Mississippi Teacher Corps. 'Nuff said.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

All My Lovely Lovelies

I love my students. I've been noticing that a lot lately. Sometimes I call them my “beautiful chldren” and want to hug them all. I never used to feel quite that way about teaching. I used to be a lot more cool and strictly down to business, but starting last spring and continuing this fall, I have come into a more natural balance between inner affection and outward professionalism that feels just right to me. Now, seeing the good and the beauty in each of my students, watching them mature, learning their stories whenever possible, and coming to appreciate the uniqueness that makes them each human is one of the best parts of being a teacher. Oh, I am still down to business most of the time during class. The classroom is a busy place, so we don’t usually have a lot of time for idle chit-chat. I just like being around the students and enjoy the less formal opportunities that come along as they do.

For example, yesterday morning, just as I was about to start my first block Algebra II class, an announcement came over the intercom that all eleventh graders were to meet in the gymnasium to take some sort of test. As that removed 80% of my class, it seemed pointless to hold a normal class session. So after watching the Channel 1 broadcast in more blessed peace than usual, I broke out the games, and we spent the entire period playing Set, while one of my students got caught up on some of her homework. It was fun to interact with my students in the smaller group and more casual atmosphere. I learned that one of my good students in that class is extremely competitive. She kept having to play me over and over again, trying to beat me, talking trash and asking how I could sleep at night, finally resorting to calling me a “cheater” at the end for no other reason than because couldn’t beat me. It was all in good spirits, though. It was fun to see the other students, her classmates since grade school, chide her for her competitive spirit. They joked that she competes with her sister in brushing her teeth in the morning!

Part of enjoying my students has been feeling comfortable with them and allowing my sense of humor to come through. For instance, my students never cease to complain about the dark smudges left when I touch their papers, as my hands are usually covered dark with whiteboard marker dust. In return, I joke with them that my fingerprints are actually quite valuable, because someday I will be a famous criminal. Today, when someone complained that I left their paper black, I answered, “That’s because I’m black." That got a good laugh from everyone who heard it. (I must admit, I'm rather proud of that one. Given the context of race as a white teacher in an all-black high school, it was one of my best one-liners ever!) The next block, one of my students tried to play a trick on me. Several students had been asking for more graph paper. I was telling them okay, as long they bring me some of their trick-or-treat candy the next day. (I was kidding about the candy—mostly!) Well this one student, normally one of my quieter and more studious, started to ask for more paper, but when I got to the part of what are you going to bring me tomorrow, he said, "Nothing!" and whipped out his paper that he had saved from yesterday. I said, "Haha! You're so funny, you get detention for gum!" Which was true, he was chewing gum. But his neighbor thought my come-back was funny enough to repeat it to the rest of the class. I never used to joke like that. It sure makes the workday more fun though! I believe the students enjoy and respect it more, too.

I really do believe there is something good and beautiful in each student. Hey, don’t get me wrong, some students are certainly easier to appreciate than others! But a student who does nothing academically in my class sometimes gives me the best compliments and responds well to any positive remark on my part. Or the student who got sent to alternative school last year for beating up another student turns out to be one of my best, most respectful students, one of the true pleasures of my day. Even those students who give me nothing but a pain in the butt most of the time occasionally have their moments when I just feel like hugging and kissing them.

One of my students today told me I should have kids of my own because, he said, “You’re a good roll model for me.” I laughed at first, then thanked him. This particular student has a tendency to try to butter me up, and I’ve told him as much. Still, I guess I tend to believe there is a kernel of truth—whether irony or hyperbole—in just about everything anyone ever says. No matter how facetious or insincere, it still comes from somewhere. So I choose to believe he really meant the compliment, although I also take it with the appropriate skepticism. On a similar note, I am looking forward to taking two or three of my better students to Oxford this weekend with Dr. Mullins’ football tickets. My best student from last year already turned in her “why I want to go see Ole Miss” letter to me. She mentioned that one of her reasons is to go with her “favorite teacher.” Of course that makes me feel good! I really enjoy having these good relationships with my students who often are far from perfect, but altogether loveable.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Evolution of a Desk-Sitter

One big way my teaching style has changed is that I have become a much more relaxed classroom manager. The style I brought from my experience in Namibia was a very strict, shut-up-and-listen sort of approach born largely out of the fact that there, my students were speaking in their mother tongue, which made it difficult to impossible for me to judge the appropriateness of their talking. I am now willing to tolerate a fair bit of talking, as long as it remains appropriate and at a somewhat reasonable volume level, and the students listen while I am talking to them. Both ends of the spectrum have their advantages and their disadvantages, and the trick is to find the happy medium that is most comfortable and useful. I find that the stricter approach is easier to enforce consistently, while the less strict approach is easier to maintain participation and enthusiasm.

I was about to say I have allowed the classroom management pendulum to swing too far in the other direction this year, but that's not really it. Truth be told, my classroom management is none too good right now, not so much because of a stylistic shift, but because I am just barely hanging on in every aspect of my life. The depression mentioned in earlier posts is still very much in force, and it affects my productivity profoundly. It is all I can do most days just to show up, so the legwork (i.e. paperwork, follow-through, and phone calls) necessary to be a really good classroom manager are just not getting done. I think my style would be sound enough if I were more productive on the back end.

My teaching style has also changed in how I choose to spend class time. Basically, I spend a lot more time waiting for students to do something, and less time telling them how. I often alternate between an example that I work out on the board and a "try now" example, for instance.

Recently, my school purchased several Texas Instruments Navigator systems. The Navigator is basically a semi-wireless network for the TI-8x graphing calculators. My favorite feature of the Navigator system is the ability to do "quick polls," which are basically instantaneous question-and-response's you can send and collect at any time. All I have to do is point to a problem, press quick poll, and tell the class to type on their calculators what they think the answer is. Their responses show up instantly on my computer. It is sort of like using the individual white board panels to have students respond and hold up their answers, but with several significant advantages. On the Navigator, you have a way to mark the correct answer and get an instant count of how many got it right. Another huge advantage is that the responses are permanent, and you can see them all from one place. You can save the results to use as a participation grade. You can give very immediate, individual feedback without having to walk around the room all the time. In the time it takes to walk over and look at one student's paper, I can tell at least four different people exactly what they did right or wrong without even leaving my computer screen. It even helps me to distribute meaningful praise! Indeed, the Navigator system has changed the way I teach, as I now spend more productive class time actually sitting down, waiting for students to respond and giving them feedback! When combined with specific praise (writing names on the board as "stars" of the day works for me), this style seems to help the middle "third" of my students stay more engaged and more motivated during the lesson itself. And I stay more in touch with exactly how many students are "getting it."

Unfortunately, many of my TI classroom calculators were stolen while I was absent the other day, but I still have the Navigator system itself. Lots of theft and stuff has happened at the school lately. Other teachers had a laptop and a desktop computer stolen, and the library was broken into just yesterday. Frustrating!

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Kill Yourself

Is Teacher Corps making a difference? My gut says no.

Have you ever heard of the Law of Thirds? The Law of Thirds says there are three distinct groups of people. (The relative proportions may vary, but we call them thirds for shorthand.) The law of thirds pertains to teachers and leaders of all sorts. According to the Law of Thirds, the first group of people will be successful no matter what you do. You simply usher them from one success to another. The middle third are the ones you can do the most to influence. They need your influence and are receptive to it. Then you have the bottom third. These are the one who cannot be helped. Some people are simply too stubborn or lazy or stupid to change, no matter what you do. You can sing in falsetto, and they won’t listen. You can parade naked ladies, and they won’t pay attention. (Of course, I exaggerate, but you get the idea.) A school is a culture, and cultures act a lot like people. They have to want to change! Teacher Corps attempts to help the students of Mississippi by sending new teachers to the worst of the worst schools—cultures of failure, to put it bluntly—and expects what, exactly?

There is a mythology at play here that needs to be addressed. Popular culture circulates an unrealistic archetype of the individual altruist hero single-handedly turning an entire village, classroom, or school, on its head. It is an appealing notion. Send one Peace Corps volunteer to Africa and you can change an entire village. “Sustainable development” is the catchphrase. And you know what? It is complete hogwash! There is a kind of idealistic hubris to it, as if we select few know something the rest of the world does not, indeed the very secret to happiness. As if all we have to do is whisper it in someone’s ear, and all will be well! The lone, amazing teacher who changes everything is a feel-good story, to be sure, but it is the stuff of movies, not everyday reality. “Stand and Deliver” and movies like it are only loosely based on reality, at best, and only present the entertaining, Hollywood side of the story. Many of them are completely fictional, and those based on true stories are at best one in millions: Rare, and in some cases (such as Stand and Deliver) dubious upon closer inspection. Miracles are just myths, and no one can measure up to a myth. People and cultures are the way they are because of forces much larger than the influence of one individual (not to mention itinerant) outsider.

The fact is, every Teacher Corps teacher is temporary. The other teachers, the principals and superintendents, the parents, and even the students, will all be here long after we are gone. The thefts and the fights, the inane interruptions over the intercom and countless interruptions to the school day, students wandering the halls all day long, the aimless leadership from the top down, and the almost contagious apathy were here before us and will also remain.

As unpopular as the “troop surge” in Iraq has been domestically, it makes sense to me. If our soldiers are to be engaged in Iraq at all, sending adequate numbers is elementary. You cannot win a war if your soldiers are spread too thin to control the situation on the ground. I wonder how different Teacher Corps is. How much change do you really expect to make with 20-30 new teachers per year in an entire state? Each of us is but one of many teachers. We are one out of at most three Teacher Corps teachers at our schools. We are temporary, we are outsiders, and we are outnumbered. There is no way we are going to change the schools.

By the phrase “making a difference,” I think of something big, something lasting, something systematic and world-changing. On such terms, my answer is no. We make our differences on a small scale. There is no doubt in my mind that I am a better teacher than my students would have had for Algebra II without me. I also think I have made some positive influence (just by my presence, reminding them that “Kill yourself!” is not a respectful thing to say, teaching them how to play chess and Set, etc.) in the lives of a few students. I love my students (some of them more than others) and I think a few of them may even love me back in their own, mostly unspoken ways. But those are exceptions, and those students who love me most are probably the ones who would have succeeded, even without me. I have not set the world afire, nor will I.