If it weren't for procrastination I doubt I would have this blog

One of the many things that Teach For America conveniently forgets to tell you during your application process is just how much crap you have to do for your local teacher credentialing program in order to actually be a teacher. It makes sense now that I had such a hard time explaining to everyone how it is possible that I would be a real teacher, after having not gotten a teaching degree. The money for the credentialing program is one headache, and the second-biggest headache (one of many) is the Teaching Performance Assessment that must be taken once every two months. It is an online assessment for which we have to pretty much write the equivalent of 20-30 pages of redundancy. At the orientation for each new assessment, the person in charge always explains to us that if one of the questions asks you something that you feel like you have already answered, you must answer it again in a new way. It is ridiculous, and I feel like it grades you more on your ability to bullshit well than your ability to teach well. This next one is due on Monday, so naturally, I am making the best use of my time and writing on the blog instead.

On the bright side of things, this week I think was the best week so far this entire school year - I went home happy every single day. Exhausted, but happy. I decided to come back from break with a new plan for Algebra (my occasionally awful classes) where we pretty much started the year over to review all the things I have taught so far. Many of these kids don't mind describing themselves as lazy and impatient, which is scary, but most of the time I would agree with them. To deal with that, I have been creating "cheat sheet" worksheets for them where I have done all the notes for them and all they have to do is read the directions and answer the problems. I think they like it because I told them they can work at their own pace as long as they are always working in class. A lot of my 0% F students are actually doing some work now and my higher achieving kids can go on ahead instead of becoming huge distractions when they are done early. I don't so much know yet how I'm going to reconvene to teach the next new concept, but right now I'm just enjoying happy afternoons and not worrying about it yet!

In other news, yesterday at school we had a Black History Month assembly, and I think I have said it before: that our students and assemblies do not mesh well. Our student to teacher ratio doesn't really provide much enforcement when you put 1000 students into one school theater for a collection of presentations and performances. That being said, a couple things surprised me during the student-run assembly: first of all, the "school band" consisted of about nine people playing instruments, two of them teachers (I know that this job is affecting my perspectives because my surprise came from the fact that we even HAD a band). Secondly, our students are huge into dance - over half the assembly included performances from all periods of jazz dance (yes, a class). But the third thing really threw me off: throughout the entire assembly, there was all sorts of chaos in the audience until the student emcee invited to the mic the mother and sister of an African-American student that had been killed this past year. Once they took the podium, there was utter and complete silence, which was just chilling since it had just a few seconds before been crazy in that theater. I felt bad for the mom and sister, but the most emotional part for me was that you could feel how real it all was for the students in that room - they immediately knew the gravity of what was being said, despite the fact that so many of them seem incapable of giving their attention to any other speaker at that podium. It just made me realize how inconsequential day-to-day school classes must seem to those students that experience the community violence and its effects at its deepest level.

It's hard to push students to do work in class when their mind is wrapped up in things like this; no wonder student-teacher conflicts are a dime a dozen in Richmond. But then how do I help to remedy any of that without pointing towards things that are out of my control? This job has provided me many observations and reflections, but so far, those have only spurred more questions that I have no idea how to answer.

A Heavenly Break

I was feeling good nearing the end of January, and then February hit and all of a sudden school seemed awful again. Everyone I live with agreed - it's almost as if all the students got together and decided that they would pretend February was September again. I would say I can't wait for March, but who knows what that month has in store.

Frankly, I'm amazed by the predictability in general of the average TFAer's year. We were even given line graphs way back in the summer that showed us about how our lives would be going throughout the year. Sure enough, the biggest trench into despair was predicted to be in October/November, and the steady increase in hope would be halted by the month of February. It's scary, but somebody has this down to a science.

In truth, since the beginning of the month, things haven't been too bad I don't think... of course with our week off, I have been spending the last seven days in as much vacation-mode as I can manage. I made time to enjoy a San Francisco beach with visiting company, as well as a local hike to watch mating newts. Best of all, our apartment complex teaching crew made it up to Lake Tahoe for the week and I found the time (and money) to experience Heavenly Ski Resort on both a snowboard as well as skis. Snow could have been better, but the weather gave it the best views I have ever seen from a mountain. I highly recommend.

Of course this also marks the first trip taken with all teachers, and cramming 11 type-A personalities into a cabin for six has scarred me a little. Although I have found that in comparison, I am one of the better ones at turning off the stress and relaxing (who knew, right?). Unfortunately, such relaxation comes with a price - specifically, $15 co-pay at the hospital and $17 for a thumb stabilizer after spraining my thumb at the end of the second day. I will admit that the fall leading to this injury is directly related to a stupid choice that was made in an exhausted state of mind. One of the girls on the trip has skied since she was two and was a ski instructor, so we covered the entire mountain. Of course, back in Oakland today was a hard dose of reality, especially as I sat in the radiology waiting room before an x-ray.

In fact, I don't think I'm ready to get back in teacher mode quite yet, but already I'm hearing about another Richmond shooting, this time in a church during mass this past week. You would think that this kind of thing would make me fear for my safety at Richmond High, but really it makes me fear the fact that this is what a lot of the students turn to when they cannot graduate from high school. It makes me think of the fact that I gave failing grades to half of my students this past semester, and looking at each students' report cards, they are failing a lot of other classes too. On the one hand, I am happy that I not doing something wrong compared to other teachers, but I am upset that the education system is failing these students. Our school is more successful in creating high school dropouts than it is in creating college-bound students. It may appear that a lot of students do not care about their education, but the whole thing is totally psychological. Having not met expectations for so long has made them find the only way they know how to not fail. In their minds, if they don't try, they can't feel bad about failing. Had I known this in September, I would perhaps be finding more success. Not only am I responsible for teaching Algebra and Geometry, but I am responsible for helping rebuild these kids' perceptions of education in general. The thought of this in one student is manageable, but 50% of my students requiring this attention is the very definition of overwhelming.

Even in this one post, you can see me reverting back from vacation mode, so as I think about Monday, I wonder: how do I ration my time, energy, resources, etc. among my students and throughout the calendar? In setting reasonable goals for myself for the remainder of the year, which students should I focus on? The lowest performing? The highest performing? Those on the cusp of failing? Unfortunately one of the ugly truths behind TFA is that it feeds off of statistics, and good ones at that. And since my marks are still far from the TFA goal of 80% student mastery of content standards, I often get the sense that my work at this school will never be enough. And it doesn't help that the math department is very cynical.

I've always been one to subconsciously determine my own success based on what everyone else is doing or has done; years of school and grade point averages I think are responsible for this. It's without a doubt a new experience for me to measure success without comparing to others. If I were to do that now, it feels like failure. In a very self-reflective way I feel like this is one of the main things that I am learning from this job - that the idea of "success" is complex and can be broken down into many parts, instead of being viewed as some intangible goal of perfection. It may sound cheesy, and I may be saying this because a week off has made me forget my awful 7th period class, but I am pretty satisfied knowing that I am doing the best I reasonably can.

Ugh, I rewrote that last paragraph about three times but it still reads like a testimonial about "how this job is changing my life." Sorry about that.