Entry #39: "The bitter
outweighed the sweet this term"

I've been making excuses to myself.

I haven't wanted to wrap up this year's entries. I've told myself that it doesn't really feel like the year is over. After all, I've reasoned, I haven't stopped going to school every day and I certainly haven't stopped thinking about it. So what gives? Why haven't I been looking for that bittersweet closure which generally comes in June?

Simply stated, I think it's because the bitter outweighed the sweet this term.

I began the year rather indignantly. I read a Ted Sizer article about the impossibility of teaching large numbers of students, and I resented his assertion that my year was doomed to failure.

While I strongly agreed with the need for smaller class size, I was determined to beat the odds and make a difference with the 300-plus students in my "technology-assisted problem solving" classes.

I had my management systems in order and I thought my philosophy was sound. I had every reason to believe that my twelfth year of teaching would be challenging, but rewarding. (See the comments I made at the beginning of the year.)

I was right about the challenges, but the rewards were few and far between. Let's just say my systems were revised more than once, as I tried to get to know my kids.

I expected my students to be excited about learning computer skills. I thought they'd welcome the chance to use tech class to get their projects from other teachers done.

I guess I'll never know exactly why my program was so unsuccessful. Was it my lack of connection, with so many kids and so little time? I saw some classes twice a week and some classes three times.

Was it the combined frustration of too few computers and too many kids? I started the year with 10 computers and 33 kids in a class. I bought a kitchen timer and tried to put half of the students on the computers during the first half of class and then switch in the middle of the period. It was a nightmare!

I had to have two lessons. I had to keep the kids at the desks busy while I literally ran around the room giving hands-on assistance to those on the computers. "Keeping kids busy" is a far cry from teaching or facilitating learning.

See-through philosophy

My philosophy was wearing thin as my desire to keep my classes under control moved front and center.

I told myself, it wasn't all bad. Most kids were copying the instructions about "how to use spell check" or "how to conduct a web search" and some of them even followed them, when they finally got their turns on the computer.

But I clearly remember the day that a student asked me why they had to copy everything down. He wanted to know why I couldn't just give them handouts or have the directions at the "machines." Good questions, but I dodged them.

I talked about how they needed these skills to work efficiently when they "finally" got their turns on the computers, which was true. I said I couldn't spare the paper, which was also true. I didn't say, "I have to keep you busy and in your seats while you wait to get on the computers," but, to tell the truth, that was the main reason I had them writing every day.

When controlling kids becomes paramount, good teaching takes a back seat. I was unhappy, I was exhausted, and I felt that most of my kids did not like my classes or me. Why would they like it? They spent most of their time waiting -- waiting for computer time or waiting for me?

The digital divide was alive and well

After the first month, my principal started getting me more computers. As the numbers of machines grew, my reliance on "busy work" decreased proportionately. I also started getting to know most names and faces.

Things got better, but the class was still a struggle. I was able to put the timer away and get almost everyone on the computers each time they came, but only a third of the room was wired. The "digital divide" was alive and well in my tech class.

Generally speaking, the "haves" would work on their projects. They would try and find the information they needed. They would try and design their slide shows or brochures. They were happy to have access, but they often needed guidance.

If kids ran into a problem they wanted my help and they wanted it pretty quickly. I couldn't blame them for needing my help, but I did. I literally ran back and forth across the room trying to help everyone and wishing I had a clone or three!

The kids who didn't have Internet access, the "have nots," were disgruntled. Here again, I shouldn't have blamed them and they shouldn't have blamed me, but on some level we did.

I developed a system to try and fairly rotate students between stations with or without the Internet. Sometimes it worked, but there were always complaints. I struggled against taking the complaints personally, but I wasn't always successful.

I tried to remain proactive. I hired student tutors to help me help the less-experienced kids on the computers. The tutors helped, the schedule helped, but the fundamental problems persisted.

Frustration was the rule and not the exception.

Lost dreams of collegial collaboration

Beyond the equipment problem was the larger issue of teacher planning and coordination.

In theory, I was supposed to develop projects with my colleagues, projects that would support the content they were teaching. I was supposed to infuse tech skills into their areas of the curriculum.

In reality, I was teaching their classes when they were planning their assignments or projects. We did not team. I rarely knew what their goals were. I was reduced to the role of an outsider.

I went to colleagues and made suggestions for projects and they generally agreed that the ideas sounded good, but it was a far cry from joint planning or assessment.

And then there were the kids . . .

As the kids began to work on real projects, control issues became less important, but unlike my previous teaching years, student management was always an issue.

My eighth graders and I were connected from our work together the previous year. We had a great time. We learned new skills together. They finished lots of projects in my class. They came in before school, during lunch, and whenever the room was free to use the technology and check things out with me. With my eighth graders, I still felt like a teacher.

With most of my seventh graders and with one of my special ed classes, I made real progress. We also experienced success with research and the development of multimedia presentations. Behavior problems were minimal to nonexistent. Life was good.

Some of my sixth graders experienced success, but some of them told me straight out that my class did not count. They had read and correctly understood that minor subjects could be failed without affecting their promotion status.

In two of my special ed classes there was an ongoing clash between my sometimes unrealistic expectations and my students' abilities to attain them. Here again, there was a gap between my class and their regular classroom curriculum and while the class size was smaller, the students' needs for one-on-one support were greatly magnified.

Early in the year I tried to teach the students how to use the spell-check function. In my ignorance, I had failed to realize that their spelling would be so unrecognizable to the computer that it would fail to pick up on their errors.

I also expected them to remember the skills we had learned from one class to the next. In many cases this was not possible, so I was constantly reinventing the wheel.

I resisted "friendly advice" that suggested I make my life easier by just loading some skill and drill activities on to my computers, but I don't think we made as much progress as we could have. When my frustration combined with that of the students, the result was usually an unpleasant mix of behavior problems.

Should I just quit and go back to waitressing?

Working closely with the special needs kids taught me a lot of things. It made me a believer in inclusion. I saw firsthand the way kids were labeled and isolated by these segregated classes, which were supposed to serve them best. I got to know and care about these students and in so doing, I had to confront some of my own assumptions and biases.

I watched a video called F.A.T. City and blushed when I saw impatient behaviors identical to my own being modeled as examples of blatantly unsuccessful practice that's demeaning to kids. I was especially jolted by the "model" teacher's demand that students look at him while he reprimanded them. My own voice was ringing in my ears...yuck!

With my sixth grade and my special ed classes, I tried to chip away at the "you can't make me learn" attitude that I encountered. I tried to look beyond the personal affront that I felt to the deeper forces at work.

My involvement in the National School Reform Faculty work helped. Keeping this diary helped too. By regularly revisiting my "shelf and self," I was able to keep my head above water and resist the temptation to continually see myself as the victim of my students. OK, I was successful most of the time. But some of the time I worried that I should just quit and go back to waitressing.

It was my involvement in the bigger picture, in the reform work, coupled with my own stubborness that kept me from quitting. It was also the work with my kids in grades seven and eight that helped me stay afloat. A phone call from a parent or a kid in need, a visit from a former student, a simple thank you from a student I was able to help -- these things picked me up when I was low.

Humbled -- but still learning

I am humbled by this year's failures. I'm not beating myself up about them, but I am not done with them either. I know that by mining this year's less than happy experiences I will learn much for the next year and beyond.

As I look ahead to my new assignment as a program support teacher, I am preoccupied with questions of empowerment and voice, the building of learning communities vs. the management of "tightly run ships." I am grappling with issues of intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic reward systems and the list goes on and on.

I am taking a stand against teacher-to-student ratios that exceed 1:150 in any given marking period. I'm leaving the classroom, but not the school, and I don't think anyone should be subjected to the conditions I faced this year, especially not nameless and faceless children.

The fundamental question remains the same as I think, read and write. The central questions that will guide my efforts are all about how we can best learn and grow together, how we can connect across racial, cultural, economic and generational lines, and not how can we "make" them learn, or how can we control "their" behavior.

Our summer enrichment/professional development program, TAPS, starts Thursday morning. I'm still packing up and cleaning out my room. The semester is over -- it's a fact. I'm wrapping things up, but in many ways I've just begun to unpack the lessons of the term, a term that some parts of me would still like to try and forget.


Editor's Note: Deb Bambino will continue her diary over the summer and through the next school year. Watch for her entries at MiddleWeb's Latest Updates page.



Read Deb's next entry >>>

<<< Read last week's entry

Comment on this week's entry

Back to Deborah's 1999-2000 Diary Index