NYCTF: Debates, Distortions, and Discoveries

NYCTF

Whether it is on someone’s blog or a TESOL listserv, I always seem to find myself having to defend the NYCTF. It’s not an enviable position, especially when half the time it’s not to dig into actual flaws of the Fellowship, but to dispel rumors and myth! How exhausting to have to explain to people who talk about such things as “nyctf grad schools” as if the Fellowship has created their own colleges, or who make comparisons between Fellows and experienced teachers with years of teaching under their belt, as opposed to new teachers. There is plenty to say about alternative certification programs, their necessity, their rigor and how their participants are interacting with veteran, traditional-route teachers and vice versa.

However, I will say that through the process of wading through all these misperceptions in a recent tesol listserv back-and-forth, I have found ESL teachers who are really, truly passionate about what they’re teaching, how ESL teachers are being trained and how the students are being serviced. That has been truly refreshing since 8 of out 10 of the ESL veteran teachers at my school once criticized me for working too hard on my lessons, and who made it very clear that their favorite part of the job, aside from vacations, is administering the NYSESLAT test since, for 3-4 weeks, all the push-ins do is testing — no time for teaching.

With all that said, please feel free to post all your questions, comments, criticisms of the Fellowship and expect a response complete with personal anecdotes from my experience and what I have learned from other Fellows, coupled with more objective thoughts. Or if you find blogs by other Fellows, or posts about the Fellowship, please do share as I am always interested in reading on this topic. I have tried, at times, through this blog to give you a sense of my experience in the Fellowship from Day 1 and appreciate when others do the same.

Protected: A Toast to Mountain Climbing

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Where did it go?

I knew teaching was going to be a lot of work – especially compared to my last job – but I didn’t know it was going to almost completely obliterate my social life. I bring so much work home (and apparently this is odd?) that I am lucky to get it all done before going to sleep by 11pm so I can at least get 6 hours of sleep. Aside from other Teaching Fellows, there’s no real way or chance for me to get to know other teachers. Some are definitely cliquey and haughty but not all (and some of those are too old really for me to become close to). And yet socializing just doesn’t happen.

Am i crazy? One other teacher, my saving grace, who is also new and lots of fun does take work home and seems as overwhelmed and ambitious (for our kids) as I am, but we seem to be a rarity. Another new-ish (she’s in her third year) teacher, who is also a Fellow says she does NOTHING she can’t do in the morning at school or on her prep.

Seriously – how and when do you prepare if not after school?

only the beginning, true…but…but…

“It is never too late to get your students to reach great gains and you
will get them there. There’s a lot to do between here and there, but
you’re on a good path and that’s why we’re doing it together. This is
just the beginning.”

I totally agree with this blogger. And I am right where that new teacher is that she’s responding to. I look at my first few weeks and what lies ahead, and how quickly the tests are coming at my ELLs and think, “is it too late?”

Those first few weeks matter so much – they tell the students your expectations, standards and hopes for them as well as getting them (and you!) in the habit of rules, procedures and believing that those things are going to be consistent and actually help the class do what it needs to.

But I’ve already found myself imploring them to “act like grown-up third graders” and “follow the rules” — rather than doing what I feel like I should be doing, even when I’m not sure what that is.

As a new teacher of a class full of beginner and intermediate ELLs, I am right behind that eight ball; they need to make substantial gains and I need to not just lead them and teach them, but document every step and work to prove myself every step of the way.

Principals and APs come in to not just “observe” me, but to write down every word I say. I don’t oppose this, but as a new teacher, I hadn’t realized it had ever been any different. And sometimes it’s very hard to imagine how it could, or should be different – along with everything else I am doing. And when I think about the “will I be able to…” questions, these kinds of ideas mingle in with questions just about me and what I can and will do.

Right now, I’m having to prepare lessons that not just meet standards and are in response to recent research, but also, yes, prepare them for the standardized tests which they must pass or go to summer school and face possible retention. Along side those lessons, I’m having to create language goals in addition to the content goals so that my students are able to actually talk about and think about those things I am teaching them.

I have students who, when we were reading a story together and I had outlined all the words I thought would trip them up, asked me, “what does ‘got up’ mean?”. So, every day I am finding that there are yet new things I do not know (which can be a great thing), and it makes me think I am just unprepared to be the teacher my kids need.

Now, I also feel very deeply that I want to, and can, be that teacher they need but it’s a very long road ahead of me and while I have Fellows and others who I am grateful for because of their support, the room of teachers on the same page as me at my school could fill a tiny room. Most think I’m crazy for even wanting to be a classroom teacher – as if wanting to tackle obstacles to reach up and turn that light bulb on over some children’s heads is akin to martyrdom. As if seeing how being a teacher means being a mix of scientist, artist and poet is just idealism and “newbie-ism” at work.

So, yes, it is never too late and this is just the beginning. But damn, did September go fast.

No Summer Break for me..

While many of my fellow cohort Fellows are enjoying their first summer vacation from a very intense first year of teaching (or first half-year for my mid-year cohorts), I decided to take a summer school teaching position. Why? Well, it was for both financial reasons and a need for classroom experience. At this point, I’m glad I did it, but I wish it was over. And I’m hoping it’s very different from when I have my own class.

It probably wouldn’t be so overwhelming and tiring if I wasn’t also taking two grad school classes from 2-7pm each night after school Mon-Thurs. It’s not even that the classes are a lot of work, but they are tiring and take up any down time I would otherwise have.

It grates on my nerves the lack of free time to relax and get my head together for September. I had really wanted to immerse myself in third grade curriculum and learn the Teachers College approach to Reading and Writing more deeply, but I just have not had the time. And the day after I’m done teaching, I’m going to Mexico for two weeks. The day after I come back will be just two days before I go set up my classroom. I really didn’t want my first time in a classroom to be as “By the seat of my pants” as being a push-in was, and I feel like I’m not in a position to change that.

So, here I am, feeling a bit out of control in terms of what I’m doing right now. Like I’m treading water in a current that’s pushing me both backwards and down.

Ah, yes, but I’m glad I got to see what being a classroom teacher is like before September….

the teacher becomes the student

I started my grad school classes last night. 5 to 10PM. Oh how exhausting. What’s worse is we work in groups (I inflict small group work on my students, sure, but it can’t be anywhere near to how annoying group work is when you’re an adult). And of course in my group of 4 people there is one completely inept,clueless, negative woman, a woman who admitted to having dropped out of the Fellowship because she couldn’t handle it all and one potentially competent, rather immature, young woman. I would rather suffer under the weight of having to do all my own work rather than do most of the work (perhaps with the younger woman) and carry two other people along. I know I am being harsh – at least to the former Fellow – but i’m bitter and annoyed!

Be The Kid

Recently the ESL Department at my school had our first (since I’ve been there) departmental meeting with our supervisor. In the lead up to it, the veteran teachers groaned and warned about how “there’s always something” and were not looking forward to it. I didn’t really know what to expect.

As you may know by now, NYC Public Schools now receive a progress report that rates a school for the percentage of progress students make. Our school scored an A, and this meeting discussed some of the weaknesses and where we, as a school, needed to improve. One was in terms of data, so now we have to carry around the most recent running record for our students, for example.

Our supervisor also detailed some ideas she’d gotten from going for some professional development with Teachers College, with which our school is affiliated. One of the things was the suggestion to “be the kid” — during a read aloud that the classroom teacher is doing, rather than being in the front of the classroom, sometimes we should sit down with the kids and get a better sense of how they’re seeing/hearing/interpreting/discussing things. The other new teacher (more on her later) and I were really jazzed by this. The veterans were kind of like, “more work?”

This seems to be an essential question and crossroads for what kind of teacher I will become. It comes down to why someone I am a teacher and where I see myself in this career.

Motto: You Are On Your Own

A friend of mine, also from the NYC Teaching Fellows, was recently hired at a struggling elementary school in Manhattan. She is the only ESL teacher there because the other one quit about a month ago for “personal” reasons or some such. I doubt it was personal. It’s nearly December and the school still doesn’t know who their ELLs are. Have they not tested them? Or what? They told my friend she could “start teaching tomorrow!” but she has no students, no classroom (she’s a push-in) and nowhere to even hang her coat!

My school is far better organized and disciplined; they have one person responsible for testing all new ELLs. They have ten ESL teachers, including myself, most of whom have decades of experience and genuinely care about the students. There are areas where it needs to grow, too, of course.but this school is actually a great environment for ELLs and new teachers like myself because of all the support.

But one thing is sorely lacking. An ESL curriculum. My understanding is most schools don’t have one. So teachers end up creating their own lesson plans from scratch, although the veterans have years worth of chart tablets filled with lessons. This may be good for inviting creativity from the teachers, but there’s no real way to offer the students a comprehensive, “equal” education where every student is judged by the same goals and criteria. The main goal seems to be to get the reading on level, as determined by the Fountas & Pinnell reading levels.

If you’re reading this and are a teacher, does your school have an ESL curriculum? What are your thoughts on it?

ESL Strategies

One of my goals with this blog is to feature different ESL-specific strategies that are useful to both an ESL teacher and a mainstream teacher who has ELLs in his/her classroom. I will look at them specifically in my own practice but will also feature things that may come up or I may find that may be more applicable to a different realm from what I teach, such as high school.

Although many bloggers are also good researchers, I have discovered that I probably spend more time searching for information online and in books than some of my colleagues. That was definitely true among my ESL colleagues in the Teaching Fellowship. I was surprised that after about two weeks in the program, some had not even been to the NYTESOL website, for example. I know I over-prepare, over-plan and over-investigate things (which is one of the reasons I first went into journalism in the first place), but I didn’t think it was that rare a skill/habit/obsession.

So, while other bloggers may have many of the resources I recommend or links I share, hopefully there will be many of you (especially new teachers like me) who haven’t and will find this portion of the site useful.

To start this feature off, I thought I’d share something I found on a government site called Doing What’s Right.

Strategy: A typical activity used by all the teachers is “four square.” On one page, four large squares are made. Students write the new word in one square, write a definition of the word in the next square, use the word in a sentence in another square, and draw a picture of the word in the final square. This really helps students to understand and remember the words they are being taught.

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Feel free to post your own ideas and suggestions for strategies in the comment section! 

New to School

So, I went to my new school today to start with all the paperwork and get my schedule. I found out I’ll be teaching about 8 different classes, grades 1, 2, and 4. Nine classes if you count “1st grade study group”, whatever that is.

I learned there are several other NYC Teaching Fellows at my school, some from 2002 or so, and one from last year, so that’s cool. I’m excited to learn from them and others.

It’s a really overcrowded school, so they have makeshift buildings for some of their schools. With 5 minutes to move from one class to the next, that should be really fun on crutches…

I officially start next week!