Posted on 09/04/2007 6:11:12 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
Perhaps I'm just not that good at it. It's only my fourth year. They say it takes practice.
I am standing at the door of my classroom. It is 7:24am in Los Angeles, and my homeroom students are trickling in listlessly.
"Good morning. Please get your book out." I say to each group as they wander in. "Good morning, please get your book out. Good morning, please get your book out."
I say it about 10 times. It is school policy to use the 20 minutes of homeroom for silent reading, to set the right tone for a day of schoolwork, and add to the amount of time they spend during a day reading rather than watching YouTube, listening to iPods, playing with Gameboys, etc.
They stand for the Pledge, only because I went off on them like a bomb when they failed to do so at the beginning of the year. Even then it was a three week struggle to teach them not to flop back into their seats with a contemptuous sneer even before the "and justice for all."
Now that they are seated again, they are talking to each other, ignoring my directive to please begin reading. Only 8 of 32 students actually have their book out. I go around urging each one by name, and thanking those who have done so, also by name. I have found that barking orders at the group avails nothing. They do not recognize that anything I say is directed at them unless I stare them in the eye and say their name.
Here is where, already, those who do not teach in LAUSD have suggestions.
Keep them after school if they don't listen to you.
I can't without written parent permission given 24 hours in advance. If the child fails to bring back the signed note, I am stymied. I try calling them. The number is disconnected, or there is no one home. I send home another notice. The child fails to bring it back, explaining that mom works and no one is home and she doesn't speak English anyway and besides, he lost the note.
Send them to the counselor.
Counselor sends them back with a note saying that they have been "counselled." Child smirks as he hands it to me.
Send them to the Dean.
Dean sends them back with a note saying "This is a matter for the counselor."
There are byzantine paths I can trudge down to finally get children to pay 20 minutes of their lives to me for failing to get out their book for homeroom, but I don't have the energy for that because this is nothing compared to the resistance and apathy I'll face in actual classes. I'm saving my powder. I nag and urge them to get out their books until finally they do, and silence falls.
Now I can take attendance. The minute my eyes are off them the whispering and giggling starts. I stare them down a few times and eventually they dissolve into sullen silence. Books in their hands, they stare defiantly off into space. Never mind I let them pick out whatever book they wanted, provided by the tax-payer, at the library. Could be Harry Potter. Could be WWF. Could be Goosebumps. Only four of the students read. The others mark time, prefering to waste 20 minutes rather than read for pleasure. They'll do anything to avoid reading. They hate the written word with a passion. By the time homeroom is over, I am depressed, because they are our Nation's future.
Now comes my 8th grade English class. We are reading Bud, Not Buddy because it's one of the few books earmarked for 8th graders. It's about an orphan boy in Depression-era Michigan searching for his real father. At one point Bud meets a Union organizer. He is the good guy. The cops harass him because they are bad people who want to make sure the poor stay poor, we learn. That's what anti-union people are like, you see. I hate this book but they've already read Freak the Mighty, Jade Green, and The Outsiders, so I'm pretty much down to this.
Most of them read at the 4th grade level. For this district, that's pretty good. My ESL classes are at the 2nd grade level.
I say, "Before we begin reading today, let's review what we've read so far. Please take out your notes from yesterday." Four children take out their notes. Three children take out iPods and try to sneak them on. They thread the earphones up under their shirts, sneak in one earpod, and hide it with their hand as if resting their heads on their hands. The girls cover the pods with their hair. I wonder how they can afford iPods when they are all on subsidized lunch. Then I realize, oh, that is why they can afford iPods.
I catch them and ask them to put the iPods away. I would confiscate them, but the administration has warned us that if we do and we lose it or it's stolen, we have to pay the child's parents to replace the iPod. It's happened once already to a first year teacher, so I don't risk it.
Again, the children seem only vaguely aware that I am speaking to them when I say "Take out your notes from yesterday." So I walk around the room. "Thank you, Wendy. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Jose." Then what I call the second-tier students come awake and take out their notes. I thank them too. Finally I am down to the last six who flatly refuse to do anything until I look them in the eye and say, "Aron, can you take out your notes from yesterday? Are you sure you lost them? Can you open up your backpack? Open it up. Unzip it. Good. Now look in there. What about that folder? Pull it out. Let's see. There they are! Good!"
Finally we are ready to read about the innate goodness of union organizers.
Second period is Intermediate ESL. There are Asian students in this class. One Korean girl, two Thai, one Vietnamese, as well as an Indian girl, a boy from Sri Lanka, and a girl from Cambodia. There are also four Armenians. "Please open your books to page 146," I say. The Asians and Armenians open their books to page 146. The rest of the students, who are Hispanic, ignore me, turn to their friends, and begin chattering. I repeat my usual performance, "Thank you Min Sun, thank you Nafisa, thank you Narek, thank you Ruzanna..."
After much struggle, the Hispanic students finally open their books. A few of the Hispanic girls show signs of making an attempt to do their work. They are rare, and have a tendency to sit alone. Other students tease them.
We are reading about how racist whites victimized African-Americans during the Great Migration. Then we'll read more about slavery and segregation.
Now it is time to do our worksheets. The Asian and Armenian students listen attentively to the directions, ask questions, and then get to work. They are almost competitive in their desire to do well. One Armenian boy and the boy from Sri Lanka fall over themselves in their haste to beat the other and bring me their paper for inspection.
Most of the Hispanic students return to their gossip, except for the few ostracized girls who struggle to figure out how to fill in the blanks.
These scenes are repeated throughout the day. After school, we have an administrative meeting to find out how our API scores for 2007 were. I think it stands for Annual Proficiency Index. I'm half-dead from six hours of struggling with the inertia that is most of my students, but I look at the data they present.
The information is broken down by ethnicity. The White students are 50% proficient. The Filipinos are 51%. The Asians, despite the fact that most of them have only been in the country for a couple years, are at 61%. Blacks and Latinos are at 22%.
"What are we doing wrong," we are urged to ask ourselves, in looking at the scores for the Blacks and Latinos. "What should we give them, how do we help them access the material?"
All around me, teachers suggest programs, graphic organizers, smaller class sizes, etc, etc, until finally, an older woman points out quite brusquely that certain subgroups are doing fine and are being given all the same things that the non-achievers are given, and no more.
Immediately, the principal seeks to lead us away from this kernel of truth. "Research shows," she says insistently, "that effective classroom teaching overcomes cultural habits that aren't conducive--" She says it again "Research shows it."
What research, I wonder. Whose research? Research funded by whom? Conducted by whom? Greenpeace? Hampton-Brown employees ready to sell us another set of Highpoint books?
My Advanced ESL students must spend three weeks learning how Roosevelt saved America from the Great Depression using the New Deal. Then they have to write a paper about it. Are those the folks conducting this research?
Well, perhaps she's right. If I were just a better teacher, my Hispanic students would not bring the iPods the taxpayer bought them to school. And they'd be more interested in all those stories about unions, segregation, slavery, and the New Deal. It's all about how much better a teacher I could be, and should be. That is what we are here to discuss, that is the only acceptable way of looking at this data. So that is what we do until 3:20pm, when we are finally free to hear from our union organizer, and then return to our rooms and plan for tomorrow. Let's see, let me look at the materials I have been given to teach from. Maya Angelou, Gary Soto, Langston Hughes... in the hallway, one teacher opines loudly that if selfish taxpayers would give more, we'd have the materials we need to reach these students.
Ah yes, I think. That's what the students need. 40 gameboys and a cellphone. And an iPod in every backpack.
Awesome.
Would you be allowed to play a Books for the Ears story? If you subscribe to the newsletter, you will receive about one a week. I have a hugh collection. Somewhere.
I used to get a book on tape, play it until the big climax, and then make the kids read the book to find out what happened. Worked every time.
Pretty simplistic and ridiculous, I was the jock goofball drunk above average student. If you told me I could just not go to school, I would have left. I would have had more time to work on my street rods, but I would be a far less productive member of society. The education I got in an upper class suburban Boston atmosphere has done me well. I was always an avid reader, but I generally disdained formal education. What I needed for the future was forced upon me, and that was not a bad thing in retrospect.How much disipline would a child tearn if it was not forced upon them? My brothers and sisters were brought up in a strict household, I came later and was let to do as I pleased after about 16 yrs old. It is not a wonder that my older siblings got over their adolesence by the time they graduated college. I got over mine around 30 yrs old. Kids, like puppies need to be coerced into the right way of living.
Pretty simplistic and ridiculous, I was the jock goofball drunk above average student. If you told me I could just not go to school, I would have left. I would have had more time to work on my street rods, but I would be a far less productive member of society. The education I got in an upper class suburban Boston atmosphere has done me well. I was always an avid reader, but I generally disdained formal education. What I needed for the future was forced upon me, and that was not a bad thing in retrospect.How much disipline would a child tearn if it was not forced upon them? My brothers and sisters were brought up in a strict household, I came later and was let to do as I pleased after about 16 yrs old. It is not a wonder that my older siblings got over their adolesence by the time they graduated college. I got over mine around 30 yrs old. Kids, like puppies need to be coerced into the right way of living.
I would go even further than what I said before -- and suggest that the very idea of "public education" is completely incompatible with a free country.
Books for the Ears sounds great. I’ll check it out!
Then there's the thing that if you're in a government school, once hired, you can't be fired and are guaranteed a raise whenever the union gets its back up.
Other than that, it's a tough job.
“It’s absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively cuts you off from the immense diversity of life and the synergy of variety; indeed it cuts you off from your own past and future, sealing you in a continuous present much the same way television does...”
– John Taylor Gatto
Yes, those vacations are what keep me alive. I think this next one I’ll spend job-hunting. There has to be something better than this.
Wow...this is what my daughters have to look forward to, isn’t it? They’re both teachers in OC...but our “climate” is changing here, too, rapidly.
I have no wonderful ideas for you...I like what al baby said about your having 8 kids who WANT to learn. Give THEM what they need and want!
You have my utmost respect for what you’re doing...
You have every reason to vent.
I once asked an experienced teacher what was the most important quality that a middle-school teacher could possess.
Without a moment's hesitation, she replied, "A bad memory."
When I asked why, she said, "If you remember tomorrow what the little monsters did to you today, you are likely to kill them."
Good idea.
Please don’t stop teaching...perhaps a DIFFERENT school district...but please stay.
If you cared enough to vent today, you care about those kids and the impact you can have on their lives.
Move out of state perhaps (easy said, not always easy to do...).
I don't know whether to laugh or cry!
I know I couldn’t do it (even with my own kids who are generally well-behaved!). Thanks go out to you.
And if you do end up finding another job - you’ll never really quit being a teacher. You’ll just lose your class and forget your principals. ;)
Now the "Mayor" is butting in, and I doubt that he will have any valuable input, except to try to provide even more baby sitting services and freebies for "his" people, adding to the nanny state mentality.
“Don’t forget the part about taking off 3 months in the Summer, 2 weeks around Christmas, and a week each around Thanksgiving and “Spring Break”
Obviously you don’t teach.
“you can’t be fired and are guaranteed a raise whenever the union gets its back up.”
Does happen and since when?
Don’t worry. Genghis teaches math. ;^)
Think about a career change.
If it makes you feel better...
I subbed for a gym teacher last week. The teacher explained that she normally has very structured activities for the students, but she'd decided to just let them play Capture The Flag. I ended up sending so many kids to the nurse's office they practically wore a path in the floor!
During my last class, one student grabbed another and was dragging him across the floor, just as I opened my mouth, the boy let go and the other kid's head bounced off the gym floor.
Sent the sobbing kid to the nurse with a buddy, gave the first kid a warning. The buddy comes back with an incident report for me to fill out. I'm filling out the paper and trying to keep an eye on the game, when the same creepy kid grabs another student and throws him to the floor.
Ok, hurt child #2 to the nurse accompanied by buddy with the first incident report, violent little creep is banished to the office. Buddy quickly returns with incident report number two.
That class leaves, and the next class was ordered to SIT and DO NOTHING while I fill out this paper! Then, I found some bean bags and allowed them to play catch with the additional order that NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO TOUCH ANYONE ELSE!
I've never felt so incompetent in my life! I kept expecting the nurse to come in to find out who the idiot teaching gym was.
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