Elephants are people too.

I was talking to a Kalapuya teacher today and he had an interesting perspective on teaching and what it means to be a teacher.  Today is the first day back to school after the snow delay and tomorrow is scheduled to be the last day of the grading period until January 6th.  Many of us (the faculty and I) are planning as if school will be cancelled tomorrow because of the local forecasts, and this presents an interesting problem for us teachers.  Namely, how do you give a student a final grade when you don’t have their final projects or make-up assignments?

This other teacher started the conversation by asking if I play role-playing games in my free time.  I thought it was an odd question, but I answered and continued with some related water-cooler talk.  After a minute, he got around to explaining to me how the school system kind of reminds him of when a role-playing game goes wrong.  Like role-playing games, our school only work well if all parties agree to follow the same sets of rules.  We (students, faculty, etc.) have all agreed to work within this reality that is separate from the “real world” to accomplish classroom/learning goals, and after awhile we even forget that we’re working outside/separate from reality.  It often isn’t until real-world events, in this case a couple of snow days, interfere on school that we all realize that we’re dealing with something far greater than the learning community we have spent so much time to construct.  Before we’ve realized it, many of us have had the weather and real-life obligations take over our schedules and change the trajectory of our teaching entirely. 

After a couple of minutes of explaining this strange intrusion of “reality” on our learning ecosystem, this same faculty member explained to me what it was like when he played Dungeons and Dragons in middle school.  He explained how he and his friends would play almost everyday after school, and on the weekends they would sometimes play for the entire day.  Inevitably though, at the end of these long Saturdays playing Dungeons and Dragons, somebody would come into the room and turn on the lights.  At this moment everybody would be shocked back to their senses, as if they had to be reminded that there was in fact a reality beyond the game taking place on the table. 

In a sense, this is how these snow days feel.  After pouring so much energy into planning, grading and preparation, it’s like somebody turned the lights on and now the school seems so insignificant.  I can’t say that I’m disappointed by this metaphor because I do (obviously) feel that education and formal schooling is extremely important, but it really does make me think about how our educational system (and my job) is viewed by society.  I do like snow days though.

I cannot wait to become a “real” teacher.  I’ve been playing one for the past few months and I think I’ve figured out the role fairly well, but I am extremely excited to finally get out there and have my own classroom.  Of course, I’ll have to do 5 months of subbing first.  Either way, I’m finally going to be payed for the profession that I’ve spent so much time, effort and money to learn.  I just hope that I enjoy it as much as I think I will.

The last week of school is here, and I’m finding myself stuck between the (natural?) tendency to just coast through the final days and the personal obligation I feel to the students to keep the courses rigorous.  On the one hand I feel like I’m already done.  My graduation is happening in just a few days, and the students have already mentally checked out for the holidays.  On the other hand, I do know that many of the students do expect to learn through this last week and I feel it is my obligation to use every day possible to help them build their language arts skills.  Some teachers I know have recommended showing a movie during the last week to take things easy and just find a way to tie it into the course’s objectives, but I think this just wastes the students’ time and devalues the educational experience. 

The other troublesome part of these last few days is making sure all of the grades are in by the deadline.  We are teaching class through Thursday and grades are due Thursday night before we leave, meaning that I’ll not be able to assign any work that requires more than just the minimal time to grade.  I know that I can’t just choose not to assign things because then the students don’t have the incentive to put in much effort (at least that’s how it can be at KHS), but I also don’t want to set myself up for an incredibly busy Thursday, either.  It’s been recommended that I just grade these last assignments on participation/completion to avoid this dilemma of timing, but I haven’t really figured out what I’m going to do yet.  Should I even grade them at all?

Another strange thing about the grading process is realizing how many students have dropped out of school in just the first 3 months.  Two of my classes have only lost 1 student, but another class has lost 3.  One student left at the beginning of November, another left just 2 weeks ago and I lost another student last week.  As I enter grades and grade late papers, I’ll go over these students’ assignments and think about how many students leave school each year.  This is an alternative school, remember, so many of these students don’t have a lot of other options after they quit coming to KHS.  At least one of these students is scheduled to re-enroll after the holidays and another has apparently decided to try to get her G.E.D, but the other students just seem to have “slipped through the cracks”.  I think the KHS faculty does a phenomenal job of keeping track of where former students go by talking to current students and sharing information with other faculty members, but this practice can only go so far to keep students in school.

One of my most challenging students was asked to leave Kalapuya today because she didn’t follow her contract.  When starting here, students are required to sit down with a faculty member and draw up a contract.  In this contract, the student agrees to a number of behavioral and academic goals that he/she is willing to work towards.  If a student has a history of talking in class, for example, their contract might require him/her to work towards being a more respectful classroom citizen.  These contracts are helpful because they bring the students’ goals out in the open and make the school’s expectations clear.  The students know exactly what needs to happen for success, and they have agreed to their personalized code of conduct just like an adult might agree to a car loan.  The students are given the opportunity to know exactly what is expected of them.

The student that was asked to leave had been following the behavioral goals of her contract, but she failed to meet the schoolwide requirements for attendance.  Kalapuya allows only 2 absences (for any reason) per marking period (approximately 4-5 weeks of school), and this student had already accumulated 5 absences over the first half of the marking period.  This type of attendance is clearly unacceptable and action needed to be taken (especially since many of the students at Kalapuya are here because they have had a past history of skipping school), but I was fairly disappointed to see her go.

The funny thing is, I think my class will go easier with her gone.  She was always one of my more difficult students to get on task, and her attitude towards some assignments was downright negative.  At the end of one marking period she actually calculated her grade and decided to not do the final project because she would pass anyway.  She decided to give up all of the in-class work time, and her grade went from an A to a C-.  She showed promise and the ability to do good work, but she continually frustrated me with her lack of work ethic and her apparent disregard for her educational success.

With all of her difficulties, however, I’ve also lost one of my primary sources for learning.  Although she occasionally hassled me about my “studpid” assignments and often made my days a little bit more difficult, I also learned a lot about accommodating for a variety of students and establishing good working relationships with students.  I had to work for her trust and cooperation in my class, and over the last few weeks I feel like I had finally gotten both. 

Now she’s gone until January, but not forever.  There is a considerable waiting list to get into Kalapuya, but she’ll retain her spot because she has shown a fair amount of ability and growth in the school.  I’ll have moved on to substituting by then, but I hope that she continues her growth on her return.  It’s just tough to see a student with so much promise start to lose focus and fade away.

The holidays are roaring up and I can’t pretend that I haven’t noticed.  I’ll hesitate to say that I am more excited for Thanksgiving break and December 18th (Kalapuya’s last day of class) than the students….er….no, I won’t.  For most of my students this is just another holiday break among many.  For me, this December marks the long-awaited end of my student status.  At times I feel like I literally cannot wait.

This line of thinking starts with how glad I am to finally get my license–the moment is coming where I will feel like I have a real purpose in this world.  I will finally have the ability to get a job that I actually want to have for an extended period of time.  I’ll finally be able to tell somebody that I’d worked at the same place for 10 years, say, without that feeling deep inside that somehow I might be underachieving.  Few people want to work at the mall.  Even fewer want to make a career there. 

I want to make sure I don’t confuse any readers: I do come to school to learn the trade and I do know that I have gotten a lot out of it.  My student teaching has been an incredible experience and my university classes have been insightful, but I cannot deny that I am bursting at the seams with anticipation.  I want to finally get the weight of schooling off of my shoulders.  I want to finally get paid for all of my work and start to chip away at the enormous debt that I’ve so slowly accumulated.  I want to feel like a success. 

Despite all of these aspirations, though, I am also finally realizing that I’m not going to be a student anymore.  I’m not going to have that comfortable safety net of “student” in my title ever again, and I’m going to be expected to produce at a high level.  I know that I’m capable of success, but I’m now realizing how scary it is to be on the edge of such enormous change.  Do I even want to be a full-time teacher when this year is over?  Do I really want to semi-permanently affix myself to a school and occupation for the first time in my life?  As time goes on, substitute teaching sounds better and better.

I’m sure this feeling of self-doubt will eventually pass.  I know what these transitions feel like–I’ve experienced them before–and I know that eventually I will want to settle down and get my own classroom someday.  Once the dust settles and I know that my formal education is finally complete I’m sure my aspirations will evolve.  It’s just such a strange feeling to know how much my life will change after December 19th.  Sometimes waiting for the change is the hardest part.

It can be tough to deal with underachieving students.  It can be argued that most students underachieve really (depending on your views of our education system how it relates to our youth), but the students that I find most frustrating are the ones that aren’t good at faking school either.  Many of the students in my classes can decide to go through the motions on some assignments and still pass, for example, but a few students don’t even go this far.  They are content to only undertake the assignments that come easy or match their interests exactly.  How do I deal with this kind of student?  What do I do?

A call home can only go so far.  Some parents come in to talk and information can go from teacher to parent and parent to student, but then you can’t make a student perform.  I try to differentiate instruction to make it interesting for all students by offering multiple assignments and catering to a multitude of learning styles and multiple intelligences, but at what point should I feel like I’m just wasting my time?  How much effort should I spend to differentiate a lesson for one particular student, only to have that student rest his head on the desk and check out. 

I don’t know that there is an easy answer.  Maybe there isn’t an answer.  I feel like some students are beyond my control and that I need to accept that (and really, all students are beyond my ”control”), but the students don’t have a lot of other places to go beyond Kalapuya.  I can fail these students repeatedly and keep hoping they do better next time, but for how long should they kick around before they just give up on the whole school thing and hopefully find something they are passionate about?  I can accept that our school system does not match all students’ strengths, but for how long should we work before we just stop and force these students to find their own strengths? 

Again, I don’t expect to find answers for these questions.  If I asked 10 different people these questions, I’d probably come up with 10 different sets of answers and viewpoints.  But will I ever know for myself? 

Every Wednesday we have an all-staff meeting to discuss schoolwide policies, scheduling, new admissions and ”students of concern”.  These meetings have provided nice breaks from daily grind and have allowed the teachers to build a more-solid sense of community.  Everybody at the meeting is given equal weight, and although it was difficult at first, I feel comfortable speaking up whenever applicable just as if I were a “real” teacher. 

During this past Wednesday’s meeting we decided to discuss cultural competence and how to be politically correct.  It was a nice discussion to have because I feel a safe and respectful school environment is important, and I think a lot of the teachers (including me) were surprised at how often they use terms and phrases that can be deemed offensive.  I, for example, frequently use the phrase “that’s lame” to describe my negative feelings about things.  It wasn’t until this last month, though, that I realized that this term can actually be offensive to disabled persons.  I have also found out that the term “handicapped” is not as acceptable as it used to be.  Instead, we are supposed to favor the term “disabled person”. 

I have absolutely no problem respecting all students and faculty and I think I’ll be able to work these new terms into my vocabulary, but I have also have had a hard time convincing myself that changing terminology in the name of being politically correct will really help anybody.  Is “disabled”–not able–really any better than handicapped?  Are we just changing the terms around frequently enough so that a group large enough to be offended won’t be able to form before we change it again?  I’m being sarcastic here and I know that it is important to honor every student, but how much does this change in language really help in the real world? 

I’ve found myself in a bit of a funk lately.  I’ve had some really intense weeks in my personal life (the sad kind), and I’ve found it very difficult to not let my personal matters affect my professional demeanor.  I still come to school on time, act professionally and work through my classes of course (as I’d grown accustomed to doing), but I’ve found myself really having to dig deep to maintain my composure sometimes.  I’ve not been as ’spunky’ in front of the class as I had been, and I’ve found my mind wandering a lot more often during planning time.  Procrastination hasn’t become a problem, but I’ve found myself more absent-minded than usual.  These are some of the things I’ve been struggling with.

I don’t want to get too personal here because this class is also a part of my professional life, but I’ve found myself really learning a lot about myself and how to work through even the worst days.  I’ve been trying to keep as busy as possible to stay in “work mode”, and I’ve found that if I over-plan during my good days that the bad days can kind of take care of themselves.  I’m certainly not in auto-pilot or anything on these bad days, but I’ve found that I’m much less creative in designing my lessons or in my dealings with students.  Through these past weeks, extra planning has been key.  As the saying goes, “make hay when the sun shines”.   This line is especially applicable when you feel like the sun isn’t shining nearly as often as you would like.

I’ve found that the other big resource through these difficult times has been my mentor teacher.  I know not everybody is lucky enough to have a recent Pacific grad as their guiding light, but I’ve found that collaborating with him has breathed some new life into my curriculum.  I’ve been able to sit down, talk to him about my ideas and usually gain some input whenever I’ve been feeling out of ideas or just like I’m running out of gas.  We’ve always learned about the importance of “OPR” between the teacher and the students, but I’ve learned in these past few weeks that it can be almost as important for the teachers to build trusting relationships between each other.  Teaching isn’t easy, and I’m learning that more and more as this year draws to a close.  Wish me luck for the coming weeks. 

 I’ve been teaching George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” over the last couple of weeks.  In the book, farm animals oust the humans from their farm and decide to make their own self-contained civilization.  It all seems like a great idea at the outset, but over time the smarter animals stop working for the farm’s greater good and begin to seize power through fear tactics, the re-interpretation of rules and the use of propaganda.  The story is an allegory for the Communist Soviet Union through the first half of the 20th century.

On Thursday and Friday my class and I made propaganda posters to mirror the action in the story.  We studied examples of pre-WWII Soviet and American posters, and used those examples as a springboard for our project.  I’ve found that some students will complain no matter how fun the assignment is, but for the most part the students really “got on board” with the assignment.  They really liked how it was a split from the usual essay-driven assignments that they’ve gotten so accustomed to throughout their years of schooling. 

The hardest part about in-class project time, though, is making sure that all of the students have a reasonable amount of time to complete the assignment without holding others back.  I was able to keep some of the students that finished early busy by reminding them of their late assignments and allowing them to do their own separate reading, but my larger concern will be the students who spent the last 2 class periods on a school-related rock climbing trip.  Although they will have a few extra days to turn it in, I am reluctant to give them any in-class time to finish something that the other students have already done. 

I’m also struggling with the stigma that comes with art-themed projects.  Rather than a paper, in which the students can know if they were “right” or “wrong” by an easily-explained set of criteria, I’m worried that some of the students will think of the assignment as “fluff” and not as important as writing.  The assignment might seem more fun as a poster and I do think making posters can greatly help the students understand the propaganda theme, but I’m having to get prepared for some opposition to having the students make up the assignment.  I’m going to have to figure out how to get these students to appreciate the power of the assignment and see how it can be more than just a glorified coloring assignment.

It hadn’t really occurred to me until last Wednesday’s class that all of my posts have been about how well things have been going.  Good projects, good students, etc.–it gets a little old hearing about how nice everything is.  That’s especially true considering everything is not always ok, that I’ve been having as many problems and self-doubts as the next guy.  So here, after so much positive talk, I will tell you some of the difficulties I’ve been experiencing at Kalapuya High School. 

First, I would like to remind anybody who reads this that a student teacher’s self confidence changes like the wind.  One day I might have a killer lesson and complete cooperation from all of the students.  It might be sunny outside, the Friday before I leave town for a concert and maybe I just got off the phone with my mom and she told me that she’s been making me a batch of cookies.  These are the days that make me think, “hey– I might actually be cut out for this whole ‘teaching thing’”.  Things have been going well, and I just think about the good times.  These have been the days that I’ve chosen to write on my blog. 

But here we are, on a Monday, and today my lessons went a little less-than-spectacular.  We’ve started reading “Animal Farm”, and my first class decided that they wanted to begin class by complaining about the book, my reading style and really anything else in general.  They chattered through the journal assignment, blatantly engaged in off-task conversations during their partner-based vocabulary assignment and ended up running over on all of my time estimates.  In retrospect, I should have reminded them that partner activities are a privelege, not a right, and possibly taken a harder line during their journaling activity, but the feelings of frustration just kind of snuck up on me.  I usually allow a little bit of chatting during activities because I like to have a dialogue-based classroom, but this chatting just wore on me. 

I was able to correct for my second and third classes by changing around the day’s schedule and creating more of a feeling of urgency with the assignments, but the first class kind of poisoned my perception of the day.  I wasn’t really able to carry on my lessons with the same intensity I had planned on because I was so discouraged from my first attempt.  I know I shouldn’t have let it affect my day (or the other students’ classes) as it did, but I’m still having trouble separating my lessons from me.  I doubt that I will ever get to the point where a disappointing lesson doesn’t bring me down (at least a little bit), but I have to learn to take these complications in stride.  I learned from the early complications and moved on, and I need to remember that that’s all I can do.   

This past week was pretty tough for me because it was the end of the first “marking period” at Kalapuya High School.  Kalapuya doesn’t have quarters like most public schools, but instead breaks the year up into 8 separately-graded marking periods so each student can have an easier time seeing how their performance directly impacts their grades.  Instead of a unit-ending paper or test making a small dent in a student’s quarterly grade, for example, the students are given almost immediate feedback that encourages them to keep coming to school and allows them adjust to their work habits before it is too late.  These marking periods also make it easier for the school and the students to monitor attendance habits, since more than 2 absences per marking period (for any reason) result in an ”incomplete”.  This policy is strict but necessary here, as many of the students have had trouble in the past with making school a priority in their lives. 

With the end of the marking period, of course, came student grading.  I’ve been keeping up with assignment grades over an internet-based grading program called “e-school” so I was doing ok with the tabulations, but I found myself overwhelmed throughout the last week while trying to get each of the students to complete missing assignments and their final projects.  Our unit was on memoirs and the final project required each student to write and record a personal narrative of their own a la “This American Life” (an NPR radio show).  The unit went well and the students really took to the final project, but I found it extremely difficult to schedule recording times for students that had missed a day or did not finish the written component of the project on time.  Many of the students don’t have computer access at home, so I found it difficult to figure out how much in-class typing time to schedule and how to accommodate for students that missed a typing day.  The inevitable technology miscues, of course, added to my frustration.

At the end of the unit though, I feel like the students really did get a lot out of the final project.  Instead of just turning in a paper and forgetting about the memoir unit, the recording project requires the students to “take ownership” of their writing and have contact with it beyond the “IN BOX” in the back of the classroom.  They had to write their papers, revise them, record them with their peers and now listen to them as part of a peer grading assignment.  I’m still working out the logistics for the listening part of the assignment (Should students leave in small groups to listen to their memoirs during a regular class session?  Should a whole day be spent listening to students’ memoirs that feel like sharing?), but overall I feel good about what the students took away from it.