Sunday, November 01, 2009

Good Old Days



(My Uncle Hal used to drive a car like the one above. My family didn't have one. I have wonderful memories of piling into this car with my sister and cousins and going on wonderful adventures. I miss the good old days.)

I'm embarrassed to say this, but I spent a good part of my preschool day Friday talking to another senior member of my department, reminiscing about the good old days of math education, days when we got to teach more than how to push a button and how to pass an exam, days when we really got to teach.

It just so happens that this colleague has always been at Packemin HS and has no idea what it is like to teach in a poorly performing school. She also teaches the elite of the elite and has no idea what it is like to teach kids who can't add, but she still knew exactly what I was talking about.

Our top students have never been taught to think outside the box. They were taught to memorize techniques and reproduce by rote, with no understanding of why things were done the way they are done. Kids that came into high school excelling at basic arithmetic have forgotten how to work with fractions, decimals and how to perform even simpler arithmetic techniques. As for higher levels, forget those. Whoever taught them trigonometry last year relied too heavily on button pushing. These poor kids go into shock whenever they need to find sin pi/6 or any trig ratio, for example.

I haven't always taught AP calculus. I spent my first three years at Packemin HS in the special education department. Even there, I taught thinking skills along with basic computations because thinking is so much more important than anything else. Rules are quickly forgotten but the brain, trained in the right direction works forever.

In the good old days, APs were master teachers. Many were also Master Bitches (as many still are today), I know because I worked for the Queen of them, but they knew their subjects and they knew not only how to teach them, but how to teach us to teach. I learned questioning techniques, test writing skills and most importantly, how to run an effective lesson from this Queen Bitch. We had to stand up and teach, there was no relying on a worksheet, no dependency on one kid teaching another (as in group work). The classroom was ours and we taught. We taught the kids who wanted to be there and had skills and we taught the ones who G-d only knew why they showed up every day. The Queen Bitch held us accountable for teaching but never for our passing results. She knew what went on in each and every classroom and kept us goal oriented (without using the word goal) to keep our students on target.

Today's administrators are lucky if they can spell the subject they are in charge of correctly. Mr. AP left us for a few years and the guy who took his place could not teach anything more than math A. A colleague of mine corrected a major math mistake Mr. AP was making in his trigonometry class and I remember correcting a probability mistake he made a few years ago. I could never ask him a question about calculus because he doesn't remember any of it. And, the admins coming up are even more ignorant. Many would not even know a good lesson if it bit them on their ass because they have never taught one or been taught to teach one. There used to be exams to become an AP. Those exams do not exist anymore. All anyone needs to do is take some Mickey Mouse administrative courses in some Mickey Mouse college and presto, instant administrative certification. Every twenty something teacher does this now a days and since the trend is to hire the young and the beautiful, they are getting all the jobs. (I'm not writing out of jealousy. I never took an administration course. My husband says that if I became an administrator I would have to stop talking to myself. I'm not all that friendly and might have no one left to talk to if I do that.)

I used to panic when the back door to my classroom opened and the Queen walked in. I knew my job was safe, but as much as I hated her, I respected her opinion of my teaching and my poor self esteem took a beating with every word she said. I don't feel that way anymore. I still don't like that door to open, but the words only anger me, they don't hurt because they are coming from someone whose teaching skills I don't respect.


I know I am far from the best teacher around and even after all these years, there is much for me to learn and to improve upon but the people I looked up to, the ones who could guide me are no longer around. I miss the good old days.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I must say that (at least) one exception does exist at Packemin HS. In one department, the most respected and beloved teacher by students in the department is the AP. As a previous student, I can say that he truly was the best educator who I encountered in my high school and so far undergraduate education. He inspired me to become a teacher in the very subject he taught with the hopes that I can one day be half the teacher he is. Granted, this administrative job was given to him toward the end of his career, but he is one AP who truly is a pro.

Pissedoffteacher said...

I know the AP you are referring too and I agree with you 100%. This man is great in all ways. Unfortunately,he is not the norm.