Saturday, September 20, 2008

Fight #2 + Seizure

Yesterday I was having a great day. Many of my students were enjoying the literacy lesson plan about genetic engineering that I had devised for them. I had them list foods they had eaten for the Do Now, then we went through them one by one identifying each food as living at some point, be it wheat in bread, beef in hamburgers, tomatoes in tomato sauce, etc. This was a great segue into a discussion about genetically modified foods. I passed out an article about genetically modified beef. A guided reading addressed different words in the article they did not understand and led into a great Q&A session about genetics, GMOs and their safety. Everything was going smoothly as ever.

Then, as my 9th period rolls around, only 3 students were actually on time. Many of the others were coming from their gym class, which I believe is on another floor in the building, so they have to hike up quite a few flights to get there on time. A few moments later, I had a few more students and most had begun the Do Now activity. One of my most disruptive students popped her head in the door and spoke loudly to some other student. I approached her and instructed her to come in, take her seat and begin the Do Now. She immediately left the door and went back into the hallway.

Moments later I hear someone yelling to get security. After yesterday, my phone had been destroyed. I do not know how as it did not occur in my presence, but it looked like someone took it off the hook and banged it against the wall. The handset was in two pieces. I tried earlier that morning to get someone to fix it to no avail (figures).

I yelled across the hall to another teacher to call 711, our version of 911 in the school. Seconds later, I was yelling at my students to get back into the classroom. They were yelling at me to "help her." My most disruptive student who had earlier popped her head in the door and left was now laying on the floor in the hallway convulsing - yes, having a seizure. I am guessing it was induced by another student who was being physically violent with her, who was supposed to be in my class also. I made sure that they were both marked absent on my attendance sheet. (CYA).

I had my AP, another AP from a different academy in my building, the whole security staff, two other academy coordinators and various teachers all involved. This was surreal and incredibly stressful. I fully expect my principal to have me in his office on Monday.

After the convulsing students was taken to the hospital and the other girl was detained my school safety, I was trying to manage all the highly disturbed students in my classroom. They were all very upset and became combative when I was asking for their cooperation. Two of them began to argue, which I successful tried to de-escalate. Before I knew it, I had School Safety Agents in my room again and they were removed. I did not prompt the removal, it was the safety agents that came in upon their own accord.

The AP from the academy came in and had a talk with the students. It filled pretty much the whole period. I stood their and watched. In last 15 minutes, I salvaged whatever I had left of a lesson. The AP left before the end. I kept my students on task for the next 10 minutes, but in the last five minutes of their last period on a Friday, they began to become more talkative about what happened. To pull them back in at least for the last few minutes, I had them turn over their agendas and on an exit slip write two things about what happened during the earlier incident. I got some interesting responses. "'student a' was slam 'student b's head into the floor."

I just can't believe all day, everything goes SO well, then in the last 47 minutes, it could not have been any crazier. Good thing there are metal detectors or I'm sure someone would be killed by now. What a fucking fiasco.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Fight #1

I don't begin teaching until 4th period (there are nine in a day). Today, I had my lesson plan on bar graphs and line graphs prepared with some guided modeling of the activity and independent practice. The activity was going very well in my first class of the day. Everyone was paying attention, taking good notes, and getting their work done accurately and efficiently.

Just before the last ten minutes of class, a student asked me to use the restroom. He returned about 5 minutes later. When he walked in, he said something to another student in the class like, "she's mine (fine?)" or something to that effect. The student to whom he was speaking stood up calmly then took about a step and a half forward. At this point, he took one of the desks and flipped it a few feet in the air and it fell to the ground, at which point he charged the student that returned from the bathroom.

They commenced beating the living shit out each other. A few desks were pushed around as the two wrestled and punched each other on the floor. The two fighting are the only two sophomores in the class and the rest are freshmen. The other students mostly stood back and watched in awe with maybe one or two egging them on.

The desk flip was my cue to pick up the phone and call School Safety (ext 711, kinda like 911 teacher-style). After I did that, I partially stepped into the hall and yelled for school safety several times. Within 30 seconds I had the school safety agent assigned to the floor in my room trying to separate them. The middle-aged African American female school safety officer was unable to dislodge the two boys. She radioed for assistance. Another 30 seconds, I had two more, then eight, then 12 school safety agents (I think most in the building) in my room. I instructed all the other students to stand back. At some point, two deans were also in the room with I think maybe another teacher or two.

One students was removed and taken in the elevator with about 4 safety agents, the rest of which remained in my room. The second student was removed by school safety moments later. A dean, with whom I've worked before, politely informed me he would need me to write out the situation. I told him I'd be free 7th period and walked back into my classroom.

I firmly instructed the rest of the class to take their seats and to give me their worksheets (with 2 minutes of class to spare). The bell rang and I instructed them not to leave yet. I told them to hand in their worksheets if they had not done so already, to complete their exit slips and put the desks back in their original position. I replaced the desk that had been launched.

I gathered my things and headed to my next period.

Expecting fights and being the person of authority in one are two VERY different things. Luckily I've dealt with high-intensity situations before, so my gut immediate response it usually appropriate. My adrenaline was definitely through the roof though.

As strange and as twisted it may sound, managing a situation like that is MUCH easier than managing a class that is moderately disruptive to whole period. The problem is so big, it progresses out of my jurisdiction at which point I just pick up the phone and it dissipates in a few minutes. It's a default response where I am no longer responsible. Managing less intense classroom management problems is a far more daunting challenge. That one is persistent and falls mostly on me.

I've never seen a fist fight before. I guess this is a first. At least, now I know I can handle it.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Adjusting to Chaos

With the second week of teaching coming to a close, I find that I am beginning to adjust. I know what to expect when I go into my class everyday now. This is not to say I can anticipate everything of course, but I know what I'm in for.

One thing I'd like to put out there has to do with class size. You probably read that and think, "yea, you and every other teacher." I realize that teaching costs money and small classes cost money. We quantify these costs every time checks are cut to the city or to my checking out. It's a lot (well, the expense of education is alot- not my salary). To cut class sizes in half would cost somewhere around double, if not more for an initial transition period. Obviously that's a ton of money.

Let's look at this amount of money as a relative value now. Relative to the cost of our prison system, relative to the cost of law enforcement, relative to the cost of having a welfare system, relative to the cost of upkeep on our infrastructures, relative to the cost of dwindling innovation, relative to the cost of an economy that struggles to stay above water. Relative to those costs, the cost of halving the number of students in a classroom is pennies.

I realize students come from situations where their parents may do crack at home. Maybe they don't have dinner or breakfast. Maybe they have to work to support their parents. Maybe they have to watch out for their lives on a daily if not hourly basis. These things all have an influence. BUT, I am beginning to believe that a small class size would override these impediments to some degree. Managing a room full of 34 people, many of which come from less than great situations like those above, is a task that is not meant for the weak. In fact, it is hardly manageable if at all.

If one of the people who decides education policy in our governments were to be in a classroom and be expected to manage that many people of that sort, I'd bet my salary they would throw their hands in the air and give up. It is truly an overwhelming experience. On top of that, teachers are expected to have these 34 people from unfortunate backgrounds have substantial learning and achieve well. It is an unreasonable expectation.

I truly and completely believe many of our country's public school are in a full blown crisis. Teachers are given too many students to manage and therefore each student gets less quality attention. I hate admitting it, but I have no choice but to be this way with my own students. There are simply too many. If I were to give the attention I'd like to give to each and every student, I wouldn't sleep, eat, go home, nothing. I would have no time at all. Between calling parents, organizing and grading papers, recording grades, creating lesson plans and every other teaching-related task, it's simply not reasonable to have one person manage all of those things for 140 young people.

I am not asking for sympathy or a raise. I am asking policy-makers to reconsider the implications of having this educational crisis in our hands. What happens when people don't graduate high school, they can't read, they can't do basic math, use a ruler, form a sentence. We all suffer. If there is one thing I will work to achieve in education, aside from helping students-obviously, it is to reduce class sizes. It is the closest thing we can get to a silver bullet.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

The First Week

The past four days have been a complete blur.

Day 1: No keys to anything in the school. Reviewing the syllabus and expectations with students. Planning lessons.
Day 2: Diagnostic assessment. Not much activity during the lesson for me, but damn a lot of grading.
Day 3: Igniting (not burning) a student's money with an acetone / water mix leading into a discussion about observation v. inference. They loved it.
Day 4: A slide show with pictures of people who look like scientists but aren't, and vice versa. Students learned that anyone, regardless of appearance can be a scientist.

I knew there would be a lot of papers. Somehow the true gravity of that fact did not set in until I carried them around with me. I'm already working on ways to minimize that. I also purchased a projector on eBay and used it in the slide show on Friday. Allowing them to voice their input during the slide show was great fun. They get so involved and everyone was engaged. It seems like my students are pretty visual... and talkative.

I'm somewhat dreading calling all their parents. It's a ton of students so phone calls will take quite some time. I think I should spread it over one week actually. These are the initial calls as an introduction. Hopefully they will deter students from misbehaving in the future.

I have my DOE email address setup, but I'm still trying to figure out how to route it to my iPhone. I think it may require some less than legitimate configuration.

Overall, this week has been quite stressful and required a ton of work. However, when thing are running smoothly, I love it. I know it's only the first week, but I think I've chosen the right profession.

Friday, August 29, 2008

First Day (w/o students)

I should be in bed asleep right now.

However, when I got home today, I made two turkey sandwiches, ate them and got in bed by 6PM. I woke up at 11, still tired, but I figured I'd answer a few emails, input some scheduling things into my calendar and organize things a bit.

The first day involved:
- Hearing various authority figures speak
- Hearing the phrase, "I'm sure you all know this already..." (I didn't)
- Meeting other science teachers
- Meeting my new AP
- Being overwhelmed and inundated with copious information
- Perpetually having a deer-in-the-headlights look in my eyes
- Making an exponentially growing to-do list
- Finally discovering my file number (Dept. of Ed. ID #)
- Waiting on hold for DOE IT to give me an email address, to no avail
- A 1 on 1 Q&A with my new AP, asking her questions to which she didn't know the answers because she's only been there for four days
- Failing to find out how to connect to the school's wireless network
- Failing to acquire keys to my classroom
- Being disappointed that I have not been assigned to a science classroom (sans sink, lab bench, white board - only chalk)
- Being delighted that I have a well-spaced schedule the begins at just before 9AM and ends around 3:30
- Staying well past my obligated time to organize my thoughts and reduce my anxiety
- Realizing what exactly I have to do for next week
- Realizing I do not have a mailbox to receive essential correspondences
- Being overall pleased with my school, in light of others' horror stories
- Redundant professional development that used materials identical to those in NYCTF training

I think that's a conservative synopsis of today's events. Tomorrow should be a whole new barrel of fun. I can only imagine how much the level of fun increases when students arrive. As you can tell, I'm being sarcastic, not because I don't like what I'm doing, but just because it's quite overwhelming right now. I'm sure the dust will settle in a few weeks and I will feel like I have a level head, but right now, everything is kind of a circus. Goodnight.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Vacation to a Close, School to Open

As much as I have enjoyed my vacation between training and the school year, I do think I am ready for some academic activity. Although, I also think I should be careful what I ask for.

SAN FRANCISCO
Last week I returned from my 6-day vacation to San Francisco, CA. It was definitely one of the best vacations I've had in a while. What a beautiful city too! If you're interested in seeing pics, go here. My vacation also got me thinking about a few different things. I love NYC, but I tend to forget how nice other cities can be also. This spurred me to google SF's teacher salaries. Unfortunately they do not quite commensurate with those of NYC. While I understand the cost of living may be slightly lower there (although not quite the price of real estate), I would not to be able to build capital as quickly as I would here. So that got me thinking about what I could do with my two months off in the summer - go to SF of course! Really this is just some fantastical brainstorming at this point, but it's good to know what's available.


CERTIFICATION
I have been putting off my certification for a number of reasons, none of which are good. At the end of training, our group/class had to somewhat finagle our own workshop on getting certified (of course, NYCTF or CCNY didn't do that for us, even though it is essential to our positions). So a "certification officer" (whatever that means) from CCNY led us through the NYS Education Department's website. Most of us went through it until we came to the part where we were asked to enter our credit card information to pay the $50 fee. We were told we could go home and return to this site, all of our information saved, and pay the fee on our personal computer.

Later I came home to do just that and found that I could not add my certification and pay the fee because I already added an identical certification at school. I figured I'd call the state ed dept and figure it out later. So after a few attempts to solve the problem myself, I gave them a call - busy. So I randomly clicked around a bit and under some counterintuitive link found the solution to my problem. For the most part, this has alleviated my anxiety.

However, we have been told multiple times that we will be certified for either grades 5-9 or 7-12. I am determined to have my certification for the higher grades as that is where I've acquired my job and I really have no desire to teach middle school (high schoolers here are probably like middle schoolers elsewhere anyway - unfortunately). Hopefully the state won't reject my application for the higher grades because that would mean I wouldn't have certification during my first month or so of teaching (depending on how long it takes them to process certification applications). While this is a formality, it is one on which my salary disbursement depends and therefore essential for my livelihood. Needless to say, I really hope they grant me the certification. (If they don't, I have to reapply, including another $50 fee, and the state would presumable grant me the 5-9 certification.)

I Can't Believe this is Happening
It feels pretty surreal to think that in about a week, I will be in front of a classroom full of 30 students or so beginning teaching biology. I am looking forward to it, though I do expect it to be a considerable challenge. I am more concerned about establishing good classroom management practices. Content won't be an issue. Tomorrow some other teacher in my department and I are meeting for lunch to socialize and discuss this upcoming year. From what I can tell, it seems my immediate coworkers are very helpful and cordial. I certainly look forward to working with them. Hopefully after tomorrow, I'll have a better sense of what to do/expect for the upcoming year.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Quiet Before the Storm

Rumor is that the first year of teaching tends to be the most difficult.  Given that, I would like to do my best to enjoy the free time I have during August.  So, I booked a five-day vacation to San Francisco, CA.

I've been to CA before, but other parts such as LA, Palm Spring, San Diego... SoCal basically.  However, from all the ranting and raving I keep hearing, it seems SF is one hell of a city, even on par with NYC.  Now I love NYC, so I have a hard time imagining this.  I'm totally open to the idea of falling in love with another city though.

One of the great things about teaching is that a teacher's skill is in high demand just about everywhere.  So if I happen to fall in love with some city and I want to move and live there, I would probably be able to find a teaching position relatively easily.  Certification would be a hurdle of sorts, but often NY's certification is transferrable to other states.  I would also like to make sure I am vested in the pension system here before I make any drastic moves, so that means at least five years.  Also, the perfect amount of time to hone my skills and build a reputation.

Don't get me wrong.  I realize I have not even begun teaching, technically.  I think having some healthy foresight and a future plan of options is a good idea though.  NYC is great, but I imagine after a few decades it can really wear on a person, unless you're exorbitantly wealthy.