Most crucial language lesson

“We screw up royally by making people feel they don’t have a mighty important role in contributing to their children’s education,” she says. “Don’t do it by assimilating children into a language in such a way that they’ve got to put aside their native language to succeed in school. We do that at our peril.”

“What do teachers need to know?” she asks. “They need to know how a language is learned, what role they’ve got to play in supporting it, how languages work and how they differ. It’s akin to a school of medicine turning out doctors who’ve never had a course in anatomy. You just wouldn’t do that.”

-Lily Wong Fillmore, San Francisco Chronicle (July 18, 2004)

Taylor Mali – “What Teachers Make”

Inspiration before going back to work

more about "Taylor Mali – "What Teachers Make"", posted with vodpod

Going back…

I used to look forward to lesson planning and making charts, even if it was aggravating and I would put it off. But now I can barely bring myself to start getting ready to plan and prep for next week!

I keep telling myself, “just another 20 minutes of reading,” or I go online “just to check email” – which adds up to seeing what others are writing about, looking up favorite authors or – coming here to post about what I ought to be doing while not doing it.

Procrastination is a vicious cycle. Once you’re in it, it’s next to impossible to get out. Well, at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Oooo – I wonder what’s on TV?

What about that meeting in a basement…

The title is half a joke. In one of my grad school classes, we were discussing NCLB and standardized tests, particularly in how they relate to ELLs and bilingual students/newcomers, etc. Immediately, one of my classmates had a moment of clarity and began talking about how she was going to organize a meeting in her basement to get teachers and parents to demand a boycott of these tests. It was said partly in jest, and partly in frustration.

So, seeing this post on a fellow teacher’s blog really has me wishing such things would really happen here. I have to say, I had never even thought of random sampling as an alternative to every child being tested! I don’t know if it’s the most popular alternative on this side of the border – or the best option – but it’s certainly an approach that would allow for scientific analysis (leaving aside the debate over the validity of the tests, however).

My favorite quote:

Lanzinger said teachers may be employees, but they are also professionals. “We are not going to do something that’s bad for students and bad for public education.”

“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)…