by Anne C. Lewis
As math department chairs, Edward Samuels and Mike Lynn do double duty,
prodding their own eighth-grade students toward high school work while they
provide administrative support for the other math teachers in their schools.
Although the title has a lofty sound, the job of middle school department
chair has traditionally entailed "mostly bureaucratic type things,"
as one chair describes it-ordering books and supplies, calling meetings,
and serving as a liaison with the principal and district. For performing
these tasks, Mike Lynn receives a modest supplement of about $130 a month.
Ed Samuels, whose school has twice as many students, earns about twice that
amount.
Next year, the important but mundane department chair's job will undergo
something close to a revolutionary change. To assure that every school has
strong leadership for standards-based reforms in core subjects, department
chairs will be expected to really push the envelope, to help all teachers
bring curriculum and classroom tests into alignment with the district's
subject-area standards.
Department chairs, says assistant superintendent Chris Dominguez, "will
be leaders of school-based professional development." They will serve,
she hopes, as a new cadre of expert teachers who will be expected to lead
and inspire their math, history, science, and English colleagues, encouraging
them to examine and critique each others' work and constantly improve classroom
performance.
The district can expect some turnover in department chairs over the next
several months, as current occupants try out the new duties and decide the
leadership responsibilities are more than they bargained for. "This
wasn't the job I agreed to do," says a history chair. "I won't
be doing it next year. I'm not prepared to put myself forward as a leader."
Others say they just don't have the time.
Different challenges, different outlooks
Samuels and Lynn expect to keep their department chair posts. They both
look upon the change with modesty and some trepidation. Both came into teaching
because they wanted to work with kids and believe that standards-based teaching
will help their students move into high school math successfully.
Both switched career plans or careers to become math teachers, working their
way into full teaching credentials slowly, through the district's intern
program. They know their schools well-and have spent their entire teaching
careers at them. Both have been on the faculties longer than many of their
colleagues.
The similarities end there. Providing instructional leadership at Hamilton
Middle School, where Samuels teaches, will be quite different than the role
Lynn is likely to play as department chair across town at Rogers Middle
School. Same grades, same district, only a half-dozen miles from each other,
but very different places for teaching and learning.
Of the 18 math teachers at Hamilton, only three have been at the school
longer than Samuels, who's in his fourth year. Eight of the teachers have
come within the last two years. Teachers don't stay at Hamilton long for
a variety of reasons, according to Samuels. "There is a lot of extra
work to do here," he says, "such as advisories, readmits, paperwork
and the disruptions from schedule changes." The extra duties naturally
fall to the relatively small handful of "experienced" teachers
like Samuels.
The size of Hamilton (about 1500 students), a sudden surge in enrollment
this year and all the problems that come with a large school make Samuels'
job difficult. Through Title I and other programs, the school has lots of
resources, he says, but teachers have little control over how they are spent
and must scramble to find calculators and even rulers. At mid-year, he still
had 300 students without math textbooks.
Samuels teaches the only algebra class at Hamilton and is hoping to add
another next year. It isn't that the largely low-income and highly transient
students who enroll at Hamilton can't tackle algebra-Samuels believes they
all could handle it-but they come with low skills. Most cannot depend on
help with schoolwork at home.
"I've learned that I have to slow down and give them only a step or
two at a time," he says, showing the tiles and other manipulatives
he uses to help take math out of the abstract and make it concrete, something
students see they can use.
Samuels often asks students to write letters to someone else explaining
how they solved math problems in order to demonstrate their understanding
of the work. Not a math major (he was in business administration and another
career before becoming a teacher), Samuels thinks it is an advantage to
have started where many of his students are. "If I had taken too much
math, I wouldn't be able to explain it to kids," he says. "I realize
that it needs to be understandable."
A school where kids have to be convinced to learn
Samuels' classes are full of students who must be convinced that schoolwork
is important. For Samuels, that means teachers at Hamilton must be skillful
at helping their students understand the why and what of math content. It
means modifying traditional teaching in which teachers assume students have
the background to learn new material and handle the textbook.
"Teachers need to do diagnostic testing of each student, they need
to reexamine their lessons," he says. Samuels and most of his fellow
math teachers are moving toward such changes as part of their efforts to
become standards-based. "The teachers used to say they would have to
teach at the students' level," he says. "Now, they say they are
going to teach at the standards level."
In mid-winter, Samuels and other department chairs shared their student
work with teachers. In January, the teachers began bringing in their own
students' work for discussion. In addition, the math department has coordinated
the math content, deciding what needs to be done
at each grade level to meet the district's standards.
Principal Cynthia Terry has pushed department chairs to assume more responsibility
for instructional leadership. Staff development days have been spent away
from the school, working at the teachers' center on standards-based lesson
and assessment development. With so many young teachers on staff, their
progress has been slow, but the district's math specialist has given extra
time to the Hamilton teachers. Teacher buy-in to standards at Hamilton was
slow at first, Samuels admits, but "we're getting closer."
Appointed department chair in only his second year of teaching, Samuels
wants to be helpful to other teachers and especially new teachers, but he
is reluctant to push his ideas. "I need strategies I could use with
teachers without offending them," he says. "I don't want to feel
that I am Mr. Hotshot."
A school where most everyone "is doing a good job"
Mike Lynn, in his seventh year of teaching at Rogers Middle School, also
approaches his position as department chair with some modesty. In his case,
he recognizes the expertise of his fellow math teachers, many of whom have
selected Rogers as the place they want to teach, after sharpening their
skills and knowledge in other schools.
This is Lynn's first year heading up the department.
"I don't feel comfortable making direct suggestions," he says,
"because we have a mutual respect that does not allow anyone to be
superior. Everyone here feels everyone else is doing a good job, with a
few exceptions."
Experienced teachers come to Rogers and stay. Lynn doesn't have any beginning
teachers to worry about. There is very little turnover among the staff at
Rogers; only one math teacher is new to the school, and she is an experienced
teacher. With such stability, students often have the same teacher for two
years in a row. Almost all of the students in one of Lynn's algebra classes
this year were in his classes last year. "I have no discipline problems
because they know me and they understand I can give them something they
need," he says.
In Lynn's opinion, "accommodations for a student who is lagging behind
don't do the kid any good beyond a certain point." He gives frequent
tests because the high school math teachers have told him to get students
ready for testing. Teachers at Rogers insist that the schools' classes are
heterogeneous; that is, students are not tracked into classes with higher
or lower expectations. However, 40 percent of the students take algebra,
the rest continue with general math.
The math department decided to pull about 30 students who missed out on
some basic skills out of their regular math classes and place them in a
special class this semester because "the great diversity in skills
in some classes is detrimental to all kids," Lynn explains. "We'll
see how it goes."
Department meetings at Rogers focus on on the district's academic standards,
according to Lynn, with teachers sharing student work and discussing the
progress of individual students. Standards are particularly helpful for
new teachers "or teachers who are not math majors, or math haters,
because they help them organize their thoughts and work." He is not
as sure that experienced teachers need similar guidance. At Rogers, with
its stable, experienced staff, standards are more of a guideline and somewhat
of a strategy "to cover your butt by posting student work with references
to the standards along with it."
Like Samuels, the Rogers math department chair sees time as precious. "All
teachers here feel overwhelmed," Lynn says, and even though some professional
development has been helpful to him, he resents anything that takes him
away from being with his students. A teacher must be selective, he notes,
complaining that he has dealt with algebra manipulatives so many times "I
don't feel they are useful now."
Lynn admits that "I have to psyche myself up for leading on standards-based
reforms," but praises the leadership of Rogers Principal Linda Moore.
With her support, he says, he will be able to provide the kind of help on
standards needed by the math department.
Chairs face very different challenges
Lynn and Samuels will face very different challenges in the year ahead.
But neither of them would be any place else. "The whole reason I went
into education was to help kids," says Samuels. "This school is
where I feel I am needed."
Like most teachers, Mike Lynn often feels overwhelmed by the enormity of
the teaching task and the scarcity of time. "I would love it if I never
had to sleep-I could stay up all night and create wonderful things. A lot
of things deprive me of time with my students. I lose sleep over it. Last
night I worried about a group of students who blew it on an algebra test
when I thought I had done everything I could."
But Lynn is also confident that "if I teach these students well, they
will learn the content and be successful. ...I keep trying. If I have a
middle-age crisis, it won't be because I think I am not making a difference."
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