Entry #2: "It's the system that sets us up
to fly by the seat of our pants."
The first week was a bit of a roller coaster ride. It's Sunday
morning and I usually draft my diary on Friday night. But Friday night I
was in no shape to write. I was venting. I was unfocused. I was angry. I
was looking for someone to blame, myself, my students, my co-workers...
The responses of my classes to my basic "getting to know you"
activities were as varied as their abilities. Why was I surprised? I haven't
taught 11 sections before and I've never really taught Special Education.
It was shortsighted of me to hand out the same survey to all my students
when some can barely read.
As usual, the kids were pretty tolerant and tried to comply. However, in
retrospect I'm clear that I need to adjust my approach, and quickly. I'm
pretty anxious about providing a worthwhile experience for everyone and
especially, for my special needs students. I'm not at all sure that my materials
are accessible, and so I 'll need to adapt them.
I wish someone had time to talk to me about my concerns, but everyone is
so caught up in their own responsibilities that they've looked or acted
panic stricken when I've approached them.
Ordinarily, I never read students' records before I begin working with them.
I have always tried to give everyone a fresh start, but this year I may
need to review my thinking about records. I need to know which students
have legitimate reading or processing problems. I need to know which students
are on medication and which students require wrap-around services, even
if those services haven't been put in place yet.
I also need to adjust my approach to my colleagues. I came in on the first
day ready to support their efforts. I gave out a form and asked everyone
to let me know which themes and projects they'd be assigning so I could
plan our tech program accordingly. As of Friday, I hadn't received a single
form back. A few teachers mentioned a theme as they scurried down the hall
past my door.
One of my friends told me she'd be assigning a research project about pigeons
since the students are reading "Wringer" by Jerry Spinelli. She
even expressed a willingness to get the other two sixth grade reading teachers
to do the same. Our sixth grade team includes my friend -- who is a veteran
-- a sub in for a colleague who's out on maternity leave, and a first-year
teacher.
At first, I felt sort of let down by the lack of response. OK, I was angry.
But then I realized that folks are just trying to adjust to all of the demands
that the start of the school year brings. Reflecting, and a dozen years
of hindsight, helped me to understand that my colleagues are just as overwhelmed
as I am, and that it's the system that sets us up to fly by the seat of
our pants.
My willingness to "help" them had become just one more form they
needed to fill out ASAP and was left in their pile of things to be done.
I understand this mentality perfectly. Our principal asked all subject chairpersons
to pick a meeting date so we could "team," and much to my embarrassment,
I lost the memo.
In addition to the basic pressures of just being back in school, almost
every school has been hit by retirements and transfers and our school is
no exception. We have about a dozen first year or substitute teachers in
positions. I can't imagine another business that places inexperienced people
in rooms full of supposedly "valued" clients, often without basic
materials, and after two days of meetings, says, "do your job!"
In many cases, people are assigned to teach classes they feel ill prepared
to teach. I'm not just talking about my school here, I'm talking about schools
in general. The new people try to get help from the veterans, and we try
to give it, but there's no extra time built in to do so. I'm sure the new
teachers feel somewhat abandoned and I know the veterans feel hassled.
A first year teacher I know started working at a charter school a week and
a half ago. He's prepared to teach high school English, but he's assigned
to teach technology and has no computers, books or materials as yet. He
wants guidance. Instead he's been given "the opportunity to design
his own curriculum." Ouch. When I hear him say it, I can hear my own
philosophy coming back at me from a very different point of view -- his.
What I see as freedom, he sees as an abdication. He feels cast adrift. He'll
survive and so will the kids, but we're supposed to be about students achieving,
not merely surviving.
This year our District is requiring cross-curricular projects from our fourth,
eighth and twelfth graders. The reason I'm teaching this tech roster is
to support this requirement, but when will teachers be given time to team?
I'm not even on a team for the weekly meetings. I'm a "prep" teacher.
I cover classes while the other teachers have team meetings.
Teaming takes time, trust and more time. A one-shot staff development session
will not be enough. I'm not interested in the old one-word assignments or
topics because they lead to good old plagiarism and the "how long does
it have to be?" type projects. When will teachers have time to develop
more substantive projects and the rubrics that should accompany them?
I took this new assignment so I could explore topics more deeply with my
colleagues and my kids. I thought we'd be infusing technology, topics and
student choice, BUT all of that takes time, time and more time.
In my survey, I tried to get kids to start thinking about their interests,
their strengths and their weaknesses. Most of my students either had no
idea what I meant or didn't trust me enough to say what they thought. They
usually measure success by grades and whether they like the teacher or the
teacher likes them. They have no independent frame of reference.
Again, why was I surprised...? They've never been taught or almost never
been taught, to think independently. In fact, independent thinking has often
gotten kids labeled as a troublemakers.
It's always been our job to tell students, how and what to think. And unfortunately,
many teachers were taught in exactly the same way, so they want someone
else to tell them what to tell their kids and so on down the line. HELP!
So what will I do tomorrow? Today, I'll be developing a series of questions
about pigeons and possible project options to offer students. If my friend
agrees with my approach, I'll ask her to act as my sixth grade team liaison.
We're in the Critical Friends Group together so we've already built a lot
of the trust and friendship which teaming requires. I'm sure we'll come
up with a joint approach.
I'm going to work on a similar set of options for my seventh and eighth
graders, but I'll use their math assignment as our initial theme. The math
teacher has assigned two papers. One paper is about the history of mathematics
and the other is about mathematicians. I've never worked with him before,
but I think we'll be able to agree on some meaningful student choices. Of
course we'll have to do this before school tomorrow so there won't be time
for a lengthy discussion.
On Friday, after the kids told me about their math assignments, I asked
them to narrow the topics for themselves over the weekend. We'll brainstorm
their ideas on Monday and hopefully hit the computers for research by Tuesday
morning. I'll teach search skills and saving to floppies in the context
of the math questions which the kids need to answer. I'm also going to distribute
the bibliographic format we'll be using to most of my classes. If we start
the year citing our sources correctly, it may not be such a struggle in
the spring when the exit projects are due.
I'm still worried about my Spec. Ed classes. Here again, I'll call on an
old friend to help me with some strategies. I think I'll read a chapter
of "Wringer" aloud each day to start our classes. I'll pre-search
the web for suitable questions, answers and sites.
I'll begin reading those pockets quickly tomorrow morning, so I can start
pairing students cooperatively. We'll begin, and it will be bumpy, but it
won't be babysitting. They deserve more and so do I.
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