Sub Vision: School Closure 4: The Graduating Class

The graduating class, that I will probably not see before they graduate and before they leave school, includes a variety of students that I came to be attached to over the years at my favorite school, and I will miss them…

There is a whole group of students from the special education program, smart, nice, polite and friendly. I have known most of them since they were in 9^th grade and noticed how they grew up over the years… Eduardo, Randy, Samantha, Emmanuel, Nicole, Luis are only some of the faces I am going to miss.

There is a girl in that group that I can’t think of her name but can clearly see her face. She was quiet and reserved, and during her first few years was often absent from class, but projected a strong character. She became teachers’ favorite in her senior year; teachers bestowed responsibilities on her and granted her privileges.

Then there is a student who was in a science class that I taught, an artist, who kept drawing in every class, regardless of the subject. I saw him at a computer art class few weeks before closure, still drawing on paper, not using computer art tools…

Another bunch is a troop of mid-eastern students who are both annoying and charming at the same time, doing the most irritating things. When they are in my class they walk around and talk to each other, shake hands with friends, and find an excuse to leave the class. When I am in a different classroom they pop in their heads and disrupt the order... They call my name during break and pretend it didn’t happen. They recently discovered my phone number and call me with a fake ID… And yet they are charming, cool, and funny enough, they think that I am cool…

There is this student that I remembered from his middle school, and not for a good reason. He had long blond hair and was rude and disruptive. When I tried to show familiarity, he sarcastically rejected my friendliness. Then he started 11^th grade and he changed, working at a nearby supermarket, he became a mature, serious student. His manners became polite, and even his haircut turned short and civilized.

And then, there is this cute boy who was in a 9^th grade math class where I helped a new teacher. He kept appearing at my side as I walked the school holes, checking if I still remember his name, always carrying a big book, dreaming of a big career.

I hope to see some of them in the community college, where I, sometimes, take a class. I would probably not recognize them, but hopefully they would recognize me…

Sub Vision: Re-checking Full-time Teaching

For the past several months, I am looking for any new view or interesting occurrence while substituting. I had few long terms assignments, one to three weeks long, and many daily jobs, mainly at good high schools, mostly close to home, in many cases at schools that I know, and for teachers I identify, but nothing seems to change my mind of the likelihood of becoming an effective teacher.

I keep asking myself; would I be able to do things better next time around? 

Working at different classrooms I observe what other teachers do, how they handle discipline, how they make sure students are on task, and how they verify their knowledge, and I still can’t see an effective way to do a good job.

With an average of forty students in class, no assistants at the General-Ed track, lack of students’ motivation to succeed, absence of bar to meet, minimal parents involvement, or even care, and with budget cuts to all the support staff, there is just no way to succeed; no way to achieve real academic results, no way to motivate, or to compel, students to strive to a goal.

I am in good schools, with excellent staff, fine student body, and yet I don’t feel I could be successful as a teacher, and worse, that any of the other teachers meet my definition of success. Some of them are effective with some of the students, yet the majority of the student population is still untouched by the light …

Sub Vision: Back to Back to School - Part II

So, it turned up a lot better than I anticipated. I arrived at the school with a heavy heart, to find out that my first period was a conference. I slowly crept out the office, and then quickly proceeded to the classroom. There were no visible instructions for my first day, but it looked like someone had been there and put up the current date. As I looked around to find more clues, the classroom door was opened, and a young, unfamiliar, teacher entered the classroom. Our surprise was mutual, but soon it became clear; he is the new teacher, and since his processing not completed I was needed there. Yet, he wanted to be in charge and run the class.

Well, I am not a big ego person, and for sure, I am not stupid not to see an opportunity opens right in front of my eyes. I am paid not to do the work; he is doing it, probably without pay. So, I readily agreed (not before checking with the office that it is OK), and offered my assistance; helping distributing papers, showing presence when needed, and even providing few highlights from my math teaching experience, and opinion about the importance of reading. Delightful four days of being on the side and looking with critical eyes at what he is doing.

The truth, however, was not as easy to swallow. I was actually listening with owe to the way this young, new, teacher was building methods and structure to create the foundation for his teaching. He had a good syllabus with clear instructions and explanations of what he expects of his students; everything that I have ever tried to achieve with my students, all written down and spelled out, good ideas, logically explained, expectations with consequences. I was impressed!

So here it is – there is a wounded ego after all… Was I unsuccessful because I didn’t do all these things? Did I not lay a strong, sound, foundation since the beginning? Was I not organized enough to have a stable system, one that my students were able to accept and follow, one that has clear expectations and consequences? Was my syllabus (I always had one) not clear enough?

I have to remind myself not to rush into self condemnation… I think of those nice two math coaches who supported me, years ago, during that tough semester. I was so excited on the first week, and boasted of how well I did with my students. They, knowingly, smiled and promised me – it will get worse! And it did - a lot worse…

My hope and wish for this young and new teacher is that his system, talent, hard work and excellent intentions will prove successful!

Substitute Teaching: The school that had not changed

I worked at a high school for two years, as a volunteer, teacher assistant, and then a full time math/special ed teacher. I was offered to stay as a special ed teacher, but my goal was to become a general ed math teacher, so I left.

As a substitute teacher, I was rarely sent to that school. Being on the lower end of the food chain, I was sent to middle schools, and not the better ones. Then all of a sudden, more than ten years later, I started to get assignment at that school.

During my first few visits, I was very excited. I studied every staff member’s face and, surprisingly, recognized many. I saw my, then, assistant, who helped me become a better teacher, and other assistants and teachers with whom I worked.

What surprised me was that nothing had changed. Same bell schedule (many other schools had tweaked it with the hope to improve students’ performance). Same long (un-heard of) 20 minutes nutrition break, 35 minutes lunch (you can actually finish a whole salad ball), and, yes, 20 minutes of silent reading (long abandoned by all other schools, replaced by useless advisories, or breakfast in class).

At least as surprising, was to see the same teachers, at the same classroom! Wondering around trying to locate my old classroom, I discovered that the teacher next door, who was my mentor, but also my son’s Spanish teacher, was still there. Another of my son’s teachers, then a young and charismatic teacher, I located at the same classroom where he was twelve years earlier. Teachers did not even aged that much, and the ones I thought were, back then, quite old, don’t look any older.

I have marveled over this phenomenon every time I talk to someone who knows that school, until one day a lady who worked there pointed that something had changed dramatically - the main office!

She was absolutely right! Back in the days, there were two office personnel there, with the same first name, both pretty, both with a bright smile that welcomed you every morning, no matter how stressful the morning was. One had retired, the other was let go during one of the district’s unreasonable reorganizations. Replacing them is a new office manager who may be very efficient, but also very unpleasant.

A public school’s “main office” has enormous effect on school’s environment; it is the gate to the school, the first experience…

It has changed! And not for the better…

Ch 9 of 20: Technology

I don’t want to sound old fashion, even though I might be just that, but technology, sometimes, is just in the way of learning, at least in math, and especially in the lower grades where students are learning basic skills of calculation. If it was up to me, I would not propose calculators’ use until after algebra II. When students are presented with technology aids before they build a brain capacity to understand and figure out a way to solve a problem, their ability to think is cut short too early and their thinking process is being incapacitated.

Since the time I learned arithmetic, many “progressive” methods were introduced to the education system with, in my opinion, regretful results. Even before technology became so available and popular, a “new” method taught students to do the four basic arithmetic calculations using a digital, counting, method. Instead of developing a mental process of adding and subtracting, creating thus a brain picture for the meaning of these operations, they practice counting. While for my generation solving six plus seven was a mental process that we each developed in our mind (for me it was completing to ten and adding the leftover…), most students nowadays do all four arithmetic operations using their fingers; memorizing the multiplication table has become a big no-no, for some reason …

This digital (counting) method, by the way, is very successful with special needs students, and even children with severe disabilities are able to use it. The question is why teaching a method meant for less capable minds to perfectly capable brains. Why restrict students’ thinking process and thus limit their future ability to grasp more advanced concepts?

This incapacity manifests itself as soon as they start algebra, where abstract thinking skill is required. The list of subjects with which students struggle in algebra, as a result, is very long, starting with simple factoring. When they reach geometry, they are completely lost… They just don’t get it. Math and science teachers are continuously frustrated with their students’ inability to think beyond the very concrete, structured instructions.

My first full time teaching job was at a reputable high school, teaching math to students with special needs – mild to moderate. Being a brand new teacher, with very little experience, and not quite buying into the special education system, I didn't give in to the “can’t do” attitude of my SDC (Special Day Class) students. I demanded from them what I later demanded from all my general education classes.

At that class, one of my SDC students completely mastered multiplication and division. He was not one of the brighter students otherwise, so I was amazed and thankful for this ability. When I met his father, he explained to me that he insisted that his son memorizes the multiplication table. He told him that if he is capable of something as complicated as figuring out how to put together the sound system, plugging all the wires into the correct connections, he must be capable of learning something as simple as the multiplication table, and he made him learn it…

As a teacher, my misgiving of technology has to do with watching with dismay how students of middle and high school are incapable of doing essential math operation. When students as young as elementary learners are reaching for a calculator to solve simple addition and subtraction problems, and middle-schoolers depend on technology to solve easy multiplication and division problems, mastering a basic skill like long division becomes a rarity and uncomplicated fractions and decimals questions become mission impossible…

As an observer of the education organization I am half-amused half-angry (being a taxpayer) at the tremendous waste that goes into the technology craze.

Almost any type of technology is expensive, and has to fit into some budget strategy. Teachers who plan on using calculators, for example, should find a way to stock their classroom or have an access to the prized storage. At one school, I had to get rid of the entire math related supplies at the end of the school year because of an English teacher who requested that specific classroom. All the items that were accumulated there for many years of math teaching had to be removed. Going through the supplies, I could not believe my eyes, seeing all the riches hidden there. On top of endless piles of basic items, there were tens, if not hundreds, of scientific calculators, and almost as many graphing calculators, a treasure that would make any math teacher the happiest person on campus…

I stood there, dumbfounded, not knowing what to do with all this wealth. The administrators who could have stored and saved it had already left the campus and I ended up distributing priceless items to whoever was present and expressed slight interest. Since I was not sure I would be there next year, I didn’t save any for myself… The following years, still on the same campus, facing a shortage of supplies, especially calculators, I would remember with dismay the lost treasure... 

(By the way, this English teacher decided that she didn't like my room, after all, and caused another teacher, young, good and well organized, to go through the same classroom dismantling process… Three month into the school year, this English teacher left on maternity leave and never came back to the school…) 

Public schools receive technology budget and in most cases, the rule is “use it or lose it”. It was not an unusual situation, then, that in one school, while being on a tight budget for the very basic supplies (papers, pencils, markers and so on) a decision was made to install a smart board in each classroom…

I was in the middle of teaching a lesson, trying my best to convey an algebraic concept, using every square inch of the white board and encouraging students to copy, when a knock on the door disrupted my class. I opened the door to two guys, holding a huge smart board, informing me that they came to install it. “Now?” I asked with disbelief? “I am right in the middle of the lesson!” This information didn't seem to impress them much, and they marched directly toward my white board, with serious intentions to remove it right there and then and replace it with the smart board. Stepping forward, I was ready to physically block their way. Adding extra pleading mixed with threatening, I, somehow, convinced them to agree to come back at another time. The compromise was that for now they will just mark the location… So they drew a big black ‘X’ right in the middle of my algebra jargon, and happy with this achievement they did exit my classroom, leaving me still perplexed about the event that almost took place…

By the end of the semester almost every single classroom was equipped with a smart board, but, sadly, only very few were used… Five years later, working in many public and private schools since, I have never seen so many smart boards at any single school. The sad part is not only that most boards were not utilized, and that they replaced a necessary white board space, but that they used up an enormous amount of money that was desperately needed for basic supplies…

I have recently seen classrooms with rows of unused, dusty computers. A teacher told me she was assigned to a classroom full of computers that she needed for her course, but none of them was connected… Schools are stocked with hundreds of computers, only part of them are in a usable condition… but – there is a new idea now, fresh from the education politicians with the help of savvy business men – an iPad for every student! Another untested idea that until proven helpful or unhelpful to students, will cause a chaos in the classroom, add extreme stress on teachers and will cost millions of taxpayers’ dollars… 

Link:

http://tekbot.unl.edu/SPIRIT2/Articles/TPCKinMathArticle.pdf

Ch 7 of 20: Books

Remember those light weighted books that our parents would buy us at the beginning of the school year? Well, maybe what I remember from a different country, in a different era, does not apply to my generation’s experience in the US, but I am sure someone remembers, even here, a time when a textbook was just that – a text book. Not an artistic creation with colorful pictures and short sophisticated clips, but just a book with text. Don’t get me wrong – I am all for enrichment of the mind and the senses, and teaching with open horizons is more than just a good idea… but…

How many students do you know that are looking at those additions just because they find them interesting? We do; the teachers, the parents, the adults who are holding the textbooks, but most of the children do not. “So what?” you would say – “if only one in a hundred students looks at the enriching part then it is well worth it…” And you may be right. However, this enrichment comes with a price… each text book weighs more than an average person can hold for several minutes… if I need to move two or three books at a time I really have a problem – and I am a fit adult who is able to handle more stress than many teachers I know. “Well, students are younger and stronger” you may claim, and you may be right again, but what happened when they have to carry five or six books that are just as heavy? My daughter suffers from backaches for years now, since she was in middle school. Being the ‘A’ student that she is, she carried all her books back and forth, as she was told to do, in a backpack that was as heavy as her skinny early teens figure… I used to watch her with pain as she carried those torturous heavy books, and I would frantically call the middle school office begging them to delay the school bus departure for several minutes so that students would have enough time to get to their lockers and get rid of the weighty burden at the end of the day, but of course my appeal was never listened to.  Yet, as a parent, I was quite impressed by the quality and richness of the textbooks, and considered their weight as a trade-off. I changed my mind when I became a teacher…

I realized that no one of my students had ever read or paid any attention to the extra information. Few of them might have found some of the information mildly interesting if I read it to them, and even that slight interest happened only in the higher-level classes. I found the over-loaded information too confusing for the average student, the pages too busy, and the important information too hard to find. My favorite Algebra and Geometry textbooks were two simple books that were assigned to me when I was teaching special education class on my first year; basic, colorless small books, with the learned material simple, clear and easy to find. I used those books whenever I could do so without risking my career…

One of the hardest and least effective battle that I had to fight with my students was making them bring textbooks to class. It was just a losing game. Once you sent the books home with students, at the beginning of the school year, as you were supposed to do, most probably you would never see them until the end of the year (usually still brand new and untouched...) If you allowed students to leave their books in your classroom, most probably they will soon disappear, and not only that would not be used, but you, the teacher, will be blamed for their loss. Officially, teachers are not allowed to store students’ books in their classroom.

So… many schools came up with a solution – they offer a class set. Sounds like a great idea? (especially for the books’ publisher…)  Not so fast! These books are not assigned to a specific student since they are being used by all learners that take the same class, and thus they are subjected to neglect and abuse… I saw classroom books flying in the air toward unsuspecting student, being torn, left on the floor and stepped on, being transported to random locations at the school grounds, and most of all – being an open space for graffiti, innocent in the better case, but quite often inappropriate and vulgar.      

Different teachers have different solutions for the books dilemma. One of my colleagues, whose classroom was next to mine, a tough guy who was also a respected coach, did not give in to the books situation. He did not agree to have a class set and demanded that students bring their own textbooks. Students that came empty-handed had to stay standing up for the entire period… It took me a while to figure out why some of his students would come to my classroom and ask to borrow an algebra book, with a solemn promise to bring it back (and they did). But, when more and more students showed up with the same request … I, at last, asked him what was going on and found out what the reason was…

Other teachers’ answer to this impossible situation is not using textbooks at all – they use only worksheets… Imagine the expense that results. Not only that the school spends hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars on textbooks (and they are mandated by the district!) it wastes many additional thousands of dollars on duplications. Most of those papers are just for a one time use and being tossed (or become flying objects) very soon afterwards. And the worst part of using worksheets is not even the waste, but its poor value as learning materials. Students get into a bad habit of just plugging in an answer in the “fill in the blank” area (makes the job of copying real easy...). I was shocked to discover, when teaching Algebra II to eleventh graders, that doing homework means for them just writing the answers on a piece of paper, without even copying the problems (and in most cases just copying the solution from the back of the book…)

So how did we get ourselves in such an impossible book situation? The answer is, unfortunately, quite common in the education business – money! Someone is making money, a lot of money, out of those textbooks. Think about a large school district that enforces a certain textbook on all students in its domain. Each of these hard covered, heavy with hundreds of pages, books, cost the district many tens, if not hundreds, of dollars. How can the publisher charge so much for its product? By padding it with very many un-necessary colorful pages so it can justify the price. This is not a new trick by any means. Restaurants, for example, give us enormous and unreasonable amount of food just so that they can charge us a lot more…

Of course, this is not the only way to get the district pay unbelievable amount of money for textbooks… Every so often, the school district is committed to buy a new edition of the same books… well, hard covered books don’t get destroyed very easily so there must be another way to move and re-vitalize the book business -  new edition... They do that also to the colleges and universities textbooks, although probably not with as much revenue as in the K-12 industry.

So, here we are again… Teachers (and students) pay the price for a system that is completely ignoring their needs. Books that are impractical for use by teachers and don’t fit the needs of students. A situation where teachers are scrambling to find a way around the system to supply their students with what they really need. And in doing so, not only they, quite often, use their own money to supplement a budget of millions of dollars used inefficiently, but they are also prevented from doing what they really want to do – teach efficiently…

Ch 4 of 20: What is wrong with our education system?

EVERYTHING! Everything EXCEPT FOR … believe it or not… THE TEACHERS…

to teachers with love...

For the past ten years of being in education, I have NEVER met a bad teacher. I met teachers whose teaching methods might have not been ideal, in my opinion. I met teachers with whose opinion I did not agree. I met teachers that were not as organized as I thought they should have been, teachers whose response to a situation was different from mine, but not even one of them was a bad teacher!

All the teachers that I know love their job and try to do their best. They are very intelligent people with knowledge that goes far beyond what they teach, in their subjects and in general. They show up to school when they are well or sick, fresh or tiered, making almost impossible arrangements for their families to take care of their sick children, aging parents, or incapacitated spouses. They come to school early, some of them very early, and often stay late after school hours, long after their learners had gone. They remain at their rooms during lunch to accommodate struggling students, and they come in the evenings to endless required, or even only recommended, meetings.

Teaches spend a weekend after weekend preparing lessons, projects and tests, checking endless amount of papers, and planning new policies and methods in hope that maybe this time their effort will bring better results. They answer emails and phone calls from administrators, parents and students. They are available for anyone at any time, almost twenty-four hours a day, almost every day of the year.

Yes, there might be some CEO’s out there who are responding to communication coming their way at all times, maybe even on vacations and off time, but shall we compare compensations?

A teacher is paid for six hours of teaching a day. Yes, it does include, sometimes, one “free” hour, conference, for preparation time. I don’t remember too many conference hours that I actually used for ‘future’ preparations, let alone “free” time. There is, always, so much to do that teachers use conference hours to catch up on school errands, and they barely make it.

On average, and this is quite an accurate assessment, for each classroom instruction hour there is at least one, out of class, additional hour of work. It means that at the end of every school day a teacher had already worked two school days. It means that by the end of the school year the teacher had already worked for every single day of the summer vacation, winter vacation, and every other vacation. In most cases teachers had “covered” most of their weekends, as well, and probably more than that…

So – what IS, really, wrong with the education system?

NOT the teachers! Yet they are the ones who are being blamed for all the ailing of our education system, and why not? They are the easiest target…

It always reminds me of a joke about a man who is looking for his lost key near the street light. When a neighbor asks him where he lost the key, he points to the other side of the street. “So why are you looking for the key here?” asks the confused neighbor. “Well, it is too dark over there…” answers the man, “it is much easier to look for it here…”

We are looking at the easy place, in the light, instead of looking where is right… The real problems and solutions are not under the comfort of the streetlights, but at the dark corners, far away from the easy and bright…

Yes, we all heard about cases of bad teachers, and yes, there are bad apples everywhere, but if there is one field where it is very rare, it is in education.

Why should a person want to become a teacher? For the money? For the respect? For the support?

No, a person who wants to become a teacher is an idealist (or a fool…), an optimist who just does not know how hard it will be to make his dream a reality; who does not realize that the system will consistently be against him and will continuously stand between him and the dream…

What do I mean? …Where shall I start…?