A Simple Game

I have always been interested in the group dynamics that exist in a classroom--I think it's a topic that is largely ignored by those currently researching education. We spend so much time thinking about the effect of inputs via teacher quality, school quality, student-specific demographics and not enough time thinking about how all of these things are interdependent. Economists, specifically, tend to think about a classroom as though it were a machine. We put various things in, they are combined to together and we get a "product" out of it. It is a production function--the focus is on "output". This "output" is almost always tied to test scores. If the "output" isn't explicitly test scores, such as studies that tie education to future income, that "output" is still a function of test scores, so it's essentially the same thing. Test scores are wonderful data for economists and other researchers because it's easy to collect, readily available, and usually standardized. In short, it's already in the correct language for economists. While ease of analysis can be an important characteristic of data, however, it does not necessarily mean that the data is useful. This is a major issue I have with current education research--I don't think the models and data being used are giving us the most useful information. Instead, I think our obsession with test scores stems from researchers' love of quantifiable information. Education is a complex system. Learning, in terms of the "product" our schools "produce", is not easily understood. But we very much want it to be so. As a result, we collect test score data and we squeeze, twist, and torture those numbers until they fit nicely into the models we have created. We then sing our own praises and claim that we have finally figured out how to "fix" our schools. We just need to fire bad teachers. We just need to hire better teachers. We just need to develop universal standards. We just need to spend more money. We just need to pay teachers more. We just need to use more technology. We just need to test students more. We just need to test students less. We just need to hold teachers accountable. We just need to hold parents accountable. We just need to hold communities accountable. We just need to open more charter schools. We just need to close charter schools. We just need to collect more data. It's all so damn simple, if you'd just look at what our model tells us. Except it's not simple. Let me use an analogy and a story to explain.

First, the analogy. In his book, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, Yale professor James Scott argues that the desire to organize and operate society according to rigidly defined scientific laws leads to unintended consequences that undermine the success of the system. In the first part of the book, he describes the history and development of German forestry science:

The great simplification of the forest into a “one-commodity machine” was precisely the step that allowed German forestry science to become a rigorous technical and commercial discipline that could be codified and taught. A condition of its rigor was that it severely bracketed, or assumed to be constant, all variables except those bearing directly on the yield of the selected species and on the cost of growing and extracting them. As we shall see with urban planning, revolutionary theory, collectivization, and rural resettlement, a whole world lying “outside the brackets” returned to haunt this technical vision.

I believe education has been turned into a "one-commodity machine", for precisely the same reason and with the exact same effect. In an attempt to make this complex system into a "rigorous technical and commercial discipline", we have created these bracketed models. We have looked at these very complex variables and decided that for the sake of simplicity and universality of our models, we should just assume them to be constant. We shall, in effect, ignore them. And our justification for this treatment is that "it's not correlated with our other variables". We treat it like random noise--something that exists but doesn't really matter to our "output". And because we have are very good at math, we can do that. 

The effects on these German forests were disastrous:

It took about one century for them [the negative consequences ] to show up clearly. Many of the pure stands grew excellently in the first generation but already showed an amazing retrogression in the second generation...A new term, Waldsterben (forest death), entered the German vocabulary to describe the worst cases. An exceptionally complex process involving soil building, nutrient uptake , and symbiotic relations among fungi, insects, mammals, and flora—which were, and still are, not entirely understood— was apparently disrupted, with serious consequences. Most of these consequences can be traced to the radical simplicity of the scientific forest.

This is remarkably similar to what we see in education. Each time a new "solution" or "system" is implemented, we observe great results at the outset. We believe our efforts have finally paid off, that we have finally solved the problem. But then it becomes abundantly clear that those gains are but an illusion. In our simplified models we neglected those intricacies and interdependent relationships, and over time those variables come back to haunt us. Things like peer effects, teacher morale, and classroom culture are ignored. But they matter-- they matter a lot. And every time we neglect them in our model (either by omitting them or "controlling" for them), we end up with policy that sucks. And it's easy to tell that it sucks, because teachers tell us that it sucks. "But it fits our model, it's proven by the data", we say. And in the end, who are we going to believe, the dignified and universally-acclaimed academics or the teachers (those damn unionized lazy teachers)?

Now to the story. As I mentioned in my last post, this summer I am an adviser for two new teachers, which means that I sit in the classroom, observe their lessons, and provide them with feedback and coaching. This gives me the chance to see the complexities of the classroom from a different perspective--without being the one who is responsible for delivering content and managing behavior. I am a fly on the wall, and I see a lot of interesting things each day. Today, one of the teachers was leading the students through a math game. The game is called "buzz". It is a simple game. Students form a circle and each count off starting from "one". The object of the game is to get to 100. There is only one rule to the game. The teacher gives the students a number from 1 to 10. That number is the "multiple", and any time the students reach a "multiple" of that number in their counting, they must say "buzz". If anyone messes up, the entire class goes back to zero. For example, if the multiple is "5", then the students are supposed to count 1, 2, 3, 4, BUZZ, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, BUZZ...and so on. In theory, this game only necessitates that students be able to do two things: count from 1 to 100 and know their basic multiplication facts. In theory, this game should be quite simple for 7th grade students. Individually, they have the capability to do these tasks. In theory, if each individual can do these tasks, the group should have no problem completing this game. However, as you might have already guessed, it was quite the struggle for this group of 25 students. Most of the time, they got to around 30 before someone messed up. There were screams and groans as the class berated their classmates for a silly mistake. "Can't you multiply? It's so easy!" As disrespectful as that sounds, it's actually not that far from what the education "models" tell us. The "product", in this case, is successful completion of the game. Stuff goes in, product comes out. If the product ain't coming out, there must be something wrong with the inputs (not the machine). If the kids can't complete the game, it must mean that they can't multiply or count to 100 or "think critically" or whatever other condescending thing you want to throw in there. But we can't blame the kids completely-- it's those damn lazy teachers! They didn't teach the kids how to multiply! It's obvious, just look at what's happening in this game! As a passive observer in this situation who also happens to be a middle school teacher, it's pretty obvious to me that the reason students are struggling has little to do with their ability to multiply or count to 100, and everything to do with group dynamics, teamwork, and classroom culture. It's a similar phenomenon to any situation where many interdependencies exist. Students do not learn on command nor do they demonstrate knowledge on command. A classroom is much like a forest-- there exist many variables that are poorly understood, interrelated, and likely impossible to measure. We make this ridiculous assumption that our schools and classrooms run like machines, and that if we take inventory of the individual parts of that machine and throw in a specific combination of inputs that we will be able to accurately predict what comes out. That just couldn't be further from the truth. 

Are we talking about the right issues?

My first year of teaching is over. It's actually been over for about a month already, but it took a while to truly disengage myself from "teacher mode". This summer, I am a faculty adviser for the Teach For America summer school program hosted by my school district-- the exact program I went through as a corps member last summer. My experience in this position so far is enough for an entire post, so I'll leave that alone for now, but I mention it because I spend a lot of time sitting in a classroom each day, which gives me plenty of time to think about teaching and reflect on the past year. It's particularly interesting to reflect given the current context-- watching new teachers encounter the same struggles I fought with only months before. But ultimately, what I am most interested in exploring in relation to the past school year is student learning. "Are students really learning?"-- this is perhaps the most important question in education today, but to me it really seems like the elephant in the room, in that we are reluctant to face realities about the unfair way we assess students. Instead, we prefer to focus on (inadequate) proxies like teacher accountability and the common core. Not that these topics aren't important, but rather they are a red herring allowing politicians, bureaucrats, and pundits alike to talk tough and act tough on education reform without addressing the fundamental issues-- the issues that require tough conversations and painful sacrifices.

Take the issue of teacher tenure, where a California judge recently ruled that the practice was unconstitutional, stating in his decision that, "Substantial evidence presented makes it clear to this court that the challenged statutes disproportionately affect poor and/or minority students. The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience."

The judge references previous rulings on racial segregation of schools, funding disparities, and term length disparities, describing them as issues of a lack of equality of education; whereas teacher tenure presents an issue relating to the quality of the educational experience. Of particular interest to me is the judge's statement regarding the legal positions of his decision:

"[This court] is not unmindful of the current intense political debate over issues of education. However, its duty and function as dictated by the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of California and the Common law, is to avoid considering the political aspects of the case and focus only on the legal ones. That this Court's decision will and should result in political discourse is beyond question but such consequence cannot and does not detract from its obligation to consider only the evidence and law in making its decision."

Ostensibly, this seems like a very reasonable (and necessary!) thing-- to consider only the evidence and law in making the decision. However, the very nature of "evidence" changes dramatically as we move from issues of equality of education to quality of the educational experience. Furthermore, the judge's choice to consider certain types of information as "evidence" is an inherently political action. The primary evidence cited in the judge's decision was the expert testimony of Harvard professors (economists) Raj Chetty and Thomas Kane. Chetty's testimony, based on his 2011 paper attempting to quantify the long-term impact of teacher effectiveness on students' adult income, was that a grossly ineffective teacher costs students $1.4 million in lifetime earnings. Kane, based on his own study, testified that students in the LA Unified School District taught by a grossly incompetent teacher lost 9.54 months of learning in a single year compared to students with average teachers. Wow! Such impressive and clear data! It's no wonder the judge was moved enough to comment that it "shocks the conscience". But when we look behind the economic models we find an ominous motif: teacher effectiveness and student achievement that is almost exclusively measured through state-mandated standardized tests. And so we return to the judge's original claim: that decisions are made based on evidence and the law, no politics involved. By regarding the aforementioned studies as evidence (attributing them as objective truths), the judge is effectively making a quite controversial: that the current standardized testing regime provides accurate data about student learning. So much for the absence of politics.

My argument here is not that there is zero value in standardized test scores or value-added models of teacher effectiveness; it is not that laws protecting incompetent teachers are harmful to students. Rather, my worry is that our continued focus on these issues crowds out more important (and potentially more fruitful) issues: de facto school segregation, poverty, privatization of education, to name a few. Why are our priorities so misaligned? Maybe we should ask for expert testimony of our teachers (in contrast to that of the Harvard economists, who have never spent a single day in front of 35 screaming 7th graders), rather than trying to continue playing this ridiculous blame game that devalues those tasked with cultivating our nation's most valuable resource, it's children.

Why can't I just let it go?

There are twenty school days left in the year. Four short weeks until Summer--the opportunity to relax, recharge, and reset. For teachers, "the end of the year" is typically defined as the weeks following standardized testing, where the looming specter of accountability fades and the blissful anticipation of Summer vacation becomes apparent. Things are supposed to become more relaxed. Students, teachers, and administrators are no longer feeling the pressure of high-stakes testing, and everyone starts to shift focus to the next stage of life. For my 8th grade students, high school is right around the corner. For me, year two is within reach. These last few weeks should be a fun time--and opportunity to enjoy time with my students and close out the year with engaging lessons that don't necessarily have to be tied to arbitrary state standards. As one of my various teaching mentors told me a few weeks ago, the end of the first year is when many excellent teachers developed their best teaching strategies. They took risks and experimented in their classrooms. She encouraged me to do the same. Even as I sit here now, I want to have that experience. I want to walk into my classroom each day for the next four weeks and be innovative. I want my students to feel like science matters--like its something that actually relates to their lives, and not just a collection of content that will appear on an assessment. I want lessons to be engaging. I want to leverage students' strengths and interests. I want to harness the tremendous powers of technology. I want more of my students to look forward to walking into my classroom on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this is practically the opposite of what is actually happening in my classroom in these last few weeks.

Before I say anymore, I will readily accept responsibility for most of what happens in my classroom. I am doing what I can, but the bottom line is that I have made some mistakes this year that have led to the headaches I am experiencing now. These are things that I hope to correct or improve next year, though I am already trying to make changes in these last few weeks. However, the source of much of my current stress is largely out of my locus of control (or perhaps that's just a self-rationalization). I don't want this post to become a rant, and I don't want to direct too much negativity towards certain parties (students, parents, overworked teachers, overworked administrators). Nevertheless, I need to write for my own sanity--to project onto this page some of the anger, frustration, and fatigue that is washing over me. Writing is cathartic, and I hope that this post will both provide me some relief and also serve as a memory to look back on at a future time. We shouldn't forget times of adversity--they are often transformative periods and contain important lessons that we can harness to become better people.

My most pressing problem is that I feel I am being asked to deliver too much in too short an amount of time. Additionally, I don't always see a clear connection between the expectations of my classroom  and actual student learning. 8th grade students recently finished taking their district and state standardized tests. High-stakes testing is worth another post on its own, and I won't say more here besides: these tests have contributed to the corruption of our school system and have taught our students to believe that their worth is defined as a single number. 4th and 8th graders are required to test in science, and while these scores aren't particularly important to students or administrators, they matter to my effectiveness rating as a teacher, and I felt responsible for preparing students to do their best on this test. At my school, 8th graders also take a placement exam that will hopefully land them in an honors science class as freshmen in high school. This test is very important to my school, and I think it matters to my students. As of today, less than 10% of them are slotted to be in an honors track next year. This placement exam is an opportunity to dramatically increase that number. In an ideal situation, the last few weeks would have been solely devoted to preparing them for that test. There is some content that differs from the 8th grade standards, which would need to be taught; but there is also content that needs to be reviewed from earlier in the year. This is not an ideal situation. In addition to this test, which is next Thursday, the school science fair is also next week. Our school has mandated that every single student needs to participate, meaning that I am responsible for guiding my students--most of whom never had a science class before this year--through this project in under two weeks. This has been the most epic disaster of my year. As of right now, I am expecting less than 10% of groups to have a completed project ready for the science fair. It wasn't as if I didn't see this coming--I went to administration early on and explained why this was an unreasonable burden for me and my students. I was told to devote a week of class time to the science fair, and that the rest should be completed by the students at home. Rule number one: in high poverty schools, don't expect much academic work to get completed outside of your classroom walls. It is wishful thinking to expect students to complete their science fair projects at home, especially with only limited class time available to provide the necessary modeling and support. Nevertheless, I have tried to make this happen. I set the expectation that the project needed to be completed mostly at home, and I've tried to help students as much as possible. I have neglected some of the time I would have used to teach new content to give them class time to work on their projects. As of about a week ago, I thought it would be workable. Sitting here on Thursday night, I now realize that disaster is imminent.

I haven't had a true instructional day in my classroom this week. Late last week, we were notified that our 8th graders had been "selected" to field test the new state standardized assessment, which is our shift to the common core. Basically, the district gets some money from the state and our 8th graders spend even more time testing. Instead of being in class, instead of learning, instead of working on their science fair projects, instead of doing SOMETHING beneficial, half of our 8th graders are sitting in the library TAKING ANOTHER TEST. Forget that they just had four days straight of testing; forget that this test isn't actually assessing them; forget that they have ZERO vested interest in it; forget that they already have all of these other expectations; lets WASTE THREE MORE DAYS testing, because we haven't wasted enough already. Then there was picture day. I had students ask me, "Do we even need to bring our stuff on picture day? Are we going to do any work today?" Honestly, as much as those questions irritated the hell out of me, I can't really blame them, because this is what they are accustomed to. Pictures took three entire periods to complete. Every single student was dressed up--there was zero concern for learning. I had a student attempt to straighten her hair in my classroom during homeroom. Students constantly came in and out from other classrooms. Everyone and their mother needed to go to the bathroom. Any attempts at structure were undermined by a lack of organization and foresight by administration and the photography company. It was a wasted day. Today, the day after picture day, was a field trip. By the grace of God we weren't leaving until 10am, so we would at least have time for one period of real instruction. Yet even that time was interrupted by continuous announcements and changes. It took me over 20 minutes to get through bellwork (normally would be 5-10) because of constant use of the intercom and a surprise announcement that every 8th grader needed to go to the cafeteria to punch in their lunch number. After first period, students went back to homeroom to wait before leaving for the field trip. We were supposed to leave at 10am. First period ends at 9:15am. Apparently they thought it would take 45 minutes to round up students to leave. 30 more minutes of instruction? Nah, let's just bag it and have them sit in the cafeteria. Then comes the announcement--"whoops, I guess we're actually leaving at 10:45". So we sit around for an hour and a half. Nobody seems particularly bothered by this.

This brings me to the question that I've heard from many different people. "Why can't you just let it go?" Honestly, it's a question that I've thought about a lot lately. Why do I focus on the negative? Why am I so worked up over lost instruction time? Why does the disorganization at my school bother me so much? Why do I focus on the handful of students making poor choices instead of the vast majority that aren't? These are all various forms of the same question, but that question is different from, "Why do you teach?" That question was answered long ago, and hasn't changed. "Why can't you just let it go?"-- this is a question about the margins. Why does that extra day matter? What's the harm in one hour of lost instruction? From a student's perspective, "Why can't I pack up my stuff five minutes early? Why should I keep working hard these last few weeks? Why should I put in the extra effort to do my very best?" I am not sure why these things bother me more than they seem to bother some of my colleagues. I am not sure how to get my students to care about the little stuff. On days like today, I am not sure whether I'm better off just going with the flow to save myself from the stress or trying to continue pushing the boulder up the hill. I have continually tried to keep pushing, but it's downright disheartening. It makes me hate my job on certain days. It makes me want to go home and sleep instead of plan. It makes me believe that my attempts to push the boulder up the hill simply aren't good enough--that as soon as I let go, that boulder rolls back down to the bottom. There are twenty school days left in the year. I just want them to be used effectively. Is that so much to ask?

Finding Fun: End of Quarter Reflection Part 2

As a student I was always conscious that the day before a break or holiday was different than a normal school day-- filled with anticipation. Not much learning occurred on these days. It was an inverse relationship: the longer the upcoming break, the less productive the day of school. There was only a marginal effect leading up to a long weekend, but the day before winter break of the last day of school might as well have been holidays themselves. From the student perspective, these days are great. Relaxing, little to no actual work, because students know that the teacher knows that students are not in learning mode. Leading up to my first break as a teacher, I viewed that Friday as an easy day because I only had the student perspective to guide me. I would throw on a (somewhat) educational movie count the minutes until the start of my nine days of freedom. Not exactly the picture they show you in the TFA brochure, but that's life. I realized that for as much as I yearned for breaks as a student, a teacher blows that level of anticipation out of the water.

I came to school that day fully armed with a borrowed copy of "Planet Earth"-- a Discovery Channel series that has a bunch of different nature topics. All I had to do was make it through four forty-minute periods and my half-hour of intervention at the end of the day. However, I quickly learned that I hadn't mastered the "video day" routine (which is probably a good thing, honestly). I'm not sure why I thought   my students would want any part of watching "Planet Earth". Video day lesson #1: Make sure you pick a video that your students MIGHT actually enjoy. Even I was falling asleep after about five minutes. Almost nobody was paying attention, which leads me to my next video day lesson. Video day lesson #2: Don't allow talking during the video. This should have been a no-brainer; I have no idea why I thought it would be OK to allow my students to talk "as long as you are being quiet". My first period of  "video day" quickly turned into a madhouse, and I had to make quite a few adjustments on the fly (which isn't all that different from any normal day). The only thing that really bothered me was that I gave a few students an extra assignment for talking (after I had implemented my "no talking" expectation). Even before the period ended, I was disappointed that I had done that. The bottom line was the video was boring and I was foolish to expect perfect behavior.

The next three periods went much better. I went from Planet Earth to Mythbusters, which I knew my students (and I) would enjoy more. While I don't plan on having video day again until the day before winter break, I am glad I learned how to properly implement it. The last period of the day is always my intervention time, which is essentially study hall. Students have a few different choices-- they can work on homework from any class, they can read a book, or they can use a computer/iPad to work on Khan Academy and Study Island, which have online lessons and practice problems. Usually this period is pretty easy for me because students are used to the routine and, thus, behavior isn't much of a problem. I don't have to plan lessons for my intervention, so naturally I didn't have anything planned for this last thirty minutes before break.

In my first posts I described one of my toughest days of teaching. That day I completely lost control of a class-- during an observation by my ASU clinical instructor. I have come a long way since then. Nevertheless, there are still times when my inexperience is quite conspicuous. My last thirty minutes of the day before fall break, I lost control of a class once again. This time, however, the implication was completely different. This last period of the day is always tough for my students. 8th graders have the latest lunch and special-area period of the day, so they go to their four content courses first and go to their special area class last. For most of them, their special area class is P.E. or dance, so they come to my classroom sweaty, hyper, and ready to go home. This is on a normal day--now imagine what it is like on the day before break. Needless to say, I knew we weren't going to get anything done that day. My goal was keep them under control for thirty minutes. I lasted about five minutes. As predicted, they didn't have anything on their mind besides fun, but what made things even crazier was the amount of students that showed up in my room. I have about 18 students in my final period (much smaller than a normal class size), but that day our 8th graders (and teachers) were not too interested in following routine. After those five normal minutes to start the period, I started receiving a steady stream of additional students. For those of you who might find this strange, it's actually not that unusual at my school. Besides their four content periods (math, science, language arts, social studies), students have very flexible schedules in terms of choices for special area classes and intervention. Additionally, even when a student is assigned to a specific class, it is not uncommon for that student to show up to a different class. It seems like a crazy system, but for the most part every student shows up to every class such that everyone is accounted for, and the distribution of students is somewhat equal across classrooms. This day, however, I had what seemed like half of the 8th grade in my classroom. At first, it wasn't a huge deal.  A little noisy, but no one was working so it didn't really matter. Then, more and more students showed up-- not troublemakers, mind you, but my BEST students. It became an unstoppable force; they did what they wanted and I had no say in it. Interestingly, they were very adept at doing things that I would never allow during a real class, but that I would let slide at the time. They knew exactly where the line was and didn't cross it. A brief sampling of events: messing with the stuff on my desk (they definitely knew this would annoy me), taking a stack of sticky notes and posting them  everywhere around my room (I made them clean up later), covering all of my whiteboards with hearts and notes (see picture at top). Nobody got hurt, no damage was done. I was a little stressed at the time--definitely relieved when the day was over--but I realized that this was actually a milestone moment in my classroom. That my students felt comfortable enough to come to my classroom and be themselves, knowing that I would let it slide that day, is something that I am OK with. In the "teacher manual" this is probably a cardinal sin. We are constantly reminded of the need for consistent expectations and procedures--that we must be in control at all times. That I lost control must be a sign of weakness or inexperience. I might look back later and agree with that assessment. Perhaps that day was a glaring reminder of my inexperience. But looking at it now, during that time I was closer to my kids than I have ever been. The sharp distinction between teacher and student, adult and child, blurred for a moment. I think those moments are absolutely critical, not only to helping building relationships with students, but to preserving my sanity as a teacher. "Fun" is not a topic discussed much in education these days. I am not endorsing the view that "fun" should be the guiding principle of education (quite the contrary, actually, but I'll save that for another post), but I always try to remember that my students are kids, and an important part of being a kid is having fun. If my students can come to school and experience one or two moments of pure joy each day, I think it will have an enormous impact on their educational experience. The bottom line is that kids don't learn if they aren't invested in learning, and they don't learn from teachers they don't like. The same thing goes for teachers. I will never be an effective teacher if I can't have some fun when I am around my students.

So I end my reflection of my first quarter of teaching with a wonderful experience. It's amazing that "losing control" was the theme of two of my most memorable days--in two completely different contexts. As I return to my classroom next week, I am still driven by the same mission--to achieve transformational change in my classroom by preparing my students to be successful in high school. I also return with a greater understanding of my students as individual people, which further increases my motivation to improve as a teacher. But I also realize that I need to enjoy this journey. At the end of the year, if I had fun teaching and my students had fun learning, I am confident that we will have made the ambitious academic progress we seek.

Finding Fun: End of Quarter Reflection Part 1

I looked at the date of my last post—September 16; it has been a while since I last wrote, but it feels like no time at all. The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. As always, there have been peaks and valleys, but a routine is starting to build such that the swing of emotions has settled down. It’s an interesting feeling—each day is tiresome and challenging, but time passes with incredible pace. I am already done with my first quarter! I made it to my first real vacation, where I get to travel home for the first time in nearly a year and spend at least a little bit of time sitting around doing absolutely nothing. But more importantly, these nine days off give me a chance to reflect on the last few months without the daily stress of waking up too early, going to bed too late, and lesson planning during nearly every free moment. Much has happened during this time, and I believe that in terms of personal transformation, my experiences as a teacher have changed me more than during any other time in my life. 

My first few weeks as a real teacher were, quite honestly, miserable. No amount of training can fully prepare you for this work, but with only a few weeks of summer school teaching (where I only taught an hour a day) under my belt, I honestly had no idea what I was doing on day one. I had poorly planned lessons, inconsistent and ineffective classroom procedures, and no relationships with students. Days ranged from decent—where I felt like I could make it through the end of the year—to terrible—where I wanted to quit on the spot. At the end of my first quarter, things have greatly improved. I still have some poorly planned lessons; I still have many inconsistent and ineffective classroom procedures. However, my relationships with students have deepened. During those first few weeks, I remember lamenting to my friends and co-workers how my students were so far behind. “They don’t know how to sit still. They don’t know how to take notes. They don’t even know how to write their name on a paper.” I fixated on their shortcomings because that was all I could see. In retrospect, I blamed them because I could not blame myself. I am not sure I could have done it differently. As unfair as it was to cast my students in such an unfavorable light, if I would have dwelled on my own failures I am not sure I could have made it through those first few weeks. What allowed me to move past this pessimism was getting to know my students—understanding their interests, how they think, what challenges they face. They have also learned more about me—where I am from, why I am here, what kind of person I am. Even after two months, these relationships are still relatively shallow. From their perspective, I am still an outsider—White, privileged, not from their neighborhood. Not enough time has passed for me to break away from that characterization. However, one thing that has helped me tremendously is my age. As I was explaining to some of my students this week, I am closer to them in age than I am to most of my colleagues! Often, I feel I have more in common with my students than I do with the other adults at my school. I think this has helped my students (and me) feel more comfortable in my classroom. This has made all of the difference in the last few weeks. Over summer training, we talked frequently about “asset-based thinking”, which is a fancy way of describing how to focus on a person’s strengths instead of their weaknesses. We were constantly reminded to “see the best in our students” and to build our lessons around leveraging their strengths to transcend their struggles. This mode of thinking is absolutely correct and must be implemented to be a successful teacher, but what I failed to understand is that without building the emotional connection with your students, asset-based thinking is impossible or, at best, hopelessly shallow. It takes an exceptional level of compassion to fully embrace others without building any sort of relationship with them. I am the first to admit that I do not possess that level of compassion at this time. Thus, to truly see my students as wonderful, unique individuals requires time to connect with them on a personal level. That process began the first day they walked through my door and will continue throughout the entire year, but I am happy to say that I have started to see those relationships blossom. 

One of the important changes over the last few weeks has been that I have started to have fun with my students. I arrived at my school with a strong sense of my mission—to achieve transformational change for my students and help them reach their personal vision of success. Looking back at my earlier posts, that mission has been constant in my mind. It is what allowed me to get up each morning and make it through the day. A strong mission can drive individuals and groups to reach incredible heights, endure immense pain, and overcome unthinkable adversity. A common thread unites the entire span of human history—great accomplishments derive from a great sense of purpose. Without purpose, we are nothing. However, life is not purely defined by purpose. I do not believe that I exist solely to make the world a better place. I am not a martyr. More importantly, I cannot survive in this profession purely fueled by a mission, no matter how firmly I believe in it. I cannot be an effective teacher solely from a sense of purpose. Thus, my most important takeaway from my first months in the classroom is that I must enjoy my work to be successful. Further, to truly achieve transformational change in my classroom requires not just that students work diligently to reach their goals, but that they enjoy doing so. Not every single waking second needs to be enjoyable (though some of my students think it should be that way), but for students and teachers there must be moments of mutual joy—times where the distinction of “adult vs. child” falls away, if even just for an instant. For many of my students there are so many reasons for stress and despair in their lives that even those few minutes of pristine happiness make them want to come to school. For me, so much extra (for lack of a better word) crap goes along with being a teacher in an under-resourced school that the moments where I can simply enjoy interacting with my students are invaluable.

As I mentioned, the last few weeks of teaching have been much more enjoyable because of the relationships I have started to form with my students. These relationships are what create the moments of joy, which makes it easier to get up every morning. In an earlier post, I wrote about a pretty awful day—a day that I completely lost control of a class. I will never forget that day; it is a reminder of how challenging and depressing this work can be. In part two of my post, I want to share a different day. Ironically, it is also a day I will never forget—another day that I completely lost control of a class. This time, however, losing control didn’t turn out to be such a bad thing. 

To be continued…

Advice: Dime a Dozen

One of the things that makes first-year teaching so difficult is the constant time stress one faces. Not only are you  trying to create engaging lessons (which as I mentioned in a previous post, are critical to your success in managing behavior) on a daily basis, you are bombarded by your own education and training. In my case, I have graduate school classes, mandatory Teach For America events, and tons of district professional development. This week, I have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights blocked out for these commitments, which amounts to back-to-back-to-back 13+ hour work days, not including the hours I spend at home planning my lessons. Needless to say, there is absolutely no shot that I will get more than six hours of sleep this week. This has become the regular for me. I bust my ass throughout the week with the intention of using the weekend to get a head start on the next week. But by the time the weekend comes, I'm so wiped out that I need the time off to recuperate. On the bright side, fall break is only a few weeks away, and I'm excited to take some real time off and travel back home for the first time in almost a year.

However, what I really want to talk about is the content of much of my "teacher training". By now I have sat through hundreds of hours of professional development, ranging across topics from science-specific to teaching literacy to classroom management. There is no shortage of advice or information for new teachers. Everyone has opinion, and everyone wants to share their wisdom. While I understand that this is done with the best of intentions, I think that much like our students, who try their best to master the "inch-deep, mile-wide" curriculum, new teachers feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information they receive. Even more confusing is that much of the advice a new teacher receives is contradictory. Countless times I have received advice from a colleague only to have that advice refuted by someone else. The most striking example of this was during my new teacher induction right before the start of school. On a particular day, we had an "expert" talk to us about how behavior narration (a technique where you literally narrate when students are behaving correctly) was completely useless. The very next day, we had another "expert" swear by this same technique. As I've encountered this phenomenon more and more, I've realized that successful teachers treat advice (and professional development) like items in a thrift shop. Most of the stuff you hear is junk-- not in the sense that it is worthless to everyone, but that there are only a few things that you can realistically use in your own classroom. It takes some digging to find, but there are gems out there for everyone. What I may find to be completely useless someone else will find to be their diamond in the rough. The challenge of the new teacher is that while you are often digging, you aren't very adept at finding those rare gems. Regardless, I'll be getting a lot of advice this week, whether I want it or not.

A "Bad" Day -- Continued

As I walk through the gates of my school, the sun shines against the weathered concrete walls. A sign reads "Welcome to Cougar Nation"--the slogan of the current administration, which inherited a school three years which had been one of the worst in the district, if not all of Phoenix. Today, we are a "C" school according to the Arizona Department of Education, whose ranking is based on a combination of overall student achievement (based on standardized testing scores) as well as year-to-year student growth. This ranking system, while obviously not perfect, provides a good snapshot of school quality. I have no illusions that I work at a great school, in terms of the quality of education received by students. About three-quarters of our students met the (low) state standard in reading, with only one in two reaching the standard in math. In my content area specifically, only about 40 percent of 8th graders passed the state standardized test in science last year. Increasing school achievement is not a simple problem; there are many factors which cause inner-city schools to struggle. Identifying these factors is a major part of my work. While on a daily level I am in the classroom trying to provide my students with the excellent educational opportunities to which they are entitled, I also recognize that I work in a broken system. Even for brand-new teachers, it does not take long to realize that the laws and structure that direct public education, especially in high-poverty areas, are fundamentally flawed. For me, the specifics of these flaws are still somewhat hazy. I do not claim to have the answers to fix the system. To many people, this type of statement seems very cynical. Simply pointing out a problem without providing detailed analysis or a suggestion of potential solutions is often very frustrating. However, in public education there are so many viewpoints, ranging from politicians to academics to teachers, that the issue becomes too complicated. There are simply too many actors trying to affect too many variables at one time. At the same time, policy is almost always a top-down process--instituted sweepingly at the national or state level. These broad policies simply cannot effectively incorporate the needs of a heterogeneous population of schools. Even within my own district I have experienced the frustration of an over-arching policy undermining effectiveness at the level of the individual school. For example, my school district recently extended its internet firewall to block YouTube. Ostensibly, this ban is to prevent misuse by students (or maybe teachers?), despite the fact that many have smart phones with unrestricted internet access. In reality, this severely hinders my ability to use Khan Academy in my classroom, which is a major focus of my school's instructional focus. Khan Academy is an online learning platform which has videos and practice problems specifically designed for student use. Unfortunately, many of their videos that cover relatively basic content (the stuff that middle school students need!) are imbedded YouTube videos, meaning that the district firewall blocks them even when accessed through the Khan Academy website. Sure, I can download individual videos at home to show in class, but the whole purpose of a platform like Khan Academy is that it is guided by student-specific needs, such that each student needs access to different videos. Under the current district policy, this is effectively impossible to carry out.

The hour and a half before my students arrive is always my most productive work time. If I don't finish preparing during this time, then it will lead to a rough day of teaching, so my productivity is fueled by a simple need to survive. I have not yet been able to apply that sense of urgency to my work time after school or at home, but once I master that skill I am sure that lesson planning will become a much easier task. Most days, I have to make copies of notes, worksheets, or activities that students will complete during class. For most professions (I would even extend this to say most teachers), making copies is a straightforward and simple proposition. Unfortunately, at a school trying to pinch pennies from every area imaginable, printing and copying often becomes quite a difficult proposition. The school policy is that each teacher must provide their own copy paper; we are not given any sheets. It's ridiculous to think that teachers don't need to make copies, especially in a school where students do not have 1:1 access to computers. The monetary aspect, however, is actually more of a minor gripe (I have already spent several hundreds of dollars in my own classroom). What's more annoying is that because there is no shared paper, the printer/copier has no paper in it. Thus, in order to print something out, I first have to walk from my room to the copier and put my paper in the machine, making sure that nobody else is printing or copying at the same time. Then, I have to walk back and print the document. If everything goes as planned, I will have my papers printed out when I go back to the copier. Often, however, I will find that the copier has messed something up, or another person has cancelled my job by copying something else. While it may seem inconsequential, those few extra minutes of stress and walking around pile up over the week. This is just part of a larger trend of teaching in under-financed districts--for the teacher, whose role is the most important in the education system, life is made the most difficult. It seems like common sense to me that we, as a society, should do everything in our power to make the "non-teaching" aspects of a teacher's profession as easy as possible, because the responsibility of being a role-model, mentor, and educator for students is already difficult enough.

August 27th started out like any other day. My homeroom students came in at 7:45 and ate breakfast, which is provided to them for free. That day was mini packets of fruity pebbles, so most students ate. Apple-splices-in-a-bag day is less popular. Homeroom is always an interesting 15 minutes, because I really just have to make sure the students don't kill each other. During this time I get to know my kids, slowly building the relationships that are critical to being a successful teacher. While I want all of my students to succeed, I feel a special attachment to homeroom kids. At 8 am I let them out for first period, and they hurry off to different classrooms. For some reason, there is no official passing period at my school, so usually students are ready to go right as I open my door. I wish there was a least a few minutes between periods so that I could quickly catch my breath, but instead I teach three periods back to back to back for a total of 225 minutes non-stop before lunch. That day I was teaching a lesson about identifying graphs, which is one of the standards that students will be tested on at the end of the year. Needless to say, graphing is a relatively dry topic. I shared with my students that I used to loathe graphing assignments when I was in school, but I tried to emphasize the importance of being able to accurately interpret graphs. Answering the "why on earth do I need to know this?" question is one of the most challenging parts of teaching. Sometimes, I can't even convince myself that certain content is important, but it is still my job to teach it. In this case, I believed that the lesson was important, but the lesson itself wasn't very engaging. If you ask a teacher, they will tell you that the most difficult job of a new teacher is managing student behavior. My Teach For America training, district professional development, and graduate school content has all been primarily focused on classroom management, and even with this amount of training I am still not close to mastering this skill. Nevertheless, one of the first things you figure out is that engaging content solves most management problems. If students are busy working on things that they find interesting, they have no reason to behave inappropriately. The number one reason a student misbehaves is because he or she is bored. That particular day, I did a terrible job of making my lesson interesting, which led to me effectively losing control of my classroom in one of my periods.

My roommate and I have dubbed this as "getting steamrolled". When you get steamrolled, it means that the students are misbehaving to a level that you cannot control, such that the class becomes a collective steamroller and runs the teacher right over. Every teacher, even veterans, get steamrolled sometimes--it comes with the territory. This wasn't the first day I had gotten steamrolled, but it happened to be the worst steamrolling I've had in my short career. What made it worse was that my graduate school clinical instructor was making his first observation in my classroom, specifically paying attention to my classroom culture. In short, he expected to see me running my classroom, and instead saw my kids running my classroom while I tried to explain the fundamental difference between a bar graph and a line graph. The highlights of this class period included: a student picking up his desk and moving it halfway across the room to a new location (without permission) during the middle of the lesson, and another playing with a dry-erase marker that eventually flew out of his hands and right over the head of my clinical instructor in the back of the room. When you look back on it, you can't help but laugh, but in the moment getting steamrolled is one of the most helpless feelings you can have.

At the end of school that day I felt completely defeated. I was tired, distressed, and regretful. "Why am I here? Why am I doing this work? Why do I work so hard for students who don't even want to learn?"--these were the thoughts running through my head. I wanted to quit. I wanted to go home and sleep. I wanted to go back to the life of comfort and privilege that I had enjoyed for 22 years prior. I wanted to do anything but teach. To make things worse, I still had five hours of graduate classes that evening, and I didn't have a lesson planned for the next day. I begrudgingly made the drive from my school to the downtown ASU campus for my 4:30 class, thinking that my terrible day was just going to get worse.

My professor walked into the classroom, introduced himself, and then told us, "I hope the next two years of your life are as brutal as possible. I hope they are challenging, tiring, and frustrating, because I want you to remember them for the rest of your life. Most of you will not stay in the classroom, but you will remember being a teacher no matter what you end up doing. I want you to understand how tough of a profession this is, because those who haven't done it simply don't understand." These words were exactly what I needed to hear. I needed someone to understand what I was going through. I needed someone to tell me that this journey was worthwhile. I needed to be surrounded by classmates who were on the same journey. Despite being completely exhausted when I came, I left that night feeling rejuvenated. I am not sure how I would have bounced back without that. One of the toughest things about teaching is that it really is a marathon; regardless of how you feel or what happened the day before, the next day your students will be back at your door. They expect you to be there, they expect to learn. They are counting on you to help them, and they often don't have anyone else who can. One of the aspects of privilege is having the option to walk away, to avoid challenges and adversity. I am privileged because I could walk away. I could leave my job and do something else. I would not have to worry about meeting my basic needs. For most of my students, there is no option to walk away. They face adversity every single day of their lives. Their only escape is school, it is their only chance to make things better. If they don't succeed, they will endure a life filled with hardships. For some of them, no matter how hard they try they won't escape. It's not fair. The system is broken. It is because of this I cannot quit. I must endure. Even after the worst days, I must come back the next day with the same level of commitment to my kids. Not because I have no choice, but because so many of my students have no choice.