Substitutes

Dude.

I don't care how hard up for substitutes we are.

If someone is late every single time they sub the answer is to fire them.

Don't keep inviting them back! Talk about the safety issues involved in having a bunch of kids without supervision. I mean, COME ON.

I ended up pulling the kids across the hallway into my room just so that they would be supervised!

End of Year Division Review

I got really frustrated with my students today in math. I had four doing really well, two trying, three goofing off instead of practicing, three refusing to work at all, and one super unfocused but working when I could get his attention.

It is single digit dividing which we did to death earlier, and revisited in fractions, but they are just out of it! I hope tomorrow I'd better? I think I am going to print the modified sheet for them so they can have some confidence in their answers.

We The People...

I'm going to claim a win in the fact that I have boys walking around singing the preamble to the United States' Constitution.

We'll go into what it actually means later today. Or tomorrow. I hope.

The end of the year is always a little bit funky.

Data Data Data

I'm a little bit of a geek, but I dearly love Data Team meetings. I love being able to sit down with my team (with my administrators in attendance!) and talk over what our students are doing, where they are struggling, and what strategies I could use to help them to understand the material better.

As far as I'm concerned I wish that was what all meetings were like, but sometimes I feel like we get caught in the shuffle of SCHEDULING vs instruction.  Maybe next year as I integrate into a new data team I should suggest that the guiding questions of a PLC are in our norms so if we do get dragged into the SCHEDULING monster we can go back and ask ourselves, "Is this really what we need to be focusing on? No? Okay, pick someone to send an email and go back to where our focus needs to be: Kids."

What do we expect our students to learn?

How will we know they are learning?  

How will we respond when they don’t learn?

How will we respond if they already know it? 

Careful Words

I was forcefully reminded today to be careful how I speak about the kids when they aren't there.

I love my students,  no matter what.  I should never allow unkind words to cross my lips even if I an hurt or upset. I need to also be stronger about speaking up to my colleagues who are using inappropriate language to refer to students.

A draft lost in history

"We would even go so far as to contend that a political vision that has no spiritual grounding runs he risk of becoming totalizing and inhumane."

I found the above quote in my (years) old draft folder. Curiosity piked I looked it up and found this article I must have read during the course of my TESOL class during the 2009 college year era.

The real quote is thus:
"Spirituality offers a unique basis for “justice-making” (Lepage, 1991, p. 73). We would even go so far as to contend that a political vision that has no spiritual grounding runs the risk of becoming totalizing and inhumane. We would also hasten to add our conviction that “spirituality” devoid of political considerations is at best limited and at worst vacuous."

It's in an article from the Department of Education called First-Year Latino Teacher. Must read more soon.

Attitude Vs Achievement

We took our end-of-year assessments (not the REAL BIG DEAL GOVERNMENT MANDATED test) today, and a belief I know has been researched has been reaffirmed.

A good attitude leads to achievement.

A poor attitude leads to very little growth.

My students who walked into the test going, "Well, I can try and see what happens" scored highly.

My students who walked in going, "I can't do this" scored poorly.

Probably my highest kiddo, let's call him Drum Corps, didn't get a score nearly as well because he walked in saying he couldn't do it, and kept that attitude going throughout the entire test.

Now, another kiddo, we'll call her Pegasus, she blew the test out of the WATER. But again, she walked in with the, "I'm going to try my hardest!" attitude and it paid off.

Job for me over the summer:

How can I help kids adjust their mindsets (hello Dweck, let's spend some time together...) so that they can have the 'I-can-try' mindset all the time, not just for testing?

Book Review: Transforming School Culture

For the last few weeks I've been spending a lot of time thinking about school culture. This was brought to my attention because there have been quite a few incidents where I've ducked out of rooms because I don't really want to get involved in the discussions going on.  They're usually about our site administration and they just don't make me feel uplifted and comfortable staying where I'm at.

While perusing my professional library (granted, it's a small one shelf library), I stumbled across Transforming School Culture: How to overcome staff division by Anthony Muhammad. It was a book handed to me in my last school while we were undergoing a huge shift in philosophy. We didn't spend much time with it, but I did read it at this time. Since I was spending time thinking about culture I popped it open and ended up reading every chapter.

The book details four kinds of teachers:

The Believer

These teachers are the ones you want to have to school. They have a sometimes illogical (but awesome) belief in kids and their ability to overcome anything at all. They will do whatever it takes and are often the risk takers of the school because they have this belief in kids. These are the ones you find frantically working all hours to research, plan, and implement new ideas.

At the same time, these aren't always the best teachers in the school. Some of them have the foundational skills of teaching (classroom management, planning, organization, etc) down pat and they then use their belief and risk taking to the advantage. Others have their belief, but aren't quite sure of the most effective ways to bring about the outcomes they know are possible.

Something interesting about Believers is their living situation. Most believers are settled. They're married, they own their home, and they aren't likely to move anywhere soon.

The Tweener

I know this group well! I feel like I spent quite a bit of time as a tweener. 

These teachers are those who are new to the teaching profession or have just recently changed jobs. Often they do not have a set identity for themselves yet, and can be easily swayed by other's opinions. One defining characteristic of Tweeners is that they lack the professional experience to really be able to make the most of themselves. Often these are the teachers within the building who need the most explicit support.

Outwardly Tweeners may seem like they have it. Since most of them are coming out of colleges they have the most recent exposure to the newest research and ideas in education. They are eager and want to throw themselves into the work.

Unlike Believers Tweeners are just that, between. They are more likely to be unmarried, and to be renting. Because they do not have strong ties to the community they can freely move from one school to another if something doesn't satisfy them. It behooves administrators to latch onto their Tweeners and get them engaged and involved in the school so that they want to put down roots and stay forever.

The Survivor

Oh, I know this teacher well. I think I spent about 50% of this last school year hanging out here.

Survivors are just that - they're trying to get through the year with their sanity more or less intact. Sometimes it's just getting to the end of the day. Outwardly these teachers look fine, but they lean back on those things which will get them through like student bargaining. It's really important for administrators to identify these teachers and help them ASAP, and if necessary to get them out of the classrooms.

I'm really lucky. When I showed up at my Administrator's doorway crying and at the end of my rope, she walked away from her administrative meeting (TWICE) and met with me. 

The Fundamentalist

The book describes fundamentalists this way, "an experienced educator who believes that there is one pure and indisputable way to practice: the traditional model of schooling." To fundamentalist, change is taboo.  

He goes further into describing how Fundamentalists try to influence change to not happen withing their schools, but what really caught my attention was the four reasons why someone might be a fundamentalist. I think this is the real power in this book, because it gives administrators (and others) ways to help turn these teachers from their fundamentalist roots and help them to become a stronger and healthier part of the school culture. 

1. They do not perceive clear reasons for change.

2. They distrust the leaders who are pushing for the change.

3. They wonder if the change will cause them more stress and may not ultimately improve how instruction is occurring over what they are already doing.

4. They think that if they give in to change it means admitting they have been wrong and they will lose face. 

With all of this laid out, I'm starting to understand some of the struggles of my present school. Honestly, I believe that we have many fundamentalists among our ranks, but they're not the died in blood individuals who will resist change because it means they were 'wrong' before. Instead, I think that our school lacks a great deal of trust in the administration because of the constant turnover. In addition, they're not sure that that changes which are introduced are actually going to improve student achievement.

Even though I'll be leaving this school after this year, I'm optimistic for the future and for those teachers who are staying. I know that my building administrator has read this particular book, and understands the underpinnings of the culture of the school. (Though, I'm not quite sure he's aware of the level of negativity floating through the hallways.) I hope he's able to provide reasons for the changes he's asking us to make, and at the same time is able to start building the trust he needs to with the individuals.

A new beginning, four years later

I totally and completely forgot about this blog. Somewhere between 2011 and 2016 I simply dropped it. Maybe it was me just deciding to work more on school, or maybe I just got lazy.

Well a lot has changed since 2011. I spent five years at Madison Simms Elementary, teaching 4th grade. I saw numerous colleagues come and go. I finally became a part of the school culture.... and then we moved.

So. Now I am in Denver Colorado. The Lord blessed me to be able to get a job teaching 5th grade at a school called Fort Logan Northgate. Long story short it was a year of learning and growth for me which I'm not really sure I ever want to repeat.

I learned a great deal about students and especially working about students who live in poverty. I know that the lessons I've learned at Fort Logan Northgate will follow me for the rest of my life and hopefully they will inform my teaching for the better in the future.

Now I get to take a new step forward. I have just been offered a position teaching at the Colorado STEM Academy. This is a school based around stem principles. I will be able to use project-based learning, Hands On learning, and be able to have more of a direct control over what I am able to teach and how I teach it. I'm really looking forward to this change in my life and to celebrate it I have decided to improve myself with a little bit of professional development which I am looking forward to more than anything else in the world.

I have the opportunity to go to the international Society for technology education (ISTE) which will be in Denver Colorado this summer 2016. I'm looking forward to all of the new tools and techniques that I'm going to be able to learn during this conference and hopefully then be able to take into my new Venture at the Colorado STEM Academy.

Maybe this time I won't forget about this blog and I'll have an opportunity to write more about this exciting change in my life.

As a side note, blue eyes from a few posts ago is now 8 years old. She was baptized last March and is blowing her way through school. It helps she has a pretty amazing mother who helps her every step of the way. But never does it for her. Soon her little brother will be off to kindergarten also.

(Caveat for the end- this post was typed using goggle voice keyboard! For such a rough text to speech app this worked out pretty well, except for some weird grammar things!)

The Joys of Google Docs

I have two younger sisters who are both still in the public education system (middle and high school respectively.) Over the last few days they've both sent me papers to revise and edit for them. Both times I've read them, shaken my head and cried a little bit because they were SO TERRIBLE. (I love you sisters!)

I didn't feel it right to just rewrite them, so I popped their essays into Google Docs (which is easily done because instead of hitting "download" I hit "view".) From there I was able to converse with one sister over the phone to help her rewrite, and another over the Google Docs Chat Box to help HER rewrite. Both sister's papers are MUCH better, and the editing process was so easy! Rather than play tag with one another for a while as we each made changes to the same document we were able to look at the document in real time and change things. It might even be easier than it is to edit my student's papers when they're sitting right next to me! (It's quicker to "delete" than to "erase."