She looks at her paper, rubs her head a little bit, and looks up at me, and says, “6?”

“Yes,” I nod in a bit of a proud moment for one of my holiest redeemers.

This year, in all of my classes, I have students who have a chip on their shoulder and have come out with a significant vengeance against their own struggles and against my well-placed challenges to them. My first class today has a roster full of runaways, victims of sexual abuse, and people who only recently came to the country. This assortment of students who rarely speak English or rarely speak Spanish is probably my hardest class, and I’m often at a loss for what works with them behaviorally. Yet, today, even with my bit of uneasiness about their dispositions, I did the exact opposite of what I’d usually do, and they blazed through my material. They chewed gum, talked to their friends, and had their Sidekicks in their desks, and I still found that 90% of the class had their attentions on me and my instruction. I didn’t get loud once (I never scream, but I have a big voice), and they responded rather well. One student in particular, whose reputation as a ringleader for all kinds of inappropriate behaviors precedes her, has led her group of girls to push for excellence, and that says a lot.

In my ELL class, they’ve all matured so much, they’re no longer considered the “worst” class. I’ve become one of the go-to teachers for the harder kids to teach, and now I see why. The class that was once regarded as the hardest class to teach has become a little more docile, and much more responsive and responsible. They’re the leaders on the floor, and they’re the only kids that consistently put a smile on my face. I literally had to scream “GET OUT!!!” to stop them from making me laugh so hard after school. Yet, they’re getting the work done, and they’re getting the homework done, and they’ve gotten good reviews from all their teachers. It’s like they’re seeking a chance to do well for themselves.

In my advanced class, there’s usually not a problem with academics, except with one girl, who has gone through her own issues in her rather short life. I find it telling how we seek out popularity so thoroughly but when we find it, we’re not fans ourselves. She found some rather dubious distinctions last year around the school, and seems to have decided on a whole different approach to her academics. She’s someone who I struggled with, and the only one who took her to task on some of her transgressions last year. The fights were often public, never disrespectful on my end, but certainly looked like …

… what it might look like when I have my own daughter.

And so it’s with that spirit that I look upon some of my children, my students, my educational confidants, and my captive audience. Whether it’s a battle against their own trepidations, their own insecurities, or their own reputations, they’re fighting and fighting hard, and even I have to play their opponent, they’re certainly winning in my eyes.

“Because when you see the bases are the same and the exponents are different, and we’re multiplying, we can add the exponents.”

Exactly.

jose, whose students reminded him these last two days why he loves his job …

You all know how much I hate talking about other teachers, especially since I’d hate to bring such karma on myself. Nonetheless, I’m conflicted by the growing discrepancy between my students’ applied knowledge and their NYS Math Test scores. I’m not gassed in the least about the New York State Math Test and its ability to measure whether or not my students are prepared for the next year’s challenges. I understand that, as far as standardized tests go, the state math test is … simple. I also understand that it’s a snapshot of what my students can do, a snapshot largely limited in scope, unequal for all schools in the state, and easily swayed by a myriad of factors including whether or not the student ate breakfast that morning or if they remember how to multiply integers. Fair enough.

On the same token, I can’t help but gnaw my teeth when I see the scores and how people have lauded the students who came into my school. Most of the incoming students have 3s and 4s in their state math and ELA (English / Language Arts) test, and statistically, that’s pushed our scores a good 10 percentage points higher than when we left for summer break in June. Again, it all sounds like good news. Over the summer, I even took the time to analyze their scores more thoroughly and I tried to (and couldn’t) keep a tempered reaction to the potential excellence I beheld. Needless to say, I spoke too soon.

For the last couple of days, we’ve been working on understanding the groupings for real numbers (i.e. whole, natural, rational, etc.) For my high-school level readers out there, I even introduced them to set notation for these groups so they become familiar with it for now and advanced math. I personally thought I prepared an informative first-week lesson. For the two classes that have had me before, it was successful, and just from taking some informal assessments and looking at their classwork, I have a good sense that even the more deficient students have a grasp of what the difference between rational and irrational numbers are. Again, fair enough.

But the class whose students I’m mostly unfamiliar with has had a hard time grasping the material. I tried to rationalize their lack of participation. Are they nervous about having to come to a new and unfamiliar school with a little more structure than their previous schools? Are they still adjusting to my teaching style and on-and-off ebullience about my subject matter? Did they really just forget anywhere between 50-60% of their math knowledge over the summer (as I noticed in my diagnostic analyses)?

I’m not sure, but here’s this: when students in the class can’t give me a number that’s between 2 and 3 in the 7th grade, that’s a big hurdle since, by NYS standards, they should have learned this in 5th grade (correct me if I’m wrong). When students can’t take the square root of a number even when I give them the definition is trouble. When students can’t tell me if 17 is closer to 16 or 25, and the differences between the distances there, that’s an issue. Especially since the basic elements of these questions have come up in the previous 2 tests.

This logically leads me to think that, aside from the questions I’ve asked myself,:

a. there’s a bit of a language deficiency that I haven’t researched
b. I’ve taught the students who had me last year for more applied math while these students haven’t been taught that
c. they got a little too much help on the math test from the person who administered the test.

I know. Bold statement.

What do you think? Am I a bit cynical or am I onto something? Obviously, I’ll still work with the students, and I have every intention of making those test scores into a more accurate reflection of whether they’ve mastered the material or not. I just have to ask if they were really taught or just taught to the test.

jose, who STILL has an aversion to bulletin boards when there’s so much important work to do …

I’ve found a bit of a paradox.

I bring this up because of the conversations I’ve been having with respected and degreed educators in my sphere, one whose very close to me personally and one whose cool with me professionally. Both have different schools and different situations, but both have the students in their schools in mind.

On one end of the argument, we have a large conclave of teachers who complain at every turn possible. Simple matters become grandiose events. We can have a professional development period, and once those kinda discussions happen, everyone has that looks-at-their-watch-when-is-this-over-not-just-yet-aw-man look on them. I’m all for rebel rousing and upsetting the established order, but there are also times when this sort of activity just isn’t necessary nor valuable to our primary objective: helping students. For example, someone who’s taught the same student for 5 straight years because that student can’t pass his class should take an earnest look at his or her class and how they’re addressing that child’s needs. Teachers who would rather read the newspaper in homeroom than take care of students and simultaneously complain about their students’ lack of effort boggle my mind.

But then there’s the flip side of that argument when we talk about responsibility. Teachers don’t always get treated like professionals, and the expectations for them shift depending on whoever’s in charge. Some of the bitter history between administration and teacher is hard to erase, and so is the whimsical flux often frustrated teachers. I’ve stated time and again how the profession of teaching takes time, and just from general conversations with teachers, I get the feeling that what’s “important” is usually just a facade to appease rather than actually researching and figuring out what’s best for the students.

So I’m at a weird spot right now. Any thoughts on this?

No, it’s not the same.

Mostly the same kids. Same subject. Same friendships. Same teachers in the building. Same madness in the beginning. Same school building. Same confusion as to what the heck students had on their heads and why they decided not to wear uniform if they’ve been to the school already. Same high hopes. Same uneasiness.

But it’s definitely not the same.

This year, I envision me taking better care of myself. For all intents and purposes, I felt almost useless for the last 2 weeks of last year due to circumstances I couldn’t control. Now, even with the recent teacher departures, I feel I’m more in control. As a teacher, I come into the classroom with an incredible swagger. I fully expect all eyes on me even when I’m not the one teaching. I expect quiet when I’m speaking. I expect a certain respect from everyone. When I write on the board, I expect students to be writing notes in back of me and nothing else. I expect quiet usually, and maybe just a little buzz while they’re working in groups. My gumption doesn’t come from anything except wanting to preemptively avoid 85% of classroom management problems from the onset.

and if I thoroughly believe in that persona, then that’s exactly what I’m going to get … and sometimes to a fault.

Even with all that pomp, I still find that the kids react to me just the opposite of what I’d expect. They welcome my presence, and even my slight passing by the classroom gets them overly excited rather than nervous and scared. :: snaps:: So much for that. I’m still getting kids running up to me, literally leaving their classes, and begging me to teach their class (I have little control over that). It’s a weird feeling, for as much as I want to maintain the “no smiling ’til Christmas” mantra, I also know that, much sooner than later, my students find out I care a lot about them.

So for the new teachers reading, please know:

Teaching is, more than anything, a living contradiction:

• It’s a profession because I’m getting paid for it, and a calling because there’s something innate in true teachers that implant us in our students’ memory banks
• I get to be mean and nice, sometimes within a span of five seconds
• I’m fully expected to be ready with a lesson plan, but I’ll never truly be ready for what happens on the everyday.
• Almost everyone knows what a teacher is and what they should look like, but I still have a hard time expounding on my experiences as one to anyone but people who work with youth in that capacity.
• I teach math, but I’m a prolific writer, a music connoisseur, and an avid reader of historical non-fiction (usually on the radical side)
• I’m expected to be a role model, but that suppression of some of my more unbridled habits (cursing comes to mind) makes me want to do it more when not in the view of children
• I love being with the kids, but for my own mental health, I need a break because …
• The energy I put into my profession is what comes out of me …

But that’s my job. I’m amorphous and omnipresent. I’m an overlord and proponent. I’m whatever my students need me to be. And that’s the way I like it.

jose, who has no idea what he’s gonna dress in tomorrow …

It’s around this time of year that have to re-remember how to be Mr. Vilson and no longer Jose. This summer’s been great, and I’ve had many a revelation through this summer personally and professionally. I’ve rested, I’ve breathed, I’ve read, I’ve written, I’ve learned, I’ve loved, and I’ve lived. And now, I’m almost ready to face those children again. It’s a moment of truth, and I’m starting to feel it. But I’m just not ready yet. I’m already reading blog after blog from teachers already getting prepared for the coming year with lesson plans, seating plans, grading policies, and syllabi ready to roll. I, on the other hand, have had far too much fun this summer.

With all that said, I had a conversation with my lady yesterday (who is on a whole ‘nother level when it comes to education) and she zeroed in on what makes a good and effective teacher. And after that discussion, I realized that, yes, I think I’m ready. I’m motivated, I’m committed, and I’m going to be ready. Believe it or not, I do have these awesome moments of self-doubt where my cynicism reflects back onto me, and it keeps me humble enough to keep me focused on my ultimate goal, and she’s often been the one to bring me back to that focus lately.

I’m going to go to my classroom a couple of days before we officially have to be there. I’m going to have my letter to the parents ready, and I’m going to have a list of my kids’ phone numbers so I can call their parents from the jump. I’m going to get even more familiar with my co-teachers on the floor, and I’m going to have the first week of lesson plans ready. I’m going to get organized, and have my classroom 80% set up by the time the students enter into my classroom. With my new added responsibilities, I need to keep a proper perspective.

Teaching is a calling and a profession at once. It’s not enough for me to just love what I do but work hard for it as well. Personally, the most effective teachers I’ve seen keep a good distance so teachers are not percieved as the students’ friend, but give enough of their person where the students look at the teacher in high regard, irrespective of whether the student failed or passed in the class. It was probably my biggest strength my first two years, and a quality I somewhat lost my third year. As passionate as I was with my students, I also lacked the understanding of going from “new teacher” to “veteran teacher” in the school.

For the next year, I repledge my efforts to those causes. More than anything, this summer has given me time to replenish. For, when all is lost, the battle is won with all these things that I’ve done …

jose, who recently took on yet another project … yes, I’m a madman …

p.s. - Bellringers put out the 185th Carnival of Education :-).