until the test. I don’t feel great about it, and it will bore the shit out of all of us, but I feel backed into a corner. It’s pretty clear that test scores are the only thing that matter. Thank goodness that at least a few of my kids really do have genuine curiosity and a desire to learn. I’m sure as hell not cultivating it. By my standards, I’m not doing the job I want, but if the kids pass the test, at least the Tweedians will be happy with my performance.

Today

I have a student, Jay, who has been a perpetual thorn in my side all year. He’s pretty bright, but makes it a point to not do his work. This in itself is obviously a concern, but his behavior is also a problem. There have been times when the principal and assistant principal have been in the room to talk to the class about something, and he just goes on as if he’s the only one who matters. Their obvious anger with him doesn’t seem to bother him. His mother was also just in on Monday.

On Thursdays I have an eighth period prep, and with the way our school’s extended day is structured, I sometimes don’t have any kids then either (shh…don’t tell Joel and Mikey!) Thus I have a good chunk of uninterrupted time where I can work in the relative peace and quiet of my room, something I don’t get too often. But today, I was so angry with several of them, including Jay, that I didn’t let them go to their last period tech class, which they love. And since detention, or punishment, or whatever the hell it’s called, sometimes turns into a free-for-all, I gave them a “reflective essay” to write. Very New-Age of me, don’t you think? I should buy a Yanni CD to play during writing time.

This is what Jay wrote
The reason why I do not do my work is because I do not have a lot of self esteem and I know I can do my work but I chose not to. Another reason is because I don’t know why I don’t pay attention it is not because I am mentally slow or anything. It’s just some teachers don’t give me enough credit.

Another kid, DJ, wrote:
The things that make me act up in my life is I’m hardly around my father. I live with my mom only 2 days each weekend and I can’t keep still. It’s hard for me to control myself…I don’t know when it’s time to stop playing, I’ve been like this since I was in 2nd grade and I am still like this I just can’t help myself.

Jay and I talked for a few minutes; all the kids who were there talked about what they’d written. It makes me feel bad that so many of them have such difficult situations in their lives that they don’t want to discuss. I never press things but it really does explain a lot. Those kids, who’d made me see red just a few minutes before, had me feeling a lot of empathy for them. Most of us who work in city schools regularly ruminate about the problems these kids have in their lives, which are often brought in to the classroom, but, for me anyway, it’s easy to let that awareness fall to the side. Especially when the word of the day, every day, is “test.” Or, really, “test test test test test test.”

I don’t, for one second, suggest letting them slide when they do wrong, but I think talking with them more regularly in a “risk free environment” (gag) might help. I’ve been all but banging my head against cinderblocks, trying to think of ways to get them to behave. I call parents, lecture them, request conferences, do lunch detention, take away the few-and-far-between fun things that come up, to no avail. Today felt like the first time I made any headway with a couple of them.

Naturally, I was feeling especially good about the progress I made with Jay, which means that he inevitably left the room with the rest of the class and pushed another kid down the stairs. Now I think I see him more as a master manipulator, because he did have me feeling badly for him and guilty that I hadn't tried the kinder, gentler thing earlier in the year. From all smiles to assault in just a matter of minutes.