Summer Review: Part Two

Oh man. It is October and I still have to fill you in on the rest of my summer life since June. This scenario is freakishly similar to how I feel teaching every day. Always behind. It is a never-ending game of catch-up. But to get us back on track, here goes:

Back in June, after seeing my sister graduate from high school I flew back to California to teach summer school - which by the way is something I swore to never ever do. Here is a textbook example of how you can get me to do anything if you ask me on a happy optimistic this-job-is-awesome day. But honestly, it was a special summer program for kids who chose to sign up, which is a million times different than teaching the D and F students who do not want to be there. Still, there were plenty of students who admitted that they were there either because they had nothing better to do over summer or because their parents signed them up to stay out of trouble. These were the kids who decided that this was "fake school" and that they did not have to do anything. But whatever, I'm used to dealing with those attitudes by now, and I was much more optimistic in the idea that I was able to teach classes of only 13 and 14 students (Glorious!). I actually have some of those same students in my classes right now, and Jackie actually has one too, which is pretty awesome.

The original post-summer-school plan was to go on another long hiking trip, this time through the Sierra Nevadas for about 212 miles along the John Muir Trail. Unfortunately our late wet spring afforded California too much snow to handle, and it stuck around too long for the trip to work. Remembering the beginnings of our trip last year, it was certainly not too hard convincing us to save the trip for another time. Plus, Jackie ended up being invited to be a bridesmaid in a somewhat spur-of-the-moment wedding of her friend and coworker in Tahoe. It worked out great though; we were able to spend a week down in San Luis Obispo visiting friends, hiking, mountain biking and learning to surf (me specifically), just before hiking and camping near Lake Tahoe before the wedding. It was just the relaxing summer I needed.

I do wish I would have been able to visit extended family during my "time off," but between still being relatively broke and attending two bachelor parties and two weddings of my own friends, teaching summer school was essential. I do have a million things on my mind right now about school, but I'll save that for a new post.

Summer Review: Part One

Hello again. It certainly has been a while. These posts may be long to catch you up to speed on my life, so in case you want the super short and sweet version, here it is: summer came and went, and right now having finished the second week of my third year, I am very happy with my decision to stay. But honestly my life is much more interesting than that so read on if you please.

It is curious to think about how writing in this blog does not feel quite as crucial for my life as it did two years ago. Could it be that for once I feel that I am somewhere within reach of the way I would like this job to be, or that I am somewhat within grasp of driving home happy for weeks at a time? It could be that I am in a relationship right now, or maybe it is the fact that I am surrounded by new teachers at school, making me the veteran. More on that later.

And no, that was not a typo, I am in a relationship of almost six months now to a girl I really care about. If you have been keeping up with the posts these past years, you will know her as Jackie, the girl I went on the hike with last summer. If she were writing this post, she would want to draw your attention to the fact that no moves were made on the trip on my end, and it took about seven months more for anything to happen at all. She would probably also emphasize the fact that she made the first move on me. But those are her words.

I have found that this job is much easier when you have someone to share it with on a daily basis, especially someone who knows exactly what you are going through. Most of you will know that Jackie teaches 9th grade Biology at another high school in the district just across the freeway from Richmond, and some days her job makes mine look like a walk in the park. I could go back through all the posts since my teaching began and find all the references to De Anza High School and the crazy things they have to deal with, or I could just say that she keeps me honest and helps me see the optimistic view of a day at RHS. She is incredibly self-motivated and driven, athletic and competitive, beautiful and smart, funny and genuine, and her CST scores confirm that she is amazing at what she does. She is pursuing a third teaching year as well and, like myself, is taking her life year by year in terms of what to do afterwards. It has been amazing having her support, which by the way completely beats out the therapeutic release of blogging, so maybe that is why I took a summer hiatus. Or maybe it was because I had no idea how to write or talk about serious relationships (still don't, really) and realized that if I posted anything I would have to address it somehow...

Okay, if I continue to write everything on my mind to fill you in on current events since the last post I will be up all night, and frankly I am still exhausted from the second week of teaching, so maybe I'll write more tomorrow morning. Goodnight.

The End of the TFA Training Wheels

I know, I know. It's been a while since my last post, but it's probably for the best; after all, I didn't want my blog to become a countdown like last year, because honestly this year is a night and day difference from last year at this point. That being said, thank goodness the year is through. The last month seems to always be a little frustrating, because you can always find ways to improve your classroom, and by mid-May, there's not enough focused time in the classroom to try something new and see how it plays out. As a result, I now have a post-it note on my desktop accruing all the details that I want to remember to include for my theoretical classroom next year: things involving behavior management or even long- and short-term planning (because holy crap there is no way I am going to be planning the night before AGAIN in my third year). With the year officially coming to a close I feel like I actually have some energy now to figure out how to solve some of those recurring problems. But it's a battle against the clock, because some crazy phenomenon makes it so that the further into summer you are, the less you remember about those days where you just wanted to quit on the spot.

I think part of the reason why that is is because somehow these kids never get up in arms with me about their grades. In fact about half of them are genuinely surprised when they don't get an F - which scares me a little, because that means that they aren't even recognizing the fact that once in a blue moon they actually tried. And that one time they tried REALLY HARD. It's totally a psychological game that you have to play with these kids and their grades, especially for my Algebra students, who have already failed the class once. I pretty much don't give out F's unless you didn't show up or you didn't ever try to do what I asked, and I think for some of them, getting a D feels like progress to them in such a way that even though they will be taking the class for the third time next year, hopefully they are convincing themselves that they will pass next time for sure. Like I've said before, step one is to convince these kids that they CAN graduate high school. THEN we'll start pushing college. I talk about college as often as I can, but sometimes I'm afraid that it overwhelms my fragile lower-skilled students. In all, for my 9th graders, only 51% Algebra students received a C grade or better from me and in Geometry, 63% passed. I'll have to go back and uncover my grades from last year to see if there was any trend.

The last day of school was certainly different this year compared to last, and honestly I was a little sad to see all the student go. At least, I was sad until I turned around and saw the absolute mess that was left for me to clean in my classroom... because, oh right, I forgot to mention the fact that our custodian in charge of our 9th grade hallway quit (I would too) and we still don't have a replacement. I was surprised at how many students actually came the last day of school and even more surprised with the number of kids who wanted to take a picture with me or say goodbye before they left for the year. One in particular I will keep for a long time, so that I can always remember the good things. Here it is:

Thank you Mr. Bretle, (<-- I know, it kills me too)

For teaching me Precalculus. I honestly enjoyed your class. I didn't talk much but hey I'm a pretty quiet person. Even though I didn't communicate as much as my peers I enjoyed going to class and actually learn. This was my second year taking Precal and I learned way more than the year before, I don't mean to brag but you're a pretty awesome teacher. I believe this is your last year teaching at Richmond High and whatever you end up doing after this program I hope you continue to teach :)

I haven't had a good teacher like you in a while and I truly appreciate all the hard work you put in for students to fully understand math. I always loved math, I wasn't hella good at it but I loved the challenge of math. After taking your class I reconsidered math of some sort of major. What I'm trying to say is that you seriously have a gift LOL as corny as it may sound its the truth. I came to the point of hating math last year to loving it this year. You're an awesome teacher and you should continue teaching :) (Please)

Yours truly,

Patty G

...And THAT is why teaching summer school does not bother me one bit at this point. As I am now officially an alumnus of TFA, I'm kind of excited to do everything my own way :)

Grade-A Soccer, Grade-F Education

So today at lunch the teacher team played our first game against students in the student-organized soccer tournament outside on the tennis courts. AND we beat the JV soccer boys (who's "weak" now, Eduardo???). AND I scored over half our goals. Needless to say, I earned some serious cred. Half of my students all had their heads against the fence watching like kindergartners at an aquarium, and yet cheering and yelling like it were a boxing match. Oh, and 5th period right after lunch was shot when sweat dripped from my nose onto a student's paper while I was stamping for credit. If there was any day that I wished more than ever to have a window in my classroom, today was it. Nevertheless, soccer is a good medium to remind me that I still do enjoy my job.

Then later the teacher across the hall gave me some good rationale as to why I sometimes hate my job. And, quite frankly, it serves as the same rationale as to why I will not be staying in this position for the long haul. To understand, you'll have to take the time to visit this link: http://reportcards.edtrustwest.org/district-data?county=Contra+Costa&district=West+Contra+Costa+Unified&report_year=2010

The site provides a good snapshot of publicly available data ranked against the state's largest unified school districts. Along with rankings are grades that accompany the four indicators that help describe our effectiveness in serving our Latino, African-American, and low-income students.

The report uses information from California's Academic Performance Index (API), performance and improvement of students of color and low-income students, the achievement gaps between our white students and Latino and African-American students, and college readiness based on completion rates for the California college-preparatory sequence known as the A-G standards (your basic credits of English, math, science, etc.). I'll give you a minute to check out the site before you read on. You can check out other districts in our Contra Costa County too, or look at the stats for Oakland Unified in Alameda county if you are interested at all in the other districts nearby that TFA addresses. Go ahead, I'll wait.

I present to you the entire background of this study and report because even seeing what I see every single day does not make me any less surprised that our school district, West Contra Costa USD, is the ONLY school district in California that received an overall grade of an F. I knew that we were ONE of the most failing districts in the state, but I had no idea that we were (un)officially THE worst, according to The Education Trust - West, a statewide education advocacy organization working to close opportunity and achievement gaps for students of color and those in poverty.

In conclusion, on paper, we suck. And it's really depressing that a year of blood (check), sweat (check), and tears (double check) has done nothing to alter our grade ranking to anything other than another shade of F. I would argue that the study needs more qualitative analysis into things like about how much extra effort is required or offered by a district's teachers, about positive relationships between students and teachers, or even about the amount of violence, crime and poverty that exists in a community to draw a picture of what kind of life these kids live inside and outside of school. But then again, I know that if I were in one of those great districts receiving a B grade on the whole, hearing a district like WCCUSD make comments like that, I would tell my F-grade district friend that those are just excuses. After all, so many things in the educational world are data-driven, like district funding and college acceptance. And plus, these positive qualitative experiences that these kids are getting from us are much less effective when the kids aren't able to WRITE about it cohesively in a college application. It's so sad that these kids experience so much more than anyone ever knows, and yet these experiences are hindering their ability to learn HOW to communicate these experiences effectively. And that, my friends, is what we call a negative feedback loop. Negative on two fronts: they are falling behind scholastically of course, but they are also getting poor training in ways to communicate their feelings as a sort of release - kind of like, oh, I don't know... a blog.

Of course, that is to no fault of our English teachers; I totally understand the depth and breadth of what is required of them to teach to get our kids reasonably on track. Us math teachers can relate. The Executive Director of the organization that runs the study was quoted in the accompanying article that "the grades on these report cards provide district leaders and community members with critical information on how well their Latino, African-American, and low-income students are faring." While I know it is not meant this way, it feels like they are asking, "Do you even know how badly you're doing?" And the answer to you Dr. Arun Ramanathan is yes, yes we do. And while you think that your study will motivate us to try harder, we're just about at our capacity for trying. I may be speaking for myself, but I'm pretty positive that the majority of our staff tries really hard. And the members of the faculty who have no idea what the hell they are doing are here BECAUSE we are the state's F-grade district. Again: negative feedback loop. For those of us rowing the figurative boat (and the ones who may actually read your study), it is already known that the turnaround CAN be done, so your efforts are merely landing as another reminder that our data still says we suck.

On the bright side though, it's relieving to know that there are no districts worse than us. Things may be bad in WCCUSD, but I can imagine many ways where it could be worse - I'm just glad that scenario doesn't exist. I would wish that fate upon no one.

If you have time, check out the full written report here: http://reportcards.edtrustwest.org/sites/default/files/rankings/ETW_DistrictReportCard_2011.pdf

15 School Days Remaining

My God this week sucks. I haven't had one in a while, and I forgot how you can end up wishing that an entire week did not exist. Of course, I will conveniently ignore the possible connection between my feelings for this week and the fact that I spent Sunday participating in the 100th annual Bay to Breakers event in San Francisco. If you haven't heard of it, Google it for some insight into my weekend festivities.

Anyway, it's been one of those weeks where my exhaustion seems to exist even deep down in my very soul, and I know that this clearly means that I should take a sub day to get back on my feet, but I just can't legitimize it with all the review my classes need before their final exam. Plus, we have Open House night for parents, and frankly I am so far behind on grading that I just might wing it this time on grades. I think I've decided that my discussion with parents will be much more behavior-oriented anyway because that is what is fueling the fire that has made this week hell. To put it all into perspective, I yelled - and I mean YELLED - at my third period class today because I was so fed up with how many students couldn't help but to fill class with hateful and disrespectful comments to other students like calling them a "fucking bitch," and other much more vivid names. The yelling I'm sure spurred from my own internal dialogue as this was all happening, like, "Really? Is this really still happening in this class in MAY? And in my second year???" The thing is, they never turn that language on the teacher, at least in my class, and I know it's because I am only respectful to them all the time. But the minute they start "playin' around" with their friends in class, the language comes out that makes my ears want to bleed. It's so frustrating that these kids can whip out an insult in a split second but can't even write a sentence without an error. The worst part is that they have zero foresight (or hindsight I guess) to realize that the fighting happens EVERY SINGLE TIME they start "just playin' around" with each other in class. And then poor 5th and 6th period get my overflow wrath from 3rd period the moment they even drop a pencil. My students and I have had better relationships than this week has demonstrated.

By now I'm sure you're wondering why the hell I am teaching a third year, let alone teaching summer school over break. To be honest, sometimes I look in the mirror and ask myself the same questions - especially this week - but professionally, I have so much on my plate of things to do. As long as I still have ideas of how next year will be a million times better than this year, I can look forward to returning to Richmond High. Of course, these "to do" elements do not always fit into the structure of "how the entire math department is doing it," and as such, I've tried to be way more vocal this year in my own opinions about the things that could bring about positive change. However, skepticism often runs rampant in our department and I get a lot of "we already tried that" looks, which are hard to take because I haven't tried these things yet, and I am a stubborn enough person that these people's bad experiences or failed attempts at trying something new cannot veto my plan to do it next year anyway. I'm being very vague I know, but there's a laundry list of things to address in the math classes and their curricula that I just can't even get into right now. Just know that I still have a positive outlook on my job and that summer school will be my guinea pigs for new plans in the fall.

Also, know that 3rd period sucks. I'll let them know I told you.

"I would have so many girls' numbers by now if I went here..."

In hindsight, stressing the incredible importance of the California Standards Test to my kids was a double-edged sword: while the majority of them took the test honestly and seriously, that same majority right now sees little point to learning anything more this school year. Quite frankly, their agony each day is understandable, considering the fact that only maybe 50% of my Algebra students will be ready to pass on to the next math class. By now, the kids have a pretty good idea in their mind of whether they will be passing or retaking their math class, regardless of the daily elements of trickery that I employ to get them to pick up their pencil and do something. To put it simply, it is no surprise to me that my lowest students have zero desire to learn about simplifying rational expressions when they will begin again next year back at adding and subtracting negative numbers. Who can blame them? It's the higher-end students whose whining really gets to me. It's hard to point out to them in a politically correct way that the reason why they didn't do as well as they could on the CST is because we have been held back all year by their classmates who still count on their fingers, possibly being the same students that misbehave when they don't want to draw attention to the fact that they don't get it. But the thing is that no matter how much I try to tell them, these higher-level students don't quite feel the urgency that I am trying to convey because RHS is the only education they know right now, and based on the standards set by the school and their peers, they are doing just fine. I'd say this is the sole reason that my Precalculus class has been a rude awakening to many a successful student.

Anyway, my meeting in the middle philosophy has landed me at the conclusion to show a video every Friday until the end of school. Please take note - I tell this to my students too - that I said a VIDEO, not a MOVIE. While I am fully aware that they would much rather pass the time with Finding Nemo, I've decided to show them some PBS: NOVA shows that are actually pretty engaging. The frustrating part is convincing the students to give the show a chance and actually pay attention so that they will find elements of math to be interesting. I compare it to my childhood eating habits: if the food looks like I won't like it, then why eat it? It's much easier to push to the side of the plate and act like it's not there. Either that, or spread it around the plate evenly so it just looks like random scraps that were left unfinished. My students would much prefer to shove mathematics to the side of their dinner plate and pretend like it doesn't exist, like peppers or onions or mushrooms in meal when I was seven years old, ignoring the fact that maybe the meal would not have tasted the same without those ingredients. They just are missing the link between math and real-world applications, but every time I try to fill in that void with what I believe to be interesting and engaging things, I can barely get their full attention to even get their brains moving on the subject. Maybe I should use the food metaphor in class.

I have introduced you to my complaints only to give some background to see how sometimes I come home with the attitude that these kids SUCK. And I only feel comfortable admitting that because we went on a field trip today to Sonoma State University and was struck by the fact that these kids are AWESOME. When you only see another person for an hour a day - during which you are trying to get them to perform in the one subject they absolutely despise - your vision of the human being is slightly skewed. It was clear to me today that sometimes these kids really just need to physically get out of Richmond so that they can do two things: for one, it gives them the opportunity to play like they are little kids, because their home community forces them to grow up too fast, making them deal with issues that are too emotionally big for them to properly handle at their age. Secondly, it helps them really think about what they can do with their lives. Something about Richmond makes these kids feel like they will always be in Richmond; but watching the kids get excited about the facilities offered at a college - and the enthusiasm with the idea of living on their own in their own dorm or apartment - made me really happy. I have never heard as many students as today say that they really and truly want to go to college. The cool thing was that I knew it was real because they kept telling me that they wanted to go to THIS college, which I know is because it's the first college they have ever been to, aside from maybe UC Berkeley, which is just ridiculously overwhelming for the average RHS student. Part of me is really sad that in one month I will be giving out way too many D and F grades that will keep these students one more step away from what they may have decided today is what they want to do with their life after high school. It makes me realize that teaching would be a hard profession to leave if I taught the same group of kids each year as they progress through high school, and it also makes me wish a little bit that I could reteach a lot of my D and F students again next year to give them and myself another chance.

One of my students commented to me that everyone he saw was pretty much white, and I told him that most colleges are that way, and that's exactly the thing that the nation is trying to change. It was definitely the first time I felt that a student completely understood the idea of the achievement gap and the mission to close it. Nevermind the fact that this was immediately followed by a conversation about how many girls' phone numbers he would have had by now if he went to school there.

Today was a good day.

Testing

Yes, it's been a while since my last post, and right along with it has been a painful week and a half of prepping for the state test that was altogether too long and too short. In retrospect, I believe the most bang for my buck in prepping my students was the hours I spent reminding them that all I wanted from them on CST day is just for them to focus for the entire testing period. I told them that it didn't bother me if they did not know a single answer as long as they read every question and made educated choices by eliminating incorrect answers. My new angle for this year was to honestly tell them multiple times that it will be the hardest test they have taken all year, and maybe even ever.

It was easier this year to flesh out a game plan for how CST prep would go, knowing that I would actually be in the room with 27 of my own students as they take it. Last year, I had a full class of kids I'd never met, making the teacher-to-student motivation less than effective. Luckily for us, this year our admin made sure to make it such that the staff would set up the best testing atmospheres for our students based on the small learning communities in which they were already organized. Of course, being the martyrs that we are, the English teacher across the hall and I decided to let the two other teachers from our freshman House have first pick to create their ideal class... and did they ever. My pick gave me 18 boys and 9 girls, with the process involving sports-like trades. Some students left on the list were clearly more "valuable" than others and thus could be traded for more students. Often one of us had to take one for the team and set the agreement that if I take _______, then you HAVE to take _______. I almost feel like we should earn badges for some of the things we have to do in this job.

To my surprise though, these kids were pretty amazing in that they really tried - reading every single question and answering the best they could. For as much faith as I have in the secret internal drive that everyone has to learn and succeed, I was admittedly talking to myself in the mirror the morning of the first test, giving a couple wake-up slaps to the face to be on my game for what was sure to be one of the most challenging days of the year. If getting 27 kids to stay quiet and seated for three hours of standardized testing isn't a test of your patience and determination, I don't know what is. As it turned out though, my metaphorical suit of armor didn't even see the battlefield, because these freshmen believe it or not actually wanted to give their best effort on the test. All I could think the entire testing period that first day was how diabolical it is that we succeeded in tricking these kids into doing exactly what we wanted. They love us too much.

Whether or not that is true is completely beside the point, but I was super happy with this new development that actually slightly changed my perception of my students. It had been slipping for a while, and I had begun to realize how powerful relationships really can be in the world of education. This inspired a short bout of happiness regardless of the fact that we got hardly anything accomplished in the shortened periods each day immediately after the morning testing. After all, it's not normal that we should expect these kids to be motivated to factor polynomials right after three hours of synonyms and reading comprehension. What I should have done is had a mini-lesson on all the ways that students at Richmond High get screwed in their education. Discussion point number 1: scheduling classes after CSTs so as to reach the quota of classroom hours while avoiding paying teachers additional money. The thing is, these students would not be surprised by this. I think the one way that these kids have a fuller education than anyone else is in the sense that they understand the difference between the way the world theoretically works and how it REALLY works. It's definitely one thing that I am glad I was able to see from having this job. Along this point it is no wonder I have so many kids who actually think that Osama bin Laden's death was a hoax. Quite the cynics for being only 15.

Anyway, I am sitting down to write all this because today we took the math exam and man oh man was it hard. I can definitely say that in class we haven't yet covered half of the material in the questions. It's so hard because the test is very much weighted towards the end of the year, and we begin the year way back in middle school objectives like adding and subtracting negative numbers. I was armed with two stacks of word searches for them finishing early (who the hell can take a math test for four hours?), but they were super squirrelly nonetheless. One of my students suggested that we sue somebody for them having to take a test that they are not prepared for, so to distract her from her own discomfort of not knowing half the test, I asked her to take a break and write out a letter to someone we could sue. It turned out to be more of a distraction than anything else, but hey, not all my creative ideas work. I was trying to pass the time just as much as them. In the end, I am just so impressed at the students' willingness to try their best (for me, really), and yet so discouraged by the thought that we will still have to sit through the same meeting at the beginning of next year to hear how far behind the math department still is of our goal. At the current time all I can think is how all I have done is in vain, but I know that at the bottom of this glass of wine I hold in my hand, I will be able to remind myself that there is so much more to education than a stupid standardized test.

But, since the wine has yet to be drunk, we will begin the countdown at 26. There are 26 school days left until the end of the school year.