5 posts from 2009

In ze classroom

I've been thinking about blogging a lot, but haven't gotten around to it until now.  Only four weeks have gone by since the first day of school, and only three weeks have gone by with the kids, but some much has happened!  Or maybe not that much has happened, but I have some many differing responses.

It would take a much better writer than me to reveal my entire MTC experience in one blog entry.  Chipping away at what the experience has been and might mean piece by piece, entry by entry, has been hard enough (okay so I missed a few deadlines, but still). There are so many angles to take.  REALLY.  Over the last two years I have done and seen so much and tried to understand things I don’t believe I ever really will.  Just two weeks ago two black teachers asked me what my impressions were of the high school I teach at as White person and as an outsider.  After two years of teaching there, my answer was completely incomplete.  I wondered if after trying to explain myself they understood anything I was trying to express.  I wondered if I knew.  So what follows is more like random bits of information than a revelation of my MTC experience.  The bits are rather shallow at that.  As I tell my roommate all the time, “it is what it is.”

EXPERIENCE:  There is absolutely no doubt that I grew by leaps and bounds through my experience with the Mississippi Teacher Corps.  I came into the program knowing very little of the ins and outs of teaching-- from writing a lesson plan, to structuring effective classroom management, to negotiating a school’s administrative and parental realms.  Furthermore, I had never lived on my own for an extended period of time, away from both my parents and the securities of college life.  
My journey began the summer of 2007 with MTC’s summer training program.  I learned how to write a lesson plan and the fundamentals of classroom management through Professor Monroe’s to the point, crash course lessons.  I began to implement these ideas at Holly Springs Summer School.  Although there were only a handful of students in each class, I was able to practice delivering the key components of a lesson and begin to get a feel of what my “teacher personality” might be.  Also of importance, I was given abundant feedback on each of my lessons-- enough of it positive for me to stick it out for the summer.  The second part of the summer gave me additional time to pick the brains of teachers who had already completed their two years in the program.  I picked Tiffany Bartlett’s brain on everything from lesson activities, project ideas (many of the projects displayed on this site were passed down to me from her), lessons, classroom management and organization, rewards, consequences, discipline referrals, and dealing with staff and administrators.  She was extremely helpful.  Finally, at the end of summer school training, we did several role-plays of possible situations that could arise during the school year, such as fights, threats from students, sexual harassment, etc.  Little did I know that these role-plays would be very true to life.  The role-plays taught me how to act prudently and professionally in situations that could easily be handled the wrong way.
     Then, I was thrown in with the fishes, to sink or to swim.  I really very nearly sank.  My first year teaching wasn’t exactly harder than I had expected; I had expected it to be very grueling.  What I had failed to take into account was just how long that grueling experience would be.  I was stressed out at the beginning of the year, but things only got worse from there.  I knew my students were behind grade level, but I never really internalized that I would be expected to teach algebra to students who still thought that 5 could not be subtracted from 3.  Every nine weeks my students were given district tests that they would inevitably fail.  And I would feel like a failure too.  I learned my “math couch” was two-faced.  Apparently threatened by my presence, she would say things about me to my superiors behind my back.  The students gave me no end of problems.  Some intentionally, some inadvertently-- like the student with cuts on her wrists who was doing fine for most of first term, who was sent to a behavior center at the end of the term, who missed the final, who failed the quarter with a 69, who proclaimed I was the most unfair teacher ever, and who slept through my class every single day for the rest of the year.  
For many long months it felt as though I was making almost no progress with my students.   Then, near the end of the third term, I began to see the progress that many of them had actually made.  They had learned something after all.  When the state test scores came in the next year, I was so proud of them.  Granted, the test is not that hard, and calculator programs can be employed to answer many of the questions; yet, 75% passed and 25% scored advanced.  Several of the students passed or scored advanced by only a small margin, and I knew it was the result of hard work on both their part and mine.  I hate the state tests and think they should be done away with, yet the results made me feel proud.
When it came to my home life, I did not feel as successful.  Despite the advice of many second and third years, I did not feel like I was successful in achieving balance, never one of my strong points.  Diet and exercise routines I maintained during summer training, slowly dwindled out of existence over the course of the year, most likely due to my ineptitude in dealing with the stresses of both teaching and going to school.  Perhaps due to the stress, but definitely worsening it, I got a horrible case of chronic urticaria with angiodema (or more simply said, hives).  The hives were so intense that I took off of work on at least one occasion due to the pain and irritation they caused.  Looking back on it, I feel like a wimp for being the only one in the program to have apparently been stressed out enough to develop such a visible autoimmune disorder.  I feared they would never go away, but they did-- around the time spring came and school started seeming less like my personal hell.
I would never have made it through the year teaching without the support of many people, including my roommate Melissa Smith, a second year who was filled with nothing but positive support of my efforts; Tiffany Bartlett who continued feeding me ideas and support, emailing pictures of projects, and even snail-mailing resources from Texas; Jack Roeth who reminded me that I was handed an impossible task; my parents and grandmother, who never said “I told you so,” but rather offered supportive advice to my tearfully stated woes; and my new friends Eleanor Mathis and Kelsey Mayo, fellow MTCers who were always down for a trip to The Pizza Shack or Cool Al’s to discuss the ridiculousness that is the WOW indicators, and other MTCers.
Despite, or perhaps because of all the drama, it was during my first year that I probably grew the most.  After all, I still had so much more to learn.  In course work at Ole Miss, Professor Monroe continued to impart to us the intricacies of well-developed lesson plans, as well as many teaching devices.  Constant observation during this year kept me on my feet, as I continually tried to improve lesson plans and classroom management.  During this year, I developed many, many lesson plans, and tried numerous classroom management strategies.
By the time the next summer rolled around, I actually felt that I had something to offer the first years that I worked with.  Working with the first years in a situation that was relatively stress-free for second years gave me a lot of time to reflect on the previous year and to think about what changes I wanted to make for the next year.
Not nearly as much growth occurred during my second year as my first, but the growth, for what it was, was very important.  In my second year, I was able to go back and fix things I got wrong the first time.  I spent much less time on writing and designing lesson plans and activities, but I fine-tuned what I had.  The disappointing part of the second year was that although I felt like a much more effective teacher in many ways, there were still problems I felt at a complete loss on how to handle.  For example, I know that I am still not good at differentiating instruction for very low-level learners.
    Evaluating my experience would be hard.  I hated most of it.  I thought a lot of the course work was lame and a waste of my time.  I frequently felt unprepared for and inadequate at the task I was handed.  I quit the program…  On the other hand, now that I am done, I am thankful for what I have- knowledge about teaching, experience teaching, a masters degree, personal and professional growth, a sense of accomplishment, amazing friends, memories.  If you want a fair evaluation of the program, I think you will have to experience it for yourself.

I, however, am soon to be "free at last."

Note to the Incoming First Years,

Welcome to the Mississippi Teacher Corps.  Are you ready for it?  Below I have compiled a list of do’s and don’ts for your induction to the Corps: Initial Summer Training:

Do realize Ben Guest owns you for the summer.
Do check the google calendar, it will be added to frequently, claiming more and more of your life by the day.
Do take the dorm furniture outside to play cards, chat, and sip on a beverage of your choice, enjoying warm Mississippi evenings.
Do check out Square Books
Do check out the gym
Do go for walks/runs/bike rides in and around Oxford
Do play ultimate frisbee at the park near campus
Do join MVP (Mississippi Vollyball Corps)
Don’t get stressed out if there are only 1-4 students in your summer school class
Do realize you will still get good practice writing lesson plans and trying out your teacher personality despite small class sizes
Do pick the brain of everyone you meet
Don’t worry when the advice is completely contradictory
Don’t spend more than three hours on any given lesson
Do keep it simple, silly
Do keep your health in mind.  Eat well, exercise.  
Do go to class on time, or fear the wrath of the highlighter
Don’t miss more days than allowed on the syllabus
Don’t worry when second years tell you that the school year is much more stressful than summer, it is, but they’re hating.  
Do take criticism constructively, but also seek out positive and encouraging mentors.
Do check out the library
Do visit Faulkner’s house
Do practice your introduction speech; you will have to repeat it a million times.
Do have fun folding paper in Ann’s class
Don’t swim in stagnate water and then get bitten by fire ants

Well I hope this list helps.  

Sincerely
Heather Kimmel

I teach Algebra I, a state tested subject.  This year I have a relatively bright bunch of students, about the top 10% of the first time 9th graders at the school (although a few of those MUST have cheated on the placement test....). 

Every nine weeks the district gives a really hard standardized test.  All word problems, mostly DOK 1000.  I have been pushing my students really hard with these tests in mind, and hey, it is good to have the students thinking on this level.  Most of them have done alright, but a good handful of them have checked out and have grades in the 60's.

As I was planning for my lesson tomorrow on quadratics, I took a quick glance at the SATP test to see how this topic would be tested.  Looking at the test for the first time in a while reminded me how EASY it is.  My students with 60's will almost surely score profecient on the test.  90% of the questions are DOK .02 if you know some basic facts and how to use the calculator.

Now I feel guilty.  Should I go back and pad some students' grades?  If the state of Mississippi is going to judge these  students as proficient in Algebra I, what bussiness to do I have judging them as failing?

Looking for thoughts!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwbteAIqUlY

it's hot.  what should I add?  voice over or The Entertainer?