Teacher Journals: Sylvia

11.1.02

To me, being an MCMS student means drawing on my background knowledge and experience as a learner, as a human, and as a professional to bring a large worldview into my classroom. Students should ask why they need to learn what we teach in class. If a student says she can't work with a teacher/group/problem, then I try and draw on my experiences in the work place to explain why a working relationship is important, teamwork is essential, and critical thinking is crucial. It's also about transparency in teaching. Why not state the purpose of an exercise explicitly? They should ask, "Is it necessary to learn how to convert watts to kilowatt hours?" (It depends on your profession, but I think it's important to be able to manipulate formulas in all sorts of areas.) Why do they need to create a PowerPoint presentation? (Because it's an easy, industry standard that assists in synthesizing knowledge and makes you look snappy.)

Never in any job, or even college, have I worked with the "seriousness of purpose" that I apply to my schoolwork in MCMS. I soak up the readings and look for meaning in a way that I never did with technical manuals or college texts. The things I learn here at HGSE will be reflected in my classroom, and so I feel the burden of my students as I read. As I write my essays, I know that my kids are counting on me to bring my best knowledge and side of myself into the classroom as I apply what I have learned. It makes me alternately excited and, to be honest, scared.

The more I learn about pedagogy and reform, the more I see the necessity to be confused before I can clarify my thought. The new ideas I'm learning are exciting, and I can't wait to try them in my classroom; but my stodgy, old ideas about how I was taught and therefore how I thought I would teach are hard to shake off. What will happen at the intersection of my idealism, enthusiasm and my (in)ability to change?

I need to be conscious of how and why I make decisions about everything in my classroom. The choices I make must always be for the good of the students. This can be as distant as taking a day longer to grade a project because I would be cranky in class if I stayed up to grade them (i.e., what's good for the teacher can often be good for the students). It can also be directly related to student learning, like when I create opportunities for authentic assessment and set high standards for all of my students. These small decisions add up to a significant whole; if there's one thing I have learned here at the Ed school, and really internalized, it is that teaching is a political act. My curriculum and my personal values shape the lives of my students.

I had one of those "teacher moments" today. After school, I was tutoring Gerard, a student whom I hadn't met before. He walked into the room and immediately sent out this Aura of Trouble. He began throwing stuff around - his jacket, his book bag - and called his friend the N word. We went through some of that verbal boxing that a new teacher gets with a student who'd rather not be there.

"What homework do you have?"

"I don't have any homework except drawing for art class."

"So, you are getting an A+ in all your other subjects?"

<shrug>

"Who's your math teacher?"

"Ms. Z."

"I saw her in the hall. Let's go see if there's any math homework for her class. We can get her to check up on your grade."

"Hmmm… Oh yeah. I do have math homework."

And so on. Gerard went through his math homework and asked for help on the problems with negative numbers. When we were done, we had another short round of verbal sparring, and then he pulled out his science homework. By the end of the tutoring session, Gerard had all but his art homework done and was looking quite proud of himself. I gave him his choice of stickers (since even tough high school boys seem to like stickers!), and he picked one to display on his thumbnail.

I had a good feeling about that tutoring session. I knew that together we had accomplished something significant and that I had made a difference in his ability to manipulate negative numbers. Also, I saw how a kid who could potentially be disruptive in a class could excel with personal attention.

On my way out of school, someone came barreling down the hall and almost ran into me. From behind me I heard Gerard shout, "Hey! Don't hit her. That's the lady who just made me do my homework. She's my favorite teacher." It confirms my belief that all kids want to learn and succeed. They want teachers with high standards who will be tough and really push them to do their best. And they understand that when we push them it is because we care.

12.1.02

Recently, I visited another urban high school (that was fairly dysfunctional) and returned to my own school realizing how truly functional it is! The school where I am interning is very small (about 400 kids), and so the faculty know their students well. The very curricular structure of the school provides students and teachers with ample opportunity to work closely together and keep tabs on students' progress. For example, in addition to giving grades, each faculty member periodically writes a narrative about each of his/her students' progress. At mid-semester, there were parent-teacher-student conferences that I was fortunate to have attended. All three participants sat together and discussed the student's grades and the faculty's narratives. If a problem arose, the teachers and the parents worked with the students to figure out the solutions. It was also incredibly enlightening to watch parents and students interact. "Jim's" mom came in and ruffled his hair when she saw good grades. "Adriana's" dad had to "get stern" when he saw her low scores in math. "What can we do?" he asked. Adriana and her advisor had several suggestions ready. "Stanley's" parents wanted to talk about college applications and how to set up interviews. The foci of the conferences were as diverse as the students themselves.

Too often, in the rush of schooling and in the face of accountability, we find it easier to concentrate on the less positive aspects of students' outside lives; this one's mom is a single parent, this one has to work two jobs, this one's parents never graduated from high school and can't read, this one's cousin is in jail. I think that we forget that students' lives are much larger and more mysterious than what we witness in the classroom. We lose sight of the more positive influences - the families, friends, and extended relations that are there to support the students. Seeing those parents at their students' conferences reminded me that parents want the best for their kids. Some of them, however, don't know how to fight for the best (as my parents did), or they aren't quite sure what to fight for. With students, teachers and families working together, it makes the process of helping students attain the "possible" more probable!

Many teachers recommend calling home as an option to address students' discipline problems. Some teachers take that strategy further by calling home before there are discipline problems to introduce themselves and get to know the parents so that later phone calls home will have better results. Too often, however, calls home are about discipline issues or other negative issues. So the relationship that parents, teachers, and students form during their conferences are all the more important in helping to convey the message that everyone is working together to make a difference in a person's life.

As part of a final project for my science methods course, we have to contribute something to our schools. A group of us at my school, all science teachers, agreed to organize science supplies as our assignment. We met to assess the work about a week ago and were a little overwhelmed by what we found. Beakers, heating pads, books, garden tools, and dozens of pieces of other equipment were stacked haphazardly in the corners of a room and on a selection of metal shelves. There were no labels and no apparent organization. (I can understand why some science teachers hesitate to construct hands-on labs; just trying to locate the right equipment could be a half-day's work!) Then we opened the chemical supply cabinets, and our spirits sank. All of the chemicals were in two big lockers, arranged alphabetically. This meant that some highly reactive chemicals were grouped in chemically unstable configurations. Not a good idea!

After a brief moment (during which we considered switching our teaching subject to math, where, we figured, all students need on most days are calculators, paper, and pencils), we rallied and started cleaning up. We are putting together an easy-to-use color code for the chemicals, making a list of all the chemicals, and making a binder of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) with safety information for each of the chemicals. We are also going to try to conduct a mini in-service workshop for others in the department to incite a chemical safety revolution! It feels good to be giving back in a significant way.

Every day I'm feeling more and more of an integral part of the school community.

2.18.03

I started full-time teaching recently, and I have to admit: it's great! My site has an unusual schedule where the students have an hour and forty minutes of science each day (yikes!), but they only take one semester of science each year. It is fabulous because it means that I got a whole new group of students when I started teaching. There is a long-standing rumor in education that Interns regularly get trampled by their students in much the same way that substitutes get tested, chewed up, and then spit out. Because my mentor is a well-known fixture at the school and a big-ish guy, he instantly has more classroom authority (or at least it seems that way) than I ever could. So he had me begin teaching both classes that I'm "taking over" from Day One of the second semester so that students would think of me as The Teacher right away. In a good way.

One thing about my having had experience in the classroom is that I am not afraid to take control. My afternoon class is the last class of the day, and they tend to be a bit rowdy. At first, the students did play the "hassle the Intern" game, but I just called them on it and moved on. What's interesting is that, even though I have to quiet them down (regularly), that class seems to respect me for it and seems to really enjoy the class and like science. The morning class I teach is a little harder to please, and I am trying to figure out why….

It's great experience to set the tone for my classes and anticipate all the systems we are going to need to keep stuff running this semester. My mentor is flexible about changing things and is trying to get me to think about systems for myself. I made up a special organizer/worksheet for the students to use for the upcoming sponge activity (because it is one of my pet peeves that some of the students ignore the "Do now" activities that begin most classes and don't feel the consequences). I am trying to develop a system for students who are absent to come in and get the work done. Our beginning-of-semester absentee rate is high - a virulent flu bug and some sort of second-semester slump. Our class is extremely hands-on; so, if students miss a day, they undoubtedly would have missed an activity or lab - and these are hard to "make up."

We did a kicker of an opening lesson. We had the students launch Alka-seltzer rockets in the classroom. It was engaging, fun, and still (actually!) scientific. Just by watching the students experiment and try things, I felt like I got to know the students better. It really helped to follow their thought processes and, by asking them to follow the scientific method, we began to understand what their previous science experience had been. The best part was that they were really excited about science when they left that afternoon, and they were still excited when they came into class the next day. The students are already asking for the "periodic times table of the elements!"

Sometimes I feel that it is the whizzy, cool qualitative things that keep students coming back for the scientific, rigorous, quantitative things. There has to be a balance between the two or else the students won't engage. Keeping the students engaged also has to do with balancing sitting with moving, quiet with talking, writing words with using numbers. I am still striving for that balance.

It is really difficult to think about developing one hour and forty minutes of rigorous science curriculum. It is impossible to teach a traditional, stand-and-deliver lesson in one hour and forty minutes. I would die from lecturing and the kids would die from boredom. It is good to have the extended time to do a lab activity (and its follow-up). The lab becomes more coherent, and there is time for real reflection. (The downside of a longer, lab-intensive course is that the lab prep and the cleanup are endless!) My mentor tells the kids "Our goal is that you leave with your brain hurting from thinking hard." I'll say this much: When the kids leave at the end of the day MY brain is certainly hurting! But then it's time for my mentor and me to sit down and make sure we are set for another day.

If my mentor has a fault (and I'd rather have this as a downfall given a list of possible options), it's that he's a pack rat and a pile collector. You kind of have to be a pack rat to be a good science teacher. You have to save supplies, save bottles, re-use everything. But I would like the stacks and piles to be a little bit more organized! We also have to share our classroom with a writing class, so we have to stash away our supplies in the middle of the day and then take them out again. In this case, organization is all the more important.

All told, it feels really good to be in control of classes after all those weeks of observing and assisting. We are developing some really cool curriculum, and the kids seem engaged and challenged (for the most part). My mentor and I are working out the kinks in our working relationship, and we are doing some great lessons that, on their reflection feedback forms, the kids seem to love. Teaching science is so much fun, and science is so naturally engaging. Although it is a lot of work and a lot of preparation, I don't think I would teach anything else!

5.4.03

Yikes! Everyone was telling the truth when they told me that the Program would start slowly, speed up in January, and then skip April and go directly to May! When I think about teaching, I am barely out of January when teaching felt so new. I can't believe how time has flown. (Is it because I am having fun?) There are five more days of teaching to go and then a lot of end-of-the-year wrap-up. If first semester we were all freshmen, this semester we have had to be seniors. Where did the year go?

Last week, my class and I did a really cool lab where I prepared some “foul water” (water with coffee grounds, oil, and garlic salt) and then we put it through a filtration process in order to separate the good water. The students seemed to enjoy the activity; everyone was definitely involved. It was a rather involved clean-up procedure, though. Imagine garlicky, oily water all over slate-topped lab tables. Good thing I had a lot of soap on hand for the students (although they weren't the only ones who “got messy.” I got some of the “foul water” on my watch band and it still smells!)

My students are all presently involved in their science fair projects. We had them pick topics from those that we covered in chemistry this year. Most of them gravitated to doing something with combustion! Their work is impressive (even if the lab safety goes awry every now and then). I am so involved in their symposium work that I have committed to spending a day a week for the balance of the school year in my Mentor Teacher's room working with the students on their projects. I hope to document their work in my Teaching Portfolio.

This part Friday I attended to a school concert that showcased my school's students in instrumental and vocal ensemble. It was a great feeling to see the kids doing what they love. For some of them, I know that my class probably seems like a tedious obstacle between them and the rest of their world and lives. Watching Michael play the clarinet on stage, I realized that it was the longest I had ever seen him sit still! Seeing Elena sing, I realized why she was such a devotee of American Idol. I was so proud of them and my respect for them as complex people grew even larger. And they seemed to appreciate that I made the effort to see them in their element.

Now: some of my pet peeves about teaching in urban schools. I feel that one of my jobs as a teacher is to challenge the stereotypes of teachers that the public seems to have. For example, when I tell people that I teach, they usually assume that I am an elementary teacher. Why? Perhaps there is some hidden formula in our culture which says: Asian + short + nurturing + female = elementary teacher. When I tell them I am a high school chemistry teacher, they usually fumble a bit, saying something like, “Oh, well. Why aren't you in industry?” I get incensed. But, as a result of these encounters, it occurred to me that -- rather than shoot the messenger -- perhaps I should consider investing in more professional clothing (as soon as I get that first pay check). That would probably really confuse matters!

After I confess that I teach high school chemistry, people want to know where I teach. When I say I teach in an urban school, I know what's coming. Sometimes I get pity; other times I get misplaced sympathy, and sometimes people congratulate me. What bothers me with all these responses is that many people assume that I mean to be (as one person put it) a “savior to children of color.” Yet I am no missionary. I teach because I love my content, I love watching children learn my content, I love the fact that no two days are ever the same, and I love it when I've developed a good science demo. (It puts me in a good mood for days.) I choose to work in urban schools because I am committed to social justice -- to teaching my kids how to be successful in contexts that are often and largely against them. I want everyone to know that my students are brilliant and funny and talented humans. I am not teaching in urban schools to “stoke my social ego” as someone once put it. I am a teacher of urban children because I believe that all children deserve the best teachers and education possible. And I hope that I will be successful in joining others in providing them with that.

Finally: Two other thoughts. Anyone who thinks that teaching is about being “in at 8, out by 3!” should shadow a teacher for a day (which often ends at 6 or 7!). And anyone who can say that without cracking a smile has never met a real teacher.

I am excited and proud to be in the ranks and company of wonderful educators. Real professionals. Here's to next year!

9.10.03

The good news is that I have a job! The bad news is that I haven't actually signed a contract yet. When I never received a contract from the Central Office, I figured it was “business as usual.” Then I found out that the system had lost my file. Nothing there. Gone! It was a good thing I was suspicious and that I kept copies of the important documents from my application. Now I have to unearth and resend everything. No paycheck 'til all this clears up. On the other hand (looking at the bright side), I can't spend money that I don't have!

I guess a first year teaching at a new school is a first year of teaching all over again. I am teaching SCIENCE? PHYSICS? TO the entire 10th grade (60 students) at a small “pilot” high school in Boston. I am constantly amazed at how much larger the students are than the middle school students I mentored this past summer! I am trying to employ the “don't smile 'til Christmas” strategy with some success. I would rather be strict up front than have to try to pull in the reins later. I really believe that the initial and consistent discipline pays off in the long run. I am noting, however, that I'm already making some critical mistakes. For example, I thought asking students to quiet down when I raise my hand would work, but I forgot how reluctant students can be to “join” in actions at this age. I just got a bell today and I really hope it's not too late for that strategy to be effective. (It's day 6 of school but it feels like day 56!).

On the way home from school on the first day, I was walking with my fellow 10th grade teachers and I saw a pack of my former students from my Practicum days last year. They were so happy to see me, and it felt great. Smiles and hugs all around. “You LEFT us!” they said. And one said, “How am I going to do my science fair project without you this year?” It reminded me that things are always rough with a group of new students, but through perseverance, dedication, true caring, and patience there is a reward. I have to convince myself that my new group of students will be won over in the end and that I will have a positive reputation at the school next year. As I recall, the second year is worth the trouble of the first.

After my second full day in the classroom I had dinner with my former Mentor Teachers. It was so good to see them and hang out and laugh about ourselves and about education. They filled me in on the kids from last year -- Terry doing well as school President, Malcolm coming in after school to look for lost papers already. They told me about the other teachers -- still engaged, crazy, and winning awards! It reminded me of camaraderie -- of the best of times from last year. I really like my colleagues in my new school, too; but, since I am the only new person there, I am still on the fringes of the complex social circle. It is going to take time to recapture that feeling of colleagueship. To find where I belong amidst a group of clearly driven teachers!

For the past few nights I have had dreams about my school. They were the sorts of dreams you have when you are learning a foreign language for the first time -- everything was in slow motion and garbled. The location was familiar (a classroom at my school), but everyone was speaking gibberish. Maybe they were using educational acronyms that I never understood. I can't recall. In the dream, one of the teachers from across the corridor from my room smiled at me as we passed in the hallway. He said, “Don't worry” really slowly and clearly as if I might not understand him. Then the dream ended. Now I know what people mean when they talk about “teacher dreams.” I think the translation of this one is fairly clear.

One of the selling points of this particular small school where I work is what is called “Advisory.” Of the 60 10th graders, 15 of them are my charges three times a week for Advisory - where we work to “build community,” establish learning goals, learn life skills, and work on an independent learning project. Advisory, by design and purpose, has to be flexible enough to meet the needs of all students. My fear is that my Advisory will seem unstructured to the students and that they won't engage. But tackling such a fear is what first-year teaching at a new school is all about. I need to make it clear to the students the extent to which Advisory is a class, a study hall, and a team-building, community event. And that means that I have to be clear with them about the Advisory curriculum. As soon as I am clear about it myself!

I am glad I am keeping this journal. It should certainly entertain me when I re-read it next year this time!