Teaching on the Titanic June 26, 2008

What a discouraging week.  The lead master teacher at my school has decided to work elsewhere.  She wants to work at a school with strong leadership and a staff dedicated to improving results for children.  That witch!!!  Seriously though, can you blame her?

So I am left contemplating a return to work in the fall, minus the one person who knew what we needed to do to improve, minus 3-4 great teachers who have left for better schools, and with a principal who seems utterly incapable of providing the leadership we need.

In one of her last acts as a master teacher at my school, Wonder Woman sent out a report on how we did meeting our goals for the year.  Only K, 2, and 3 did well.  Everyone else actually increased the number of students failing the state test.

I want to quit the mentoring program, go into my classroom, shut the door, and focus only on my kids, to the exclusion of every single freakin’ adult in my building.

a sad thing to see May 26, 2008

A few years ago, I was in the teacher’s lounge, feeling exhausted.  A middle school teacher (my school is preschool through 8th grade) asked how things were going, and I told her all about how difficult my kids were being.  I then asked her how she was doing, and she told me, “I’m really depressed.  My 8th graders are starting to have sex, and I can’t stop them from being so stupid.”

That silenced me.  Nothing on a bad day in preschool is quite like that.

This Friday started out inauspiciously, with a migraine at 5:30 am.  When the kids arrived off the buses I still felt pretty bad.  Then I saw something I’d never seen before at any school I’ve ever worked at:  a pregnant student.

I asked around, and she is in 8th grade, but is 16 and really should have moved on to the high school.  Still.  She’s in 8th grade and she’s pregnant.

I had a hollow feeling inside me all day.

My turn under scrutiny May 13, 2008

I had a formal observation today.  What I mean is, I was the one being observed.  (Usually it’s the other way around.  I do 2-4 observations a quarter.)  Every one of us, even the master and mentor teachers, needs to be observed once each quarter, and this was my last observation of the year. 

The mentor teacher who observed me is a fifth grade teacher, who seemed delighted at the chance to observe someone who is outside her world of upper-primary and middle school (usually she works with the middle school teachers).  She also mentioned, somewhat wryly, that her last visit to a preschool was when her children were that age, and let’s just say, that was a loooong time ago.

The odd thing was, I was nervous.  I had a hard time concentrating on preparing for my lesson before school started, and during prep, Jan was laughing at me because it was so odd to see me so discombobulated.  I saw my master teacher in the office when I was getting something off the printer, and I told her, “I’m nervous about my observation!”  She just rolled her eyes at me and told me not to be ridiculous.

My master teacher was the one who did my most recent observation, and that lesson rocked.  She gave me awesome scores, and I was absolutely thrilled.  So I know I’m a good teacher, and I know that I know my stuff.  I’m also usually so confident….

Back to the room.  I finally got my head together and I carried off the lesson on ordering the numbers 1-6, with my audience of special ed teacher, parent volunteer, para, and the mentor, who was madly scribbling notes.  (Have I mentioned my trained monkey routine?  I am always being watched.  It is never just me and the kids.  I’m used to it, but some days….)

And it went okay.  I mean, it went well, but I can think of lots of things I could have done better.  I didn’t ask good enough questions.  And did they all get it?  Some of my kids don’t know all the number names to six; why was I asking them to put the numbers in order?  And the fact that Miss L. was falling apart the whole time didn’t really help. 

On the plus side, I had three kids (including Z., who had wonderful braids and ponytails all over her head in honor of Crazy Hair Day) order the numbers 0-19 with no sweat, and the stuff I did in the whole group was pretty cool.

This stuff can make you crazy, though.  I think I’ll go into my final observations of the year feeling more mellow and more forgiving than ever.  School is almost over, after all.

Teaching grown-ups May 8, 2008

Some weeks ago, a person from the early childhood department was visiting my classroom, and she saw me doing story time using the repeated interactive read-aloud strategy, so we talked about how it works, and I offered to do a little workshop on it for the other pre-K teachers in the district.  She said, “sure”, so then she came to my room three times to videotape me doing the three read-alouds.

Yesterday was the all-day meeting for the pre-K teachers, and my part was after lunch, after the head of the early childhood department spoke to us.  (I was hoping she’d leave for some important appointment, but alas, she stayed put.  I’m not sure how she feels about me, because on the one hand I have a solid reputation as a good teacher, but on the other, I ask difficult and pointed questions at our meetings.)

A third of the way through my presentation (what is a repeated interactive read-aloud (RIRA)?  how is it different from the way teachers usually read stories?  what does the research say?  how is it connected to the standards?  etc.) I started to worry, as no one was asking questions and everyone’s face looked blank.  Thankfully, Sarah’s video was perfect, and people started to warm up and ask questions, and at the end, the other teachers were excited about it and I was hugely relieved.

It was quite nice to come back to school today and hang out with four and five year olds.

Boys, boys, boys May 6, 2008

A few months ago, while at a lesson waiting on my kid, I started chatting with another parent. He told me all about his son’s ADHD, and commented that “women teachers just don’t know how to teach boys.”

I’ve been thinking about that ever since. A few years ago, I had a four year old boy and a seven year old boy at home, and at school I had fourteen four year old boys in my class, plus three girls.

One of the girls had special needs and was in her own delightful universe, one was from Vietnam and barely spoke English (although she was smart as a whip and learned quickly), and one was a charming, utterly normal African American girl who was flummoxed by her limited choice in playmates, but managed well anyway. The three of them played house while all around them, blocks crashed and lego robot spaceships said “pyoo! pyoo!”

My life was dominated by boys. And it was great.

Two of the boys met each other at the open house, and proceeded to run around the room flying a red airplane. When I tried to talk to them about running, they were so kinetic they basically couldn’t make eye contact with me. And they were typical of the class. But within two months, I had squeezed the life out of them. No, just kidding. (Seriously, just kidding!) Actually, in the stability and predictability of my routine-driven classroom, all the boys calmed down. Some of the mothers were astonished by the change in their sons, and I was delighted.

By the end of the year, most of the boys in my class could read at a kindergarten level, and they dominated the house corner. Lego robot spaceships continued to take over the world. (The girls moved to the block corner and built houses and farms.)

In solidarity with my younger self, I love teaching the girls. But I tell you, I really really love teaching the boys.

Reading First schools aren’t getting results? May 3, 2008

I read in the paper yesterday that schools designated as Reading First schools, who get extra funds to do extra work in teaching reading, are not getting the hoped-for results.  My school isn’t a Reading First school, but my heart sank when I read this.  It makes me wonder if the things my school and district are doing — moving toward balanced literacy and readers & writers workshops — will make any difference.

I’ll bet the Reading First schools are filled with teachers who have been working really hard to use best practices to teach reading effectively, and that they are all so disappointed.

Or am I wrong?  Because the Reading First grants are part of NCLB and thus come from the Bush administration, are they suspect?  What really goes on at a Reading First school, anyway?

Adequate Yearly Progress April 29, 2008

I work at a school that is in trouble.  We are not making AYP, and we haven’t been for a while now.  I think we’re at the point where we really should be fresh-started, and everyone should be let go and have to interview for their own jobs.  We are definitely at the point where we need a new principal.  Our test scores are poor, and not even our white kids are making a year’s worth of progress in math. 

And yet — no one seems to be worried, no one seems to be doing anything.  The principal keeps on telling us that everything is fine and we’re all doing a great job, and so the teachers just put their heads back in the sand.  Few people seem concerned that we are failing our students.  And the district isn’t helping in any way that I can see.

This year has been disillusioning for me.  I used to think we were a good school with a really good staff, and now that I am a mentor, I know better.  I used to think that our principal was terrific, and now…I know better.  I can see that we are a ship without a captain, and have learned what it feels like to crave strong leadership.

The master teacher I work with can see the big picture, and she is getting more and more worried.  She knows what needs to be done, but it isn’t her job to do it — it’s the principal’s.  She is sort of taking on the weight of the building as she tries to get through to him, and prod him to think ahead and make decisions.  All it’s doing is wearing her out.

However, there are little rays of sunshine to notice, here and there.  I had a conference with a first grade teacher this morning, about the lesson I observed her teaching last week, and it went really well.  We looked at her scores from the fall, and she has improved so much.  Her teaching incorporates the instructional rubric and best practices, and she is clearly really self-reflective.  And even the kindergarten teachers, who have been so resistant to change all year, are all doing high-quality interactive read-alouds with their classes every week.

We have learned this year, and we have improved.  I just don’t know if it’s enough.