Taylor Mali – “What Teachers Make”

Inspiration before going back to work

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“Survivor” – Teacher Edition

Last year, I received this really hilarious spoof, putting “Survivor” in a classroom and was just now reminded of it after reading this. What really made me laugh, of course, was that this “Survivor” is exactly what being a Teaching Fellow is like.

There are plenty of jobs that require you to multi-task, do thankful errands for little pay, take work home, etc., (ask any production assistant), but teachers are expected to be thankful for it all because of the “joy” the job provides in working with children.

This particular line from this spoof, however simple, really hit home after reading that second article:

The business people must continually advance their education, at their expense, and on their own time.

After reading the article that reminded me of this, I decided that the “Survivor” piece should add to that sentence, “as their salaries simultaneously fail to meet the economic demands caused by simple, everyday life.”

The piece also should describe how teachers are expected to buy anything their classroom may lack.

A Vacation Poorly Planned

I am suffering from “new teacher hot flashes”. You thought they were only for menopausal women? Think again.

Last year, when I was a push-in, I relished my vacation. It was a surprise to have all this time off and not be the sole person away from the busy office.

While I’m still not used to having these breaks, instead of relaxing, now all I am doing is suddenly realizing all the things I could have brought home to do but didn’t. My day goes by, and my mind makes a mad dash to “where did I put those math tests?!” or “I should have brought home their published writing pieces!”

Sometimes the thoughts rush in just as I’m waking or falling asleep. I’m unconsciously making lists of things I need to do as soon as I get back Monday morning. It’s torture.

I didn’t plan this break very well. I kind of rushed out of the classroom to meet a friend instead of going through everything more carefully. I just imagined myself doing lesson plans and charts over the break.

I can’t even say I’m re-energizing my battery since I’ve spent the last four days recovering from a sinus infection. *sigh* At least Xmas was great!

It’s funny, the folks at Edwize recently asked what some of our new year resolutions were — I should have added “to better prepare for these holiday breaks!” Either by working harder before so I have less “new teacher hot flashes” or by actually bringing home everything I need!

A Must Read

A Race to the Bottom by Bob Herbert

The One to Blame or Thank?

In the hallway, she muttered about teachers who spend too much time cutting out elaborate bulletin-board decorations or chitchatting at “morning meetings” with their third-graders before the real work begins.

This is the problem with so many articles on education for the general public. Most everyday-readers do not know what morning meetings are, and here their purpose is compared to bulletin boards and chitchatting. Yes, it’s a throw-away quote in a sense, used to introduce the person being written about, but it invites the unknowing reader to think, “Oh, yeah, she must be a no-nonsense woman who has some good, controversial ideas I might like – that call for ‘real work’.”

The “she” in that quote is Michelle Rhee, the Chancellor of Education, and the quote is from a brief piece Time magazine published on her last month, making me aware of her name and existence for the first time. And I must say, the article left me uneasy. Not simply because of Rhee’s beliefs and approaches but more so because of the article itself. Rhee is portrayed as a rebel, and her ideas are constantly pitted against teachers in an oversimplified “heroic” way.

There’s always this morality play that unfolds in articles like this – the veteran teachers who just want to love the kids and let them do arts and crafts because she instinctively knows what’s better, and the ambitious, research-focused and data-driven authority who is trying to save students from a “touchy-feely” education.

In my first read of the article, I drew the conclusion that it is the kind of philosophy she espouses that has landed so many of our public schools in this factory-producing-the-best-products approach to education that is deadening and sickening. A philosophy that demands teachers differentiate but then re-mold the students through undifferentiated standards and standardized tests that insist on and reinforce inequality and setting students up for failure. And then giving raises or pink slips to teachers based on those same test scores.

Back to the quote above.

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?

so alone

I am sitting in front of my class as they try not to fidget in the meeting area. My chart, with it’s ready-made, uniform Teaching Point, hangs beside me on my easel. But I know it won’t connect. I know there is more I must do for my students to make sense of this and work with the lesson to actually learn something. But I had not thought this through enough until now. I resent the fact that our majority-ELL school is using this Teachers College curriculum that has to be reconfigured and adjusted at every turn for it to even come close to what our students needs. I am unprepared because I hadn’t thought this lesson through enough.

sigh … I often use my art skills to improvise visuals. But I hate myself when I am this unprepared. The weight of knowing how far behind these students are and how much each moment matters often makes my heart race.

My partner has at times criticized me for being too passionate or caring too much. I feel like a person would collapse under all this pressure if he/she didn’t care as much as I do and feel as responsible as I do. I think then is when people start to burn out. You aren’t completely spent until you allow yourself to become ineffective. I am so conscious of not wanting to remain there – in that moment, with materials I need, and yet still feeling lost and ineffective. I want to do this right. And I often feel alone in that urgency and that desperate need – and that feeling of being so inadequate. I go into some teachers’ classrooms and they look so well put-together and then I hear them say they do nothing at home to prepare. How do they do it all? I struggle just to keep up with all the paperwork, the notes I’m supposed to keep on kids, the papers to grade, the homework to check, the lessons to write (and not just the lesson for each class but also for each small group strategy lesson)…

test prep as a genre?

I agree so much with some of the comments in this post on a fellow teacher’s blog, –  the ELA does not so much test how good a reader a child is, but tests how good they are at taking reading tests. The differences in reading levels among my students is quite significant – I have students who read level E/F (books that don’t even have dialogue) and students who read level M (which has chapter books). And yet some of my lower-level students score better than my students who are on level M (which is grade level). Some of my lower readers are actually more critical readers and better at these tests for various and many unknown reasons.

Three different parts of our curriculum – reading, writing and read aloud – are for test prep. We are to take away one period of two other subjects for test prep as well.  While teachers get criticized for teaching to the test, that is exactly how we are curtailing the students’ education.

If we were true advocates for our students, shouldn’t schools be opposing these tests and organizing parents to do the same? And there are so many legitimate research-based reasons to oppose these tests – whether you choose to look at it from the point of view of ELLs or not.  On the other hand, my school knows historical fiction, fairy tales, fables, legends, poetry, biography, etc., may be on the test, and yet they choose to spend two whole months on Fiction and one whole month on non-Fiction, leaving just days to teach each of these other genres.

test prep

I know I’m not alone when I say I hate test prep, that time of year in third grade and up when 80% of instruction is focused on teaching strategies for taking state-mandated tests like Math or English Language Arts.

But I don’t just hate it because it is mindless, scripted lessons. Sometimes its nice to have lessons that are already worked out even if they still have to be tailored. And I often feel like my own lessons fall flat anyway. But what really bothers me is it makes me feel so incompetent.

The lessons and teaching points we are given are so poorly written and organized that we are setting the kids up for failure. Like the first time we teach kids about historical fiction, it is to focus on the types of questions asked. There is no time to spend to really dig into it and read some. And then that is it. Maybe one other lesson talks about historical fiction. This is the equivalent of cramming except usually when you cram for a big test, it is both your choice and with material you have had some prior experience with. At first I honestly just thought it was me. That I am inexperienced and disorganized and that’s why it hasn’t been working well but the reading teacher told me all the teachers are having a hard time with it!

Talk about setting the kids up for failure…