Bridging the Sport-School Gap

Before I begin, I am realizing now that I should have changed that title, because for me the word "gap" has become a stressor. With the achievement gap, the literacy gap, the gaps in our scores and where we need to be, etc, the word has come to indicate things that I must always be thinking about. Frankly, for the amount of sleep I get each night, I have no more brain power to always be thinking about one more thing.

The boys' high school soccer season begins in a few weeks, so I met yesterday with the coaching staff to discuss how I'll be helping out during the season. It sounds like I am going to be working with the JV team and will be the official liaison with the school, since all the other coaches have other day jobs. Of course, to meet and discuss this I had to go to the open gym last night at Richmond High, and since traffic is so horrible, I had the agony of staying at school until 7:30pm until I could meet these guys and the potential players - who are pretty incredible at the game, from what I could see. These guys took me to town when I joined in on the open gym scrimmaging, and the fact that there were a bunch of my students and former students out there makes it difficult to continue my bad-ass soccer player persona I've been slyly playing during school hours. Regardless, I had at least four kids today ask me when I'm coming to open gym again, and it makes me happy seeing that they want to build that relationship with their teacher - even if it's the same teacher that gave them a failing grade last year. In all though, I feel like I may be in over my head. The coaches told me that typically about 200 guys try out for just the Varsity and JV squads, so based on the open gym skills I've seen, I don't know how I'm going to be able to confidently coach these guys when they could juke me out of my shoes. Luckily I think the other coaches are just really happy to have someone to help make sure their star soccer players are also star students. I'm telling you, over half of the students in that gym yesterday had the skills to play in college, if they only had the grades and preparation. The head coach said something like 50% of the graduating players went to 4-year institutions and the percentage was only so low because the rest of them weren't eligible for college admissions...

...And cue the conversation about the differences between high school graduation requirements and college admissions requirements. One of the things that pisses me off so much at our school is that students simply need 30 CREDITS of math throughout their four years, and CREDITS means that they got above an F grade. A passing grade in high school is a C- or better, but colleges' interpretation of passing is a C or better. This means that any D grade, while not acceptable for college, and while preventing the student from moving on to the next class, still provides the student with 5 credits each semester. This means that each year there are countless students that are given their high school diploma after earning 30 credits of math: 9th grade Algebra 1, 10th grade Algebra 1 and 11th grade Algebra 1. So essentially each year Richmond High School spits out a large handful of students that have learned pretty much no math in high school (because the standards for earning a D grade at RHS are pretty much just showing up and showing an ounce of effort). And then since nothing is done to separate kids into advanced or remedial classes, the star students are hindered and the lowest students get neglected, so the percentage of students "Far Below Basic" in math proficiency never changes and a class like my 2nd period Precalculus class becomes more of a comprehensive everything-up-to-Precalculus review class for the first three months. It's sad, frustrating, angering, and exhausting all at once. The worst part is realizing that most of the system is so far out of my control, and then having to find a way to let it go.

At least when soccer season starts it'll give me leverage with some of my more difficult students...

The Slow Process of Going Insane

I can feel it. This week ends the honeymoon stage of the new school year. Why you ask? I can't quite put my finger on it - it could be the recent realization that despite my endless hours teaching adding and subtracting negative numbers, about a third of my Algebra students still have no idea what the hell they are doing. Of course it could also be due to the building frustration with our sluggish Precalculus pace, begging an answer to how we will ever cover all the necessary material before the year is up. Then again, getting a 38th student in my Geometry class today pretty much pushed me over the edge, because with only room for 37 desks in class, this new addition has now made it near impossible to implement an effective seating chart.

If you recall, last year I had 41 students in one of my Geometry classes, but fortunately - or unfortunately, however you look at it - since it was a class entirely of sophomores, juniors, and seniors, I rarely had more than 30 students at a time. Comparatively speaking, it was perfectly manageable. The blessing/curse complex this year is having great attendance but too many bodies in the classroom at once. Generally speaking, 9th graders taking Geometry are very school-oriented and self-motivated, and these students are the ones you can count on to be at school every day, so my 5th period is always packed. I tell you - trying to teach 37 sugar-charged 14 year-olds immediately after lunch is driving me crazy. And the danger is that when that happens, the iffy teaching practices come out. Today, fed up and exhausted, I invited my more vocal student to the overhead to teach us how to do the problem and when he started talking, I started making annoyingly loud noises and interrupted him at every other word, and told him that that was how I felt EVERY DAY. We then went into a discussion about how hard it is to demonstrate a math concept when a student interrupts with a new random question every ten seconds. Because no Jada, I am not married, no Cynthia, I do not have any kids, no Raul, I do not have any lead for your mechanical pencil, and no Arturo, I did not see what Armando just did to you. My god.

Movie Review

Let me begin by saying that I have cried in more than a couple movies before, and on many an occasion I have sat down to watch a movie (or "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition") for the sole purpose of having a good cry. I think it's safe to say that the latter half of that is a more recent development since beginning my line of work.

That being said, I have never cried so much in a movie as in the last 20 minutes of "Waiting for Superman." Given, even the trailer for the movie made my eyes a little watery, so I'd be interested to hear how other people take the movie. For me anyway, it was just a brilliant collection of awfully real stories; ones that hit very close to home to the community I visit every day. In addition to being incredibly emotionally charged, it does make quite a few harsh statements about teachers' unions, so be ready for that when you see it. However, given my experience with our own United Teachers of Richmond, I wholeheartedly take the writers' side and continue to wonder how the idea of tenure for teachers has not been revised from its ridiculousness.

A lot of articles against the movie's stance speak about how the film suggests that charters are the way to save the education system - but these people don't realize that the movie is just showing how the charter school system is just a band-aid for a broken public education system. The movie even says that only one in five charters are considered successful by the same standards. The only reason why charters seem like the protagonist in the movie compared to the teachers union antagonist is because charters are these kids' and families' only other options from their local failing schools.

I walked out of the theater wondering if I would have been as moved by the production if I were doing something completely different in my life. I hope so. I know that the movie can make those who care care even more, but the question is that if it can make ignorant people care enough for something to be done.

Unfortunately though, as with real life, the film has no happily-ever-after ending, so it was nice to see Washington beat USC in football again to restore happiness in the world.