You Have Nothing to Fear

I don't understand what teachers are so afraid of. Big deal, the raters are coming. How does this really impact on me, a lowly classroom teacher? If by some miracle they see something they really like, my chairman and principal will get the credit and possibly a performance bonus. I might get a thumbs up in the weekly newsletter, although my principal does seem to forget to recognize anything I do correctly. Now let's suppose that they hate what they see in my classroom. My principal and chairman are also responsible. So they may get written up, and may lose their bonuses, but hey, that's not my problem. I vow that every day I come to work to do the best job I can for my students. I don't think the clothes I wear or the decorations I put on the walls affects their ability to learn.

Today, as I walked down the hall I heard tenured, experienced teachers worried about what the raters will find. Teachers are worried about putting on a show for them, trying to impress them. Teachers are afraid that classes will not be well behaved and they might look bad. Teachers are trembling with fear.

I say this kind of fear has to end. WE ARE GOOD TEACHERS. WE ARE DOING OUR BEST WITH WHAT WE ARE GIVEN. I didn't give birth to boy who cannot sit still. I've done all I can to keep him in his seat, but nothing works. I didn't buy the girl the cell phone that she insists on taking out all period, no matter how many times I ask her to put it away. We have got to stop being afraid and learn to stand up for ourselves. THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO TO US!!! I've already taught the worst classes in the building. I've had late session and early session. I've taught 3 preps. I've taught in trailers and half rooms. I've been threatened with file letters (athough none have ever been written). It is this kind of fear that allows people like Klein an Bloomberg to walk all over us. It is this kind of fear that gets our unions to accept such awful contracts. WE MUST STOP BEING AFRAID. THERE IS NOTHING OUT THERE TO FEAR!

Rating the Raters

Questions for the Raters:

1. How many years have you taught High School Mathematics?
2. What subjects in mathematics did you teach?
3. What school did you teach in? Where exactly is that school?
4. What was the perfomance level of your students?
5. How was the performance level of your classes determined?
6. How large were your classes?
7. Did your school provide extra help and provide a suitable spot for students to receive this help?
8. Were copy machines and decent text books always available?
9. Did you like being in the classroom?


Some more important questions:
10. How will these findings help my period 1 students get to school on time?
11. How will you get level 1 and level 2 students to read and do math?
12. How will all this money being spent on ratings make the school system and the education of our children any better?


After all, I think we should know something about the people that are going to rate us. In fact, maybe they should be rated!

Dress For Success

Next Wednesday is Dress for Success Day. This is the shirt I will be wearing.

More Suit Wisdom's

All teachers are expected to teach from bell to bell. The bells are not working so synchronize your watch with the school clock.

Make sure you go into the halls a few minutes early. We want to keep kids moving, halls clear.

Before you begin teaching, make sure you pass around a garbage can and get the kids to pick up all paper on the floor.

Again, teach from bell to bell.

If the kids in your period one class are getting to school late, figure out a way to fix the problem.

Principal Suit Contributes

"My major contribution to this school has been placement of large garbage cans in the halls."

Principal Suit
Faculty Conference
October 27, 2006

Some Parents Need Help

I have a severely learning disabled boy in one of my Math C classes. He gets extended time on exams and is allowed to finish his exams in resource room. Even with this extra aid, his highest grade has been a 20. His resource room teacher wants to help him, but he will not allow her too. I arranged for one of my advanced placement calculus kids to sit with him, tutor him and even look over his shoulder while he takes an exam. So far, there has been no improvement, although the boy that tutors him thinks he might be able to get the stuff in the end. I would also like to add that my class has 34 kids in it, some of them, slightly on the difficult side. Anyways, I'm not complaining about the kid. He is a good kid, tries, and I am hopeful that by the time the regents comes around he will able to learn enough to get a 55. The problem is his parents, or more precisely, his father. They came to see me this evening. They were obviously upset about his lack of progress in math. I explained the help he has been given and then told them I was at a loss as to how to help him. At this point, the father said "That is not the answer I want to hear" and got up to leave. I told him to go see my chairman, maybe he could offer advice. The father just kept walking never looking back. I like this kid. I would really like to see him succeed. I've gotten kids like him to succeed in the past. I've never had a parent treat me like this. I'm a big girl, though. I don't like being treated like this, but I can take it. I just hope he is not being verbally abusive to his son at the moment because of the boys deficits in mathematics.

Note from AP to Department

"Every teacher is expected to conduct bell-to-bell lessons, even though the bell is not working."

Death of a Program

Last semester I had some Math A students that were really struggling. They needed help, more help than I could possibly give them. I came up with an incredible idea. I paired one of my advanced placement calculus students with one math A students. The AP student became the private tutor of the math A student. The kids worked together all year, exchanging e-mail addresses and phone numbers and even ended up getting together to work on weekends. This went far beyond my expectations. It was a great program. The weak kids all ended up not only passing, but mastering the subject. The AP kids learned that everyone is not as smart as they are and felt rewarded every time one of their kids passed an exam. As far as I could see, it was a win-win situation for all. This semester I wanted to expand the program to include students that are not in my class, open up the tutoring to anyone who wanted to partake. Alas, the administration feels it is more important for me to sit in the overcrowded, noisy library every day and tutor one or two kids (if that many). This way, they can say that there is a teacher available every period in the library. I had to stop my peer tutoring program because of time limitations. I felt an obligation to my tutors. I wrote them glowing letters of recommendation for colleges and scholarships. I stayed late and gave up lunch time when they needed help, paying them back for the hours they gave up. I asked the administration for a flexible C-6 assignment, so I could keep the program alive. I WAS TOLD NO!!!!!!!! And so, the program is dying.

Overcrowding

Our tech guy needed an office. A chunk of the clock room was walled off so he can have a space to work. A new social worker joined the staff. She too, was given an office. One of the special education teachers with a comp time job was displaced from her desk, so a new office space was carved out of an existing room for her. When I asked why a space cannot be created for tutoring, I was told to "Deal with it. This school is just too crowded. No space is available. The noisy library will just have to do." I have come to realize that teachers don't count for anything in this system, but I really wanted to believe that the kids do count. Our principal says he wants more kids to pass, but he will only provide lip service to tutoring. If he took the tutoring program seriously, he would set up a proper place for us to work.

The Suits Are Coming......

Principal Suit: Attention, attention! Next week we are going to be visited by the Suits from Planet X. They are going to see our classes in action and rate us. I will let you know exactly what they are looking for so you can plan accordingly.

Suitless One: But, Principal Suit, we are good teachers. We already plan what is best for our students.

Principal Suit: Lowly Stupid Suitless One! I don't care if what you are doing is helping your students. I don't care if you are finally getting them to come to class and to pass. I care about you making me look good so I can get another $20,000 performance bonus. DO AS I SAY!!!!!! And make sure you are dressed appropriately. I don't want the Suits from Plant X to see any teachers wearing shorts, jeans, tee-shirts or sweat pants.

Suitless One: Principal Suit, with all due respect, how do I personally gain if our school is given a good rating?

Principal Suit: Do a good job and I might give you a thumbs up in the weekly bulletin. Now, begone and speak no more!

C-6

Today I went to the library for my C-6 tutoring assignment, as usual. As usual, the library had more kids in it than is probably allowed by the fire department. The unusual was that there were no chairs. The school was having a blood drive and all the extra chairs were down at the drive. When I complained about no where to sit, one of the librarians told me there was plenty of floor space. Funny, but I've never seen him sitting on the floor to work. When I complained to the APO's secretary, she told me "Improvise, this school is too crowded. Tell the kids to sit on the floor so you can have a chair." This, from a woman, who actually has her own desk and chair. I would never tell a kid, or anyone else for that matter to sit on the floor. I told her I would improvise in the teacher's cafeteria and left. I wrote a long letter to the APO about the horrendous library conditions. I'm looking forward to hearing her lame brain excuse tomorrow.

Dr. Suit and the Cafeteria Lady

Dr. Suit: My little dog is raising money to send poor cats to a cat camp for the summer. I want to leave the collection can on your counter.

Cafeteria Lady: I'm sorry. I don't think you are allowed to do that. You will have to get permission from my supervisor.

Dr. Suit: Just ask her.

Cafeteria Lady: She is mean. You ask her. You are the one that wants to put it there.

Dr. Suit: You, a lowly cafeteria lady are making me ask? How dare you! And you forgot to bow when I walked in.

Cafteria Lady: Ask her yourself. I will not be bullied by a Suit!

(Dr. Suit asks the supervisor and is told that he can only leave the can on a windowsill. He is unhappy as no one is seeing it and the poor little dog is not raising enough money to send the poor little cat to camp. He defies all and places the can back on the counter)

Dr. Suit: No one is putting money in the can. Cafeteria Lady, I told you to tell your customers to leave their change in the can.

(Cafeteria lady picks up the can and slams it down on the nearby windowsill. Dr. Suit is so angry that the steam coming out of his ears is pressing his suit while he wears it.)

Dr. Suit: What did you do? How dare you do that to my can? I AM DR. SUIT! YOU MUST OBEY ME!!!!

Cafeteria Lady: You are wrong. My boss said it stays on the window and that is where it stays. She wears a suit too. And her SUIT is more powerful than your SUIT.

The New Business of Education

Now that business men are running our school system, teacher training will be reduced to this level more and more. The main difference will be that teachers do not even have a cubicle to sit in. I carry everything I need at work with me, all day long. I even have to carry my jacket and umbrella (on rainy days) because my classes are out in the trailer. The message in the next to last square is the message we are sending to our students when we force them to learn in bathrooms and hallways.

Mr. Suit and the Staff Meeting

Mr. Suit holding a seminar on how to get teachers opinions on how to make the school a better place.

Joy In Learning Math?

A new study finds that there is no need for students to find math relevant to succeed in it. I having been teaching math for over 30 years and couldn't agree more highly with the finding that there is no need for math to be relevant to a student's life . There is no need to create such complex word problems, using ethnic names, that the purpose of the problem is lost in translation. Kids have to understand that everything they learn in school is learning for knowledge sake. Most of the things we learn in school have no relevance in our lives. I never enjoyed reading Shakespeare, found nothing important in what he wrote, but my education would have sorely been lacking had I not been exposed to his writings. Besides, how would anyone know what courses of study they should persue if they are not exposed to everything out there?

The new trend in education is to let the kids sit in a "horse shoe". This way, they can supposedly speak to each other easier, communicate better, be happier. I am willing to bet this is not being done in many of the countries whose math grades surpass ours.

While there is no need to relate math to students lives, there should be joy in learning mathematics. Teachers need to present material in an interesting fashion. They need to make the material as fascinating as possible, to make the students want to learn it and to make them believe they can succeed. Too many of our students today suffer from math phobias and fail because they believe they cannot pass. The joy of learning should be the feelings of success when a difficult topic, such as factoring is finally mastered. I have actually seen math phobic kids light up with joy when they finally understand what they have been taught.

Getting Over

A friend was recently working out at a nearby gym. It just so happens that one of the trainers is a former student of hers.

Trainer: Yo, Ms. Good, you are really looking good these days.

Teacher: Thanks. What are you up to since you graduated?

Trainer: I'm working here and going to Yo Yo College Part time. Ms. Good, I would never have graduated HS without your help and now my bro needs your help too.

Teacher: What do you mean? Would you like me to look over his senior thesis? Does he need help doing the research?

Trainer: No, Miss. I want you to hook him up with a paper. If you do that I can make sure you have muscles like these (points to his arms) and look as fine as that hot young mama on the treadmill.

Teacher: When you were in my class, you struggled, but you did the work. (At least I hope you did it by yourself. It was not done very well.)

Trainer: Come on Miss, you do for us and we do for you. You know we can help each other out. Cut my bro some slack!

Will It Ever Get Here?

Here is a teacher waiting for the same performance bonus the administrators in our school got.

A Conversation with a Student

Student: Miss, Miss, are you going to pass me?

Teacher: You have a 34 average. Your highest grade was a 38.

Student: But don't you count homework and effort?

Teacher: You are missing 10 homeworks, handed in 5 homeworks that were incomplete and got 40's on both take home quizzes.

Student: But Miss, math is hard. I get nervous on tests. I think you should pass me because I come to class every day.

Teacher: Sorry.

Student: My parents will beat me and send me to AXEAEAB to live with my relatives there. I will have to work in a coal mine and will hardly get enough to eat.

Teacher: At least you won't have to worry about passing math there. Have a good trip.

A Fine Mess

My school is giving PSAT"s tomorrow. It is the first time they will be given on school time and proctored by teachers. My assignment starts at 8 but I am not due in until 8:45. Even though I pointed this out to the administration it has not been changed. Even teachers starting at 8:00 are due to come in the exact time the kids are supposed to be in their seats in their assigned rooms. A fine mess the school will be in. I feel an illness coming on. I feel so bad about having to taking a sick day tomorrow and missing all the excitement.

Good bye Tension, Hello Pension

Now that we are all doing an assigned professional period, I would like to know when we are expected to:
1. call parents
2. send letters to parents
3. speak to guidance about troubled kids
4. write college recommendation letters
5. fill out progress reports for our special education students
6. bring exams to resource room for our special education students
7. comfort or help a child who we find crying in the halls
8. provide tutoring to a child whose lunch or internship does not coincide with the period assigned for tutoring.
9. etc., etc., etc

Our days are so programmed now, there is no time to provide the human touch to education. I've just about had it and am almost ready to pack it in. "Goodbye tension, hello pension" seems more inviting every day.

Why Principals and Teachers Should Not Carry Weapons

Principal Who Shot Kittens Could Face Felony Charges

INDUS, Minn. (Oct. 15) - A school principal has resigned and could face felony firearm charges after he shot and killed two orphaned kittens on school property last month.

Wade Pilloud, who resigned as principal of the K-12 Indus school, 40 miles west of International Falls, said he shot the kittens to spare them from starving to death after their mother was killed in an animal trap.

Pilloud said the shooting, which occurred on school grounds, endangered no one.

"I have bred cats, and I currently own two myself,'' he wrote Friday in an e-mail to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "I am not a cat hater. I did not want the animals to suffer.''

The incident happened Sept. 21, and several students still on the grounds for after-school activities heard the shots.

"There were parents who felt, apparently some rather strongly, that there were concerns about the safety of their children,'' said Joseph Flynn, an attorney for the South Koochiching/Rainy River School District. "The district's position is that safety was not compromised.''

Great News for City Schools

Great news for every school. They are getting approximately $20,000 each for faculty furniture, copier machines and service contracts. Unfortunately, in my school, the only place to put furniture is in the halls. Every other space is taken up for classroom space. The copy machine in my department's office hasn't worked for over a month. Maybe now it can finally be fixed.

Mr Shorts Gets A Letter from Principal Suit

Principal Suit must not be too busy these days. He just sent Mr. Shorts a letter addressing his school attire. It seems that the only thing Principal Suit is really concerned with is appearances. The fact that Mr. Shorts is one of the best teachers in the school never enters into the picture. It doesn't matter that the kids in Mr. Shorts' classes are actually learning or that they enjoy the class. It matters that Mr. Shorts will not conform to the image that Principal Suit has in mind of the way a teacher should dress. One of the new television shows this season has their own Principal Suit. Alec Baldwin plays this clueless guy who comes on board to fix a show that doesn't need fixing. He proceeds to do this by firing the producer (who dresses similarly to Mr. Shorts) and making the head writer don a fancy suit to go to a meeting. Of course, both the writer and the producer end up doing the right thing and save the show at the end, proving that Suits don't always know what they are doing.

Now, contractually, unlike the Alec Baldwin character, Principal Suit has no right to tell teachers how to dress. As long as the clothing is not showing off any unmentionable body parts, it can be worn. Principal Suit knows this. Instead, he attacks other things about Mr. Shorts. His latest letter rebuked him for drinking coffee in one of the offices while speaking to the secretary. Principal Suit claims that Mr. Shorts is disrupting work but everyone knows this is hogwash.

I say, Principal Suit, our school has real problems. We are extremely overcrowded. We have teachers sitting in the halls to tutor. We have classes with standing room only. We have copier machines that haven't worked in months. Don't you have better things to do with your time than to pick on poor Mr. Shorts?

Shocking Math Scores

What a shock? The results of a new set of New York State math exams show about two-thirds of students performing at grade level, with striking disparaties between rich and poor school district. Shocking that the number of students on grade level of in wealthy areas was more than twice the number as in impoverished urban area. The courts have ordered at least $4.7 billion more a year for city schools to help close the gap, but good old Richard Mills insists that money is not enough. Of course, why would the city schools need money? For tutoring? For smaller classes? Mills wants schools to review their programs. I think he is the one that created some of the new standards that teachers are being forced to teach to. He wants better teacher training. I vote for more staff development days being lead by the 20 something teachers, just out of college.

Aside from the issues of money, Mills fails to realize that there are major differences in students living in poor areas as opposed to living in wealthier ones. An affluent parent will easily pluck down $100+ an hour to provide their child with a tutor. There are kids in some parts of Long Island that have tutors in every subject, just as a precaution, in case they need help. No amount of state aid will ever be able to bridge this difference. And, although politically incorrect, I have to talk about differences between people in poor areas vs. affluent ones. Aren't poor neighborhoods often filled with recent immigrants? Can their childern't progress be compared to that of the doctor or lawyer's child? Although I hate to generalize, it true that people move away from the poor areas as their incomes increase. People left behind are struggling. Even if they are just as bright, parents are often working multiple jobs at long hours and are just not around to provide needed help.

If Klein is really serious about NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND he must provide smaller classes for city students. No one can expect him to do anything about socio-economic conditions, but he can at least make it feasible for children to get a good education and to get help in areas where they have deficits.

How the Grinch Stole Health Care

I need a certain medical test. Nothing life threatening. At least, not at the moment. My doctor wants me to take the test because she needs a baseline to go by so she can watch and see if there are any changes in the future. Unfortunately for me, and thousands like me, it is no longer a doctor's decision as to whether a patient needs a test. It is up to the insurance company. The insurance companies are now farming out all requests for tests to a company called CareCore whose only function at the moment is to reject the claim. Or rather, not reject it outright, but to demand more and more information in the hopes that the party involved will either give up and forgo the test or just pay for it without going through insurance. I guess the insurance companies think patients are going through these tests for fun, subjecting themselves to doses of radiation and the indignities of medicine just for the hell of it. I wonder who actually works for CareCore? Do they really have enough medical knowledge to make these decisions? It's sad that our lives are now being controlled by the insurance company.

Jeb and George Strike Again

According to an article in Today's Newsday, both Jeb and George agree that the No Child Left Behind Act is not working the way it is written. Do not dispair! They have united to come up with a system that will work to improve our schools--CHANGE THE WAY THE SCHOOL'S ARE RATED!!!!!! Instead of fuzzy ratings like "needs improvement" the schools will now get letter grades ranging from A to F. This is a much better idea than reducing class size or changing curriculums to make work more relevant or even providing worthwhile remediation. The best thing about this plan is that millions of dollars will probably be given to some firm to come up with a rating system instead of wasting the money on our children's education. Let's give a big hand it to the Bush administration on their successful way of handling another problem.

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

Last week Bush signed a bill extending No Child Left Behind legislation. Even he admits that the law is not as successful as he would like it to be. For one thing, parents are not getting their children's grades in a timely fashion. Often by the time they get these grades, it is too late to change schools. Also, with good schools operating at 250% capacity, there is just no room to take these underachieving students. Even if they do make it into one of these schools, they cannot be properly serviced because of the overcrowding. With class sizes of 34 (many more than that since over sized classes are still prevelant) there is no way for even the best teacher to reach out to help these kids. Bush mentions tutoring, but only 19% of the students that are entitled to the tutoring are actually receiving it. Even if it were to be readily available, after a full day of school, how many kids will actually be able to absorb anymore?

One of the solutions Bush mentions is more testing. Aren't our kids tested enough? We spend so much time testing and preparing for testing that little teaching is being done. Even in a high school, regents preparation in a weak class takes the place of mastering a subject. I am ashamed to admit that I have taught kids how to pass an exam without actually knowing any mathematics. Besides, if its only improved test results that anyone wants, I am sure someone will find a way to either redesign the exam to make it easier to pass or to just change the scoring so a lower grade is needed to pass.

If we really don't want to leave any children behind we have to change the way we are teaching them. Elementary school teachers have to be allowed to go back to teaching the basics of arithmetic and reading. Some things just have to be learned by memory and rote practice. There is no way around this. High school students have to be taught courses more relevant to their interests. Forcing everyone to take college preparation courses and then head on to college is not the answer. The world needs hair dresses, car mechanics, and floor sweepers. We need to teach our students that everyone plays a valuable part of society and there is no shame in any kind of work. What's wrong with teaching kids to pass a civil service exam so they can work for the post office or the sanitation department. We will always need people to work in these fields. If someone has trouble reading, they cannot be expected to become a psychologist, nor can the kid who needs remedial math become an engineer.

I believe that no child should be left behind, but the way we are going about it now is all wrong and we are leaving more children behind now than ever before.

NYC Failing Special Education Students

Albany is now saying that NYC is failing its special education students. Some schools have a graduation below 35% and above a 20% drop out rate for students with disabilities .

"Low performance in special education is not something that should be expected or accepted," Mills said. "Students with disabilities can perform at high levels." For example, in wealthier districts categorized as "low needs," 72 percent of students with disabilities graduated with a Regents or school diploma, while just 4.5 percent dropped out.

I don't think Mills has a clue as to the actual abilities of some of our special education students. I have a good friend who is an exceptional teacher. One of her classes is regents math. Some of the students in this class have reading and math levels equal to second and third graders. No matter what she does, they cannot master complex topics like factoring and quadratic equations. How can they be expected to graph a parabola when they can barely read the word? Now, lets suppose by some miracle the regents is made easy enough for these kids to pass (it does seem to get that way term after term). Now Mills can claim success! But what will these kids be qualified to do with the regents diploma?

Yes, some students with disabilities do get regents diplomas. We have to be realistic when we say this and look at the kind of disabilites that they have. I had two Advanced Placement Calculus students in this category. One was hearing impaired and the other had a writing disability. Both scored 4 (out of possible 5) on the AP exam. One graduated from Binghamton as a computer science major and is currently finishing an MBA in Boston while the other is a freshman at NYU. Should these disabilities be lumped together with learning disabilities and emotional handicaps? I THINK NOT! Yet, I am willing to bet that is exactly what Mills is doing when he sites these statistics.

I also think it is unfair to compare our large, overcrowded NYC schools to the wealthier suburbs. I have another friend who has an LD son. He is lucky to live in an affluent Long Island suburb. His teacher has much smaller classes and is able to keep in close contact with his mom. He has computers available to use, both in school and at home. Tutoring is easily accessible in his school. There is an online site, "School Island", where kids work on problems at home and submit work to teacher via internet. His family's affluence affords him the luxury of private tutors in math and English. Mill's should get real. Our schools cannot compete with this.

The article ended with a note saying that failure to increase graduation rates to 52% can lead to loss of federal money and more state control. What I would like to know is how less money and more control is going to make these kids do better?

Are We All Really Created the Same?

All people are not created with equal abilities. We are all good in different things. We all can't be doctors or lawyers or car mechanics. The only thing we can hope for is that we find something that we can be good at, enjoy doing that thing and find a way to make a living doing it. Everyone has different abilites and we all peak at different level, depending upon what that activity is. Unfortunately, this view is not shared by the people writing school curriculums now. Somewhere along the way someone decided that everyone should go to college. Kids, regardless of their abilities are being pushed into courses that they have no interest in and have no ability to understand. Because of this, they often act out and cause disturbances in class. Cutting class is the norm. They would rather fail because they don't want to pass than fail because they cannnot master the material.

While I am not happy about these kids, I am more concerned with the ones that come to class every day. They don't disrupt. They do all homework and participate in discussions. They still cannot pass because the work is way above their comprehension. I have been working on polynomial in my M&C class since the beginning of the school year. We've been factoring for over two weeks. I gave an exam today. I only looked at a few papers so far and while many were quite good, some of the answers I saw were quite disturbing. In fact, the answers were so off beat that I wonder if I am really teaching anything at all. Maybe I am speaking Russian and some of the kids are learning in Chinese?

I wish the powers that be would wake up and go back to the old diplomas, like when I went to school--Academic, Commercial and Gerneral. Kids took classes relevant to their interests and no matter what the statistics say (they can be made to say anything) I think most kids did better. My own mother got a general diploma years ago. She could never get a degree with today's standards, or, if she did get one, she would have a meaningless one. She would have had no training to go on and get a job to support herself and her family.

A friend of mine, an administrator in a different school told me that it was racist to track kids as to many minorities end up in the lower end of things. I find that hard to believe. I teach in a middle class Queens high school. The five lowest achievers in my class are Jewish, Irish, Chinese, Italian and Pakistani. I don't see how putting these kids in track classes is racist.

If we really care about children and really believe that no child should be left behind, we must change the curriculum. Teach kids things that are meaningful in their lives. If any of them decide that at a later time, they want to go to college, they can always make up the work they missed and attend.

Does the Suit Make the Teacher or Does the Teacher Make the Suit?

A few years ago my department had two teaching fellows. Both of them wore suits and ties every day. They looked good. They looked successful. They could have been cover boys for GQ. But, there were two major problems with them. Number 1, they could not teach and number 2, they could not control the kids in their classes. Their classrooms were regular three ring circuses. Luckily, even Principal Suit realized that the suit alone does not make the teacher and these two teaching fellows are no longer teaching. Interestingly though, we had a young man in our department who was an excellent teacher. His only problem was he didn't like to wear ties, let alone suits. It didn't matter that he could teach and control his classroom. It didn't matter that the kids liked him. Principal Suit scared him into wearing suitlike clothing every day. Unfortunately, this teacher has been excessed. I hope he is teaching somewhere in an environment where he will not be judged by the clothing he wears.

A Few Good Suits

I am sorry if I have given the impression that I hate all Suits. I really don't. In fact, there are a couple of good Suits in my school. One of them is an excellent teacher who really cares about the kids and the future of education. He wears a suit because he feels it gives him an aura of respect from the students. That is fine with me. He should be wearing the suit because he wants to. He is one of the best and would be respected, no matter what he wears, but if the suit makes him happy, I am all for it. Another good Suit just became the AP of a department. He is a real guy. He works with the teachers, treats them as equal partners. The kids love him. Again, he wears the suit but he doesn't need it either. Just being himself is more than enough to insure his job is well done. One of our paras also likes suits. He wears them on Wednesdays because dressing up helps him get through the week. The difference between these Suits and Dr. Suit and Principal Suit is that these guys are not Stuffed Suits. They just go about their day to day business of education without any airs or pretenses. Suits or no suits they are okay in my book and I am proud to call them colleagues.

MY C-6 ASSIGNMENT (OR HOW I WASTE MY TIME)

I sat in the library today, as my C-6 position demands, ready, willing and able to tutor. No one showed up. Instead I marked some test papers. Some of my students really needed my help, but their lunch period is 7, not 5. I used to help them whenever they needed help. I didn't mind if I worked all three of my non teaching periods some days because there were other days that I didn't tutor at all. Now that I am being forced to be in the library period 5, my tutoring is restricted to that period and that period only. I know that my being in the library looks good on paper for the principal. He has tutoring available every period of the day. Too bad he never really bothered to see when it would be most beneficial to the students.

Dr. Suit and the Student-Teacher-Parent Meeting

Dr. Suit: Welcome to our school, Mr. and Mrs. Suitfree. Thank you for coming. I know you are here to discuss your son's special needs. I would like to introduce you to Mrs. Suitless, little Billy's teacher, and Mr. Educational Evaluator Suit.

Mr. Suitfree: We are here today to reevaluate Billy's needs. I would like Billy to have a reader and a writer available for him. He understands everything but has trouble reading the words and taking notes.

Mrs. Suitless: I agree with Mr. Suitfree. Billy's classwork is wonderful, however, he falls apart on tests. I think a reader and a writer would make a world of difference.

Dr Suit: NO! NO! NO! I know you have been his teacher for 3 years, Mrs. Suitless and I know you, Mr. and Mrs. Suitfree have been his parents for many more years than that, but I wear a suit and know best. I spent 20 minutes with Billy and he doesn't need any special testing accomodations. What do you think Mr. Education Evaluator Suit?

Mr. Education Evaluator Suit: (Meekly lifting his head up from his knees). Oh, I agree with you, OLD GREAT AND WISE SUIT. Whatever you say should be the law.

Mrs. Suitless: Well Dr. Suit, I have spent much more time with little Billy than you have and I know him much better than you ever will. He needs the accomodations. I will not sit here and rubber stamp your recommendations. (Mrs. Suitless walks out of the room, slamming the door as she leaves.)

Footnote: After much arguing, Dr. Suit was forced to give in to the wishes of Billy's parents. He did not speak to Mrs. Suitless for 5 years and never asked her to attend a meeting again.

And The Program Changes Keep Coming

I got a new kid in my M&C class today. He was moved from M&A and is taking M&B simultaneously in afternoon school (although this hasn't started yet.) The poor kid has obviously had many problems with math along the way. He is now confronted with solving quadratic equations when he has never even factored an expression or heard of the term factor. When I told him he had to go to tutoring to catch up, I was told he goes 1 - 9 with no lunch and this doesn't count afternoon school. He has no time. Unfortunately, I don't see a way out of this for the poor kid and feel he is doomed to fail yet again.

Teacher Trainer Suit

Teacher Trainer Suit is holding court in the Teacher's Cafeteria. Teacher Trainer is sitting with her little laptop computer, looking all smug and sophisticated and dispensing advice to all who will listen. Teacher Trainer Suit was a teacher of a certain subject where the classes were very small before she retired. Although I am sure she was a master teacher, she was not a master teacher of every subject and her expertise in teaching does not transverse every field. Does this stop Teacher Trainer Suit? I think not. One day Suitless Teacher was sharing something she had written with an English Suitless teacher. Teacher Trainer Suit listened intently and then said "Wow, a suitless teacher that knows how to write. You can be an inspiration to all new teachers, both the teachers with and without suits." Suitless teacher, answered "not only can I write, but I can tie my own shoes and chew my own food." Teacher Trainer Suit realized that she had spoken too quickly and had insulted the Suitless one. It was too late. The damage had been done. Suit and Suitless will never get along.

WannaBe Suits

Give anyone a desk and a phone and right away they start acting like Suits. Take, for example, the secretary that would not give me a piece of scotchtape to hang a room change sign on my door, even though the room change was due to an error from her office. Today, a colleague had a run in with some School Aid Suits. Now, before I begin, I would like to say that I don't believe in a caste system and school aids perform jobs whose importance, although different from a teachers is still very important to the school. Well, my colleague needed a place to work for the period. This colleague was carrying two bags full of paper plus quite a few books. When she sat down at what she thought was an empty desk, WannaBe Suit yelled at her that the desk she was using was needed by Intern WannaBe Suits. When the teacher got up to leave and commented that she was just trying to find a spot to work in, WannaBe yelled, in a quite sarcastic tone "Good luck." WannaBe knew damn well that it was impossible to find a workspot in the building. The poor teacher meandered into the cafeteria where she sat down to work. Luckily, Dr. Suit was not there for the period so she didn't have to deal with his comments also.

A Conversation with Dr. Suit

Dr. Suit: Mr. W, you must come to my office period 6 for a conference about little Joey.

Mr. W: I'm sorry Dr. Suit, but with my C-6 assignment that would mean I am going 7 periods without a break. I want to have lunch.

Dr. Suit: Too bad. I will have the principal, Mr. Suit, put a letter in your file if you don't show up. And don't be late. Besides, you are getting paid for being here. That extra $.32 will really make a difference in a teacher's paycheck.

Mr. W: Dr. Suit, I must stop in the bathroom first.

Dr. Suit: I said, DON'T BE LATE. My time is valuable. I will not wait for you! And make sure you bow to me when you enter the room!

More On Dr. Suit

One day Dr. Suit was sitting with some teachers in the cafe when the school phone rang. It rang and rang and not one teacher got up to answer it. Finally, he got up to answer it himself. When he came back to the table, Dr. Suit began to berate every teacher at the table for not moving. What Dr. Suit failed to realize is that contractually teachers are entitled to a duty-free lunch. It is not their problem if someone needs something urgently at that moment. Furthermore, Dr. Suit failed to realize that lunch time is the only time of the day when most teachers get to sit. Teachers do not have Dr. Suit's luxury of sitting behind a desk all day and of having a secretary screen calls. Furthermore, teacher's do not usually get pesonal phone calls on the school phone--that is what cell phones are for. A call on the school phone can only mean something bad, like a coverage. I guess Dr. Suit is used to having people around him whose only function in life is to serve him. I know he is learning the hard way that this is not the case.

Dr. Suit

Disclaimer: Dr. Suit is a fictional character. No real person working for the school system would ever be this insensitive to a lowly classroom teacher.

Dr. Suit comes to the teacher's cafeteria every day. He surrounds himself with a gaggle of women, some of whom hang onto his every word. Dr. Suit loves seeing himself in this position. He sees himself as an individual superior to everyone around him. This semester, Dr. Suit has a Junior Suit following him around. Last week, Dr. and Junior came to the cafeteria and low and behold there was a teacher sitting in his seat! He thought nothing of asking this teacher to move. Even when this teacher explained that the cafeteria was the only place in the crowded building to work, Dr. Suit tried to get the teacher to move, suggesting the library and moving to a different table. This teacher held firm. The table in question was occupied by the teacher first and there was no way the teacher was going to move three stacks of books and papers to accomodate Dr. Suit's lunch request. Now, I am sure Dr. Suit and Junior Suit went back to their office and wrote some diagnosis for teacher, labeling teacher as some sort of psycho, but, who cares. The Suits are really the sick ones. Teacher held the table and got the work done. Now if teacher had the same resources as Dr Suit, an office with a telephone, a desk, and a secretary, teacher would not need to work in a smelly, noisy cafeteria and people in suits could have as much space as they wanted for lunch.

Program Changes

Today is September 28 and I just got a new student put in my M&C class. She had been sitting in an M#1 class until today. Poor kid. This weak math student has now missed three weeks of the semester and is far behind. We are just about finished with factoring and she hasn't even started learning the process. The sad thing is she and I are the only ones that care. I'm sure our principal doesn't. After all, he and the AP's all got performance bonuses last year.

Harmony

Today I watched an African American girl wait for a Chinese girl and a Hispanic boy to walk to class. I watched a Muslim girl tutor a Jewish girl in math. I got an e-mail from two former students,one a WASP and the other Hispanic--they were sitting in the college library doing calculus problems together, trying to remember what they learned in my class last year. A Korean boy tutored an Irish boy. I listened to a girl proudly discuss her gay uncle and his partner. I realized just how great the kids in the school I teach in are. They look at each other and see indiviudals just like them. They don't see race, nationality, religion or sexual preference. Too bad we haven't figured out a way to carry these values into adulthood. These kids could finally bring peace to the world.

Annualization of Classes

My school came up with a brilliant idea last year--annualizing all the students programs. This would make it much easier to program students for the spring term. What the powers that be did not take into account is that many kids pass the first term of Math A, afterall, they have been doing order of operations, signed numbers, and equation solving since elementary school. They run into major problems in the second half of the term, where the work is much more difficult. These students then fail and because of the annualization, must repeat the entire year from the beginning. They have lost an entire year. They are put in a class where they know most of the work because the hard stuff doesn't start until the spring. Often they become discipline problems or cut class. Even if they want to learn, many times they are in classes that the strongest teacher has trouble controlling. These kids are destined to fail. We need to go back to letting the students repeat the one course they fail. I used to think annualization might work in an English or history class where each topic taught is discrete and what you are learning doesn't necessarily depend on what came before. I only complained about annualization because I felt that the kids that knew nothing by January had no chance of succeeding in June. Math topics are not independant of one another. I wonder if a kid would have to repeat whole year in these subjects too? If that is the case, we must scrub this program.

This topic is especially important to me because I am teaching M&C this term. It is the third term of a four term sequence (ending in the Math A regents.) I have three students in my class that I know passed the first term and failed the second. They should go back and retake the class from the beginning, but I don't want to do this to them. I made the decison (with the help of a non math AP) to let them stay. If they pass, they will be given credit for the class they failed. I'm worried because if they fail, they will be another year behind and their graduation will be endangered. I hope I made the correct decision.

Statistics

A school offers 2 classes with 100 students in each and 10 classes with 10 students in each. The average number of students per class is found by following: (100 + 100 + 100)/12 = 25 students per class, not bad. Or, is the average found this way: (100 + 100 + 10)/3 = 70 per class. I wonder which method Mayor Mike would use. As an educator, I know which method is better. As Mark Twain said, "There are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics."

Shoes Before Socks?

Last September I taught an extremely bright ninth grade algebra class. They knew most of the basics, such as order of operations, signed numbers and equation solving so I concentrated on giving them plenty of enrichment, while still teaching the basics to the few kids that needed the review. I remember coming to the lesson on solving literal equations, such as ax + b = c (solve for x). I was shocked when I saw the majority of the class didn't know anything about only combining like terms and tried to add all the variables together. It was only when I took a real close look at the curriculum that I realized the lesson on combining monomials (like terms) came in the following semester. These poor kids were learning the math completely out of sequence. For anyone not knowing much about math a good analogy would be putting on your shoes and then putting on your socks.

If the powers that be are really serious about improving the quality of math eduation in this country then they must revert to the old algebra, geometry and trigonometry that was taught before 1980. Only a good foundation in the basics will insure success!

Horse Shoe

The powers that be have decided that students will learn much better if the chairs in a room are arranged in a horse shoe rather than traditional rows. I'm a semi- traditionalist. I like my students to be able to see the blackboard. I like to be able to walk around the room and see what they are doing, as they are doing it. I like it when there is a little bit of space between them so that if someone had onions for lunch, their breathe will not offend their surrounding classmates. I don't mind if the kids don't sit in rows. I let them pull up a chair wherever they are comfortable. If that means I have 8 kids sitting across the front so be it. If the aisles are a fire hazard we just won't call the fire department.

I did try a horse shoe arrangement once. I happened to be sharing a room with a new English teacher and since she was new, decided to go along with the principal and use the horse shoe. I didn't want to make it hard for her by rearranging chairs. My class that period was pretty small and well behaved so I figured, what could be bad? I learned the answer to this question very quickly. First, students that usually did not talk in class, became quite talkative. Second, and even more important, the students were way to far from the blackboard and had a hard time seeing what was on the board. While the middle of the room is great for lecturing, and I will be the first to admit that I do enjoy lecturing and putting on a show, it is too hard to keep moving from the middle to the board, which is so important in math.

I'm not against the horse shoe if it works. And it does work in many classes, just not in all. If a teacher is teaching for over 20 years and has been successful, why change? If it's not broken, don't fix it! That is the way I feel about the seating arrangements in my classroom.

JD

JD is one of my former students. I remember him as being a cute kid, friendly, bright and extremely hyperactive. It was hard to keep him focused on what he was supposed to be doing. Most of his teachers did not like him. He disrupted class and had had a nice sized file in the dean's office. Eventually the school decided there was nothing that could be done with him and his mother signed him out.

Not all of JD's teacher's thought he was a bad kid or even disliked him. I know I am one of those and I know a few others that shared my sentiments. The school I teach in is just too big and does not have the proper resourses to reach out and help someone like him. Term after term he was permitted to go on with the same kind of poor behavior. I got to know him through a trade of difficult students. The teacher I got him from emphasized his good qualities and traded him in the hope that he would do better with someone else. (The boy I gave her was later arrested for carrying a weapon in school.) She always had faith in him. I met JD's mother when she came to sign him out of school. She struck me as a good woman and a mother who did everything she could to help her son. She had tears in her eyes because she just didn't know how to help him anymore. The effect his expulsion had on her clearly affected him. Maybe if our school had guidance counselors with smaller case loads someone could have reached him and helped. If our classes weren't so overcrowded maybe more teachers could have seen the good in him and helped him succeed.

Don't get me wrong. I am not defending his actions. He is being held as an accessory to the murder of an innocent little girl. There is no excuse for this and he deserves to be punished to the full extent the law allows. I just think that maybe something could have been done to prevent this tragedy. A little girl died, but two mothers lost their children that day and that is something no woman should ever have to do.

TEACHER MAKES A STATEMENT!

Teacher Won't Shave Until bin Laden Caught

EPHRATA, Wash. (Sept. 12) - After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Gary Weddle began following the news so closely he forgot to shave. After a week he decided not to shave until Osama bin Laden had been caught or killed.

Nor has Weddle, 46, who expected the al-Qaida leader to be caught within a month or so, trimmed his facial hair in the succeeding five years as he went from substitute teacher to science instructor at Ephrata Middle School.

At the start of each school year he gives students a brief explanation of his beard, which stretches more than a foot long and has started turning gray.

"I still get emotional over the families who lost loved ones. I just don't feel there's any closure on this until they get that guy," Weddle told The Wenatchee World for an article published Monday. "I don't have to know anyone personally who lost family in 9/11 to understand the devastation that he's responsible for."

His wife Donita hates the beard, while their three daughters, who attend Eastmont High School in East Wenatchee, don't mind and "mostly their boyfriends think it's cool," Weddle said.

He said he would keep the beard, untrimmed, as long as bin Laden remains at large - "even if I get buried with it."

Teaching Math Today

Today's math curriculum is a disgrace. I just finished tutoring a bright tenth grader who was struggling with basic ninth grade factoring. The poor kid always worked hard and always got good grades. In fact, he got a 94 on the Math A regents. The problem is that he was never really taught any math. He was never taught or required to factor complex expressions and the little that he was taught was never reinforced. This boy has the potential to go on in the math and science fields but our schools are doing him a major injustice by not preparing him properly.

I plead guilty to also teaching this sham of a math curriculum. I encourage my students to use a calculator, rather than forcing them to learn how to perform operations with signed numbers and fractions. I show them how to work backwards from the choices when the questions are multiple choice so they can get the correct answer without actually knowing how to do the problem. I used to be a better teacher. Because the school system now wants everyone treated as an equal, our better students are being cheated. I am watering down my curriculum to get more to pass. I really don't want to do that but I have no choice. The poor kids in some of my classes don't want to take algebra, geometry and trigonometry. Not only don't they want it, but it has no relevance to anything in their lives. I want these kids to graduate. Even to work in Mc Donald's, they will need that piece of paper that declares them high school graduates. It is just too hard to teach to both ends at once. My classes all have 34 students in them. I just don't know how to reach them all without hurting some of them so I opt for a middle of the road approach.

Principal Intimidates The Young

I just heard that the principal of my school called some of the young teachers and asked them to come in a day earlier than everyone else, to work for no pay or compensation to work with him on plans for staff development. These young teachers, fearful of getting on his bad side and perhaps losing their jobs agreed. He should be ashamed of himself for putting young teachers in a position like this. Although no one threatened or forced them to show up, they really felt as if they had no choice but to do as asked. It is scary that the Bloomberg administration is giving these demagogues more power every year.

I Love Teaching

I'm lucky. I love teaching. I REALLY LOVE TEACHING. I know that sounds hard to believe, when all I do is bitch and complain about my school, but I do love teaching. I love to stand in front of a class and watch the faces of my students as they finally get it!!!! I love the way last year's students run up and hug me in the hall and complain because I am not their teacher this year. I love getting hugs from kids that I could not pass. I love it when a kid says "Don't retire, we need you." I am tier 1. I found out that I could actually be bringing home more money retired than I am bringing home now. I don't care. At this point in my life I cannot imagine not being Mrs. XXXXXXXXXX. I can't imagine not sitting on the floor outside the cafeteria or math office working with a bunch of kids. I don't care if the principals of the world want me to retire, I'll go when I am ready. I'm not ready to leave the thing I love!

Mr. Principal Wastes Class Time

Once again, Mr. Principal is on the loudspeaker non stop. He is reminding the students that there is no more night school so they better pass everything. I don't think there is a 9th or 10th grader anywhere who says "I think I will cut class and do no work now so that when I am a senior I can take 9 classes during the day and then go to school two nights a week. And if I am really lucky, I might be able to go to Saturday school as well." I know that the kids in my classes are turned off by his long, demeaning announcements. I've heard many of them say "Why doesn't he just shut up and let you teach?" If he really cared about their education, he would keep his announcements to a minimum. He would do the Pledge without announcing a guest orator. He would do away with his brain teasers

I Hear Music

School has started and so has the loud, overbearing music that our principal insists on playing between periods. While I agree that the music is a nice interlude, I find it instrusive when I am in the middle of working or if I am teaching a double period class. It wouldn't even be so bad if he played some soft, classical music. It would be nice to expose the students to things they don't usually listen too. Phone conversations could be carried on while this music is being played and conversations would not be interupted. I don't know how many times I have had to tell parents to hang on while the music played. I can't count the number of times I couldn't answer a students question after class because I couldn't hear it over the music. I have been rudely disrupted and distracted while I intensely marked papers or wrote lessons and this music came on. I think when I retire, I will walk into his office with a big boom box, preferably while he is on the phone or holding a meeting and see if he still feels the same about music.

September 1, 2006

I'm really happy that we started school before Labor Day this year. We spent this morning in an auditorium that smelled from polyurethane and watched pictures of the principal's trip to Japan. We saw pictures of children with face masks, pictures of children with buckets and mops cleaning their classroom and pictures of children swimming. We also saw lots of pictures of the principal enjoying himelf. I learned so much. I am sure it will make me a much better teacher this year.

A Certified Teacher In Every Class

On tonight's news the Board of Education announced that there would be a certified teacher in every classroom this year. The only problem is they are not certain in what areas the teacher will be certified and will not even know until November how many teachers will be teaching subjects they are not certified to teach. I guess it doesn't matter if a math teacher is teaching Chinese or a physical education teacher is teaching math, as long as they are certified to teach. And we wonder why our kids are not succeeding!

Summer School Update Continued

My friend is no longer having administrative problems, but he problems with some of her students continues. There is one boy in her first two classes. The first class he always sleeps through. Why anyone would bother to go to summer school to sleep in beyond my comprehension. He must really enjoy the school air conditioning. He woke up in the second class and asked her if she ever thought about having three men at once? Although I have been teaching for 30 years and have heard many outlandish comments in my time, I still can't believe a young punk would have the nerve to say something like this to a 50+ year old teacher. A different friend is teaching a subject called "Other Math". In my 30 years, I have never seen a curriculum or a book for Other Math. She told me there are kids in the class (high school) that do not know how to add. One boy, who got a 4 on the first test and an 8 on the second told her she better pass him because he is a graduating senior. The principal of my school seems to feel that we should be able to teach all kids, regardless of where they are coming from or what issues they might have. Kids that ask inappropriate questions and make threats have no business being in school. Teachers should not have to deal with them.

On Staff Developers

On a trip from Budapest to Vienna, I met a very interesting woman from Canada. We talked for quite a while and finally realized that we were both teachers, or as she said, "I used to teach. Teaching eighth grade math was just too difficult, so now I am a staff developer." I guess that throughout the world those that can't teach become the teachers of others.

Summer School Update

My friend redid her lesson. She put on one of the best Dog and Pony Shows ever. Her chairman loved it! It's amazing how one day you can be an unsatisfactory teacher and the next day you are G-d's gift to teaching.

Harassing Summer School Teachers

I am on the phone right now with a friend who is teaching summer school English. She has always gotten excellent reviews and is considered by all who know her to be an excellent teacher. Well, guess what? Her supervisor observed her on Friday and stayed in the room one hour. He found nothing good to say to her. In fact, he left her a letter at the end of the day threatening her with a U rating. She elicited the aim from the class and he complained because it wasn't on the board when he walked in the room. She did journal writing, group work and had the kids act out a play that they had written. He complained that the plays were not good and not well acted. Her supervisor left her a long letter, mentioning all the points she supposedly missed. He told her he would redo the observation on Tuesday and she could talk to him before then. Unfortunately, summer school leaves no time for meeting with supervisors. Teachers are paid about one-third their usual salary and are supposed to do three times the work. While she is more than happy to meet with him, he will probably be gone the second the last class ends. While the lesson might not have been exemplary, it was certainly satisfactory. These kids are taking English in summer school which means that they probably did not do the right thing in the first place. They are not motivated, do no homework and very little class work. She is glad that they come to class every day, with notebooks and pens. She cannot go to their homes to force them to do homework or reading assignments. The school should be glad that they have a bright, caring person teaching summer school instead of harassing her and making her life miserable.

AP Scores

My kids AP scores are starting to come in. Lots of them got 5's. I don't care if my principal does hate me--the kids know I am a good teacher and they have the grades to prove it!

Bargain Summer School

A friend of mine is teaching summer school English. Her first period and her second period class each has 70 kids in them. Administration came to her room today and told about half of each class that they were not supposed to be attending school now. These students should go home and come back in 3 weeks. It seems, that all they have to do is show up for three weeks and they will be given credit for the whole semester. The kids have always known that to pass in summer school showing up was almost a guarantee of success. Even attendance standards have now been lowered. But hey, now the city is saving money. Seventy in a class for the price of 35. What a bargain! Bloomberg and Klein must feel so proud.

Teacher Abuse

On a sad note, a colleague's father died on Friday. Only good thing I can think of saying right now is that the administration will finally stop hassling her about all the time she was out of work, taking care of him. I guess they will have to find someone else to browbeat or something else to abuse her about.

I'm Glad I Wasn't This Kid's English Teacher

HI MISS HOW R U ALL I WANNA SAY TO U IS DAT IF IT WEREN'T FOR U I DNT TINK I WOULD HAVE GRADUATED ON TIME CUZ OF UR SUPPORT UR JOKES N UR MOTIVATION I PULLED THROUGH IN DA END I REALLY APPRECIATE ALL UR SUPPORT N THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING SINCE DA MOMENT I HAD U AS A MATH TEACHER I HOPE U HAVE A VERY SAFE N WONDERFUL SUMMER N I WILL DEFINATELY COME BY NEXT YEAR N VISIT U N TELL ALL UR STUDENTS BOUT MY UNDER DOG GRADUATION VICTORY N HOW IT ALL HAPPENED LOL N BY DA WAY WATS UP WITH DA 65 U GAVE ME ON DA REPORT CARD TAKE CARE LOVE YOU MS.

Conditional and the Inverse

It seems there is a policy in NYC that students may not walk at graduation unless they are actually graduating. I mean, graduating in June, not in August or the following January. The students were told this. They were also told that under no circumstances would they be given cap, gown and tickets if they were not going to be permitted to walk. Not all our students are good math students and have trouble understanding the difference between a conditional and an inverse of a statement. That is, if the conditional is true, the inverse is not necessarily true and just because the student is given a cap and gown does not mean that they will be allowed to walk. One poor student found herself in this situation. Suzie. a sweet hard working young woman is not one of our sharper students. She worked very hard this year and walking at graduation meant everything to her and her family. She was told that she was missing a credit and could not participate in the ceremony. However, she was given all the graduation paraphenalia and assumed, albeit incorrectly, that she would be allowed to walk on stage. Her mom (in a wheel chair), along with various family members proudly attended the ceremony. Suzie's guidance counselor, Mr. X, spotted Suzie in the audience from his spot on the stage and had her removed from the auditorium. Poor Suzie was distraught, as was the rest of her family. The school made the mistake of letting her think everything was going to be okay. The only thing accomplished by having her removed was to embarrass her and her family and to drive her further and further from wanting an education. The mistake was made. Who knows who is really at fault? Was it the poor kid and her family? Was it the guidance counselor who didn't advise her early enough of the courses she needed to graduate on time? Was it the math teacher who didn't emphasize the difference between the conditional and the inverse of a statement? Is it the person who issued her graduation material? Why is she the only one to suffer any consequences?

Final Faculty Conference

We had a faculty conference today. Our principal stood in front of the auditorium and congratulated himself (and us) on our wonderful passing regents percentages. I could not believe my eyes as I looked around and saw how amazed and proud the teachers were. Don't they realize that a 65 on a regents means that a student knows about 40% (if that much) of the work. The English teacher sitting next to me told me that there were kids in her class that passed that are illiterate. A failing paper somehow was magically changed to a passing paper by going through the hands of her assistant principal. A history teacher told me that in order to pass that test, kids just had to be able to pull a few ideas out of a paragraph on the test--doing something called scaffolding. I know for a fact that pushing the right buttons on a calculator can give you a mark in the 70's without any real knowledge of any mathematics. The Math Assistant Principal summed it up well when he gave his statistics. He said "we raise our passing by lowering the bar. This year the passing score on Math B regents was 47 as opposed to 55 in the past." of Only the ELL teacher had the courage to mention their statistics--a measly 55%. This is realistic since many of the kids in the program don't speak a word of English. His statistics were not mentioned.

Moving the Cheese Doesn't Help

Some teachers are always whining about how bad the kids we teach have gotten. These kids haven't gotten any worse than their counterparts thirty years ago. The reason they seem so bad is the education that they are subjected to. I'm old. When I went to school there were academic, commercial, general and vocational diplomas. Kids were not subjected to subjects like algebra and biology if they were not interested in them. They were able to study subjects relevant to their abilities and to their interests. They were allowed to drop out and find a job they were capable of doing. They did not act out and cut classes as much because they were not forced to perform at a level far above their abilites. In the old days students were graduated with degrees that meant something because the Board of Regents didn't try to prove that everyone had equal abilities. Although there was no express "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" policy, fewer kids were left behind. What does it mean if a student gets a 70 on an English regents and still must take remedial reading and writing in college because the 70 on the regents doesn't even guarantee minimum competence. The 80 on the math regents shows that a kid knows how to press a few buttons on a calculator and make some intelligent choices. We need to stop looking at the poor kids and look at what is wrong with the system that is making them that way. Moving cheese will not correct the problem.

Slowly I Teach

Our principal, always the great thinker has come up with a new idea. He has decided that since the regents only covers about 40% of the work taught in Math A, we should only teach 40% of the curriculum and we should decide amongst ourselves the 60% of the course that is irrelevant. I guess he thinks that if we teeeeaaaachh reeeeaaaaallly slooooooow, the material will sink into our students brains better. I'm sure he's seen this work when someone spoke slowly to him in Chinese. Let's suppose the principal is correct and we can get the kids to pass by teaching only 40%, what happens to the good students who want and need to learn the remaining 60%? We will definitely be shortchanging them. Already I have done too much math for him.

Principal Academy

A soccer fan spent six hours wandering Hanover looking for his hotel before he went to the police with a vague discription of the area. It took the police another hour to locate his hotel. Bloomberg and Klein should find him. Sounds like he is the kind of person they want for the Principal Academy!

Top Ten Things to Wish I Wish For My Principal

10. A pimple on his butt.

9. Adult acne.

8. Explosive diarrhea.

7. His schools statistics .5 points lower than his competition so he will not have the "best" school in the city.

6. A school where all the teachers wear shorts and tee shirts.

5. A party where no one shows up.

4. Having his graduating data scrutinized by the New York Times.

3. Sex with the science chairthing.

2. A lost book of brain teasers.

And my number 1 wish:

1. A broken loudspeaker system so no one has to hear his voice or music again.

It's Worth It

The seniors in my school had their end term barbeque today, right after they picked up their tickets for graduation and caps and gowns. I had a rough year with some of them. They were the "sweathogs" of the 21st century. I worked really hard to keep them coming to class and to get them to pass the regents. Only one out of twenty eight did not make it. The hugs and praise I got from them made my hard year worth every bit of the effort I spent. Time after time, I got thanks and greeted with "I couldn't have made it without you." I know the principal of my school will never like me, but that is okay with me. I did my job well. I believed in my students and I got them to succeed. It was worth it.

Who Cares?

My AP put out a notice telling us how good our kids did on the regents. (not a hard task, since this regents is made so anyone can pass). The thing that bothers me is that he made a big point out of the fact that school A beat our statistics. We usually beat them. Shouldn't he be smart enough to realize that the teachers don't care! We are not in a competition. We have nothing to gain by having the best or for that matter, nothing to lose for having the worst statistics. We all work hard because we want the kids to succeed! We teachers receive no awards for being the best. Our only rewards are in the satisfaction we get from helping our students. There is no "Super Bowl" or "World Series" regents exams. And I am not going toget a trip to Disney World when it is all over even if we come in first.

Pensions

I'm tired of people in private sector bitching about teacher's pensions. I just came from a wedding where I listened to the same thing over and over again. What all these people fail to realize is that the pension is just part of our salary. We agree to take a job, beneath our education and beneath our earning potential for many reasons. Why shouldn't we reap the rewards of a pension at the end of our careers. A teacher's education is equal to that of a lawyers, but we don't earn their salary. Many teachers have a far higher education than others who make more than us. Teachers take their income at the end. We work now for less and reap the rewards when we retire.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

As far as I can see, there are three types of people we deal with on a daily basis. First, there are the good ones. The students are the ones that do all the things we ask of them and then even more. They study hard and make our jobs easy. The good teachers are the ones that help all students and help each other. They never judge anyone, just help and off criticism that is both helpful and asked for. Second, there are the bad ones. And I say bad students and bad teachers, not bad people because these people can be helped. The kids are not able to adjust to the one size fits all model of education. Given the right encouragement and the right environment even the bad students can become good ones. Even bad teachers can be taught to be good if they are willing. Lastly, we get to the ugly. I have never met ugly students but I have met many ugly administrators and teachers. These people have no tolerance for any students other than the ones that automatically fall into the good category. They have no tolerance of students whose learning and behavior are different from the norm. The administrators have no tolerance for the teachers who defy conventional means to help the bad students become good ones. They focus on minutia, like horse-shoe seating in a classroom and ties on male teachers. We need more of the good to help the bad and we need to do away with the ugly.

Mr. Principal Meets With Mr. A.

"Mr. A, please report to the principal's office immediately", is the announcement bellowed over the loudspeaker. Mr. A, being an obedient teacher, stops marking papers and heads downstairs. He is greeted in the principal's office by Mrs. APO and Mr. AP Security. Mr. Principal begins the conversation with "Mr. A, it has come to our attention that you are walking around the building, visiting different offices and disrupting all the work going on in there." A stunned Mr. A looks at them and replies "I never bother anyone. If anyone's work is being interrupted they ask me to leave and I leave immediately. You are just after me for this because you don't like my wearing shorts, tee shirts and sneakers with no socks every day and there is nothing you can do about it." Mrs. APO clearly agrees with Mr. A but is not strong enough to fight Mr. Principal and she says nothing. Mr. AP Security meekly shakes his head in agreement with Mr. Principal. This is understandable. Mr. Principal hired him for his ventriloquist dummy qualities. Mr. A, is not meek and is no one's dummy. He knows his rights. He gets up, and walks out of the office, never looking back and heads into the first office he sees to visit.

Two Year Colleges

Johnny is graduating high school this semester and is going to be attending the local community college. He had decent grades in high school due to his hard work and the fact that he is learning disabled and had to take classes with some of our less motivated students. The college that accepted him has decided that he should be in their honor program, even though he will be taking remedial reading and remedial math. Luckily Johnny is very aware of his disabilities and said no thank you very much to the offer of the honor classes. Learning disabled Johnny is much brighter than the phd's running his future college.

A Tale of Twins

Twin boys attend my school. Both are good boys, polite, hardworking with good study habits. Two boys with learning disabilities. Their mother, a good woman, has fought to keep her sons out of meaningless special education classes. She tutored them and got them all sorts of extra help. She constantly came to school to find out how she could best help them. One was lucky. He always seemed to end up in classes with good, teachers, kind teachers, who knew he was bright and helped him overcome his learning disabilities. The other was not so lucky. Term after term he always had some hard nose who gave him a hard time and threatened his graduation. Mom was once again in school this morning, one week prior to graduation, trying to convince this semester's hardnose to give him a break. Two boys, similar intellects, similar work habits, taking identical subjects, perceived so differently by different teachers.