What am I doing now??

It's been a few months since I posted at this site--mainly because I have completely changed my focus. I originally thought I was going to segue from being in the classroom to doing educational and corporate training consultation, but when states had no more money to spend on education and corporations were struggling to keep their doors open, that idea kind of $hit the bed.

Then, I thought I'd go back to my first love: making stuff. Like Martha Stewart, but not as old and huffy. But I need a regular income, and the pay for being a "Lifestyle Guru" is sporadic at best.

Next, I thought "to heck with it all...I'll find something FUN to do for a living!" But all fun has apparently been cancelled.

So I went back to work this fall, my tail between my legs. Meanwhile, opportunities to become that "Lifestyle Guru" have begun to appear.
Mysterious ways, my peeps....mysterious ways.

I have begun a new blog on a new site which provides me with the opportunity to grow as (I hope) my business will. I am continuing to work for my regular income, and this blog, Fifty, will be about education. It will be a compilation of information, ideas, and what is going on in education today: the good, the bad, and the ugly. It will provide insight from the folks on the front lines...the teachers who are trying to do what's best for kids and learning. If you're interested in education, this may be a good blog to check up on now and then!

A Poem for 8th Grade

You Have My Books

And I want to yell
"Give them back!"
(Because over the last
ten years
I have lost
Roughly five hundred
And I used to send notes home
Saying "Please
Return the book or
Pay for it"
But it didn't work.
Even when I tried to
Collect the money,
It was turned in to the
Main office
And I never saw a
Dime, so
What was the point?)
I'd like to think that
If you knew
I paid for those books
Out of my
Own pocket,
You'd return them.
And then I think,
Maybe you really
Love that book!
You simply
Must have a copy of
Your own!

But I know in reality
The book is
Under your bed, along with a
Hundred thousand
Dust bunnies.

Education Revenge..er...Reform.

Hi, Friendly Taxpayers!
I know you're pi$$ed at me. And you have every right to be. Honestly, of all the people in the world of whom you can be jealous...I should definitely be at the top of your list. Because I'm FABULOUS! And I have an AWESOME WARDROBE! But best of all, I'm a STATE EMPLOYEE!
Yep!
I have it made. Because we all know that state employees are paid for doing nothing, basically. And that great pension and all those honking benefits! Jeeze! I'm even jealous of myself!

But I have a challenge for you, you pitiful folks in the private sector: Be me for a day. This should be fairly easy, as we all know that I just work part-time. Heck, 7:00-2:15 is a walk in the park! Piece o' cake! Don't forget, though, that you need to get to school about 6:40 or you'll get caught in all the traffic because parents don't want their kids taking the bus. Plus, it'll give you a few minutes to gather your stuff for your lessons for the day. You have three separate lessons to teach--one for Academically Gifted English/Language Arts, one for regular ELA and one for Social Studies. But it's no problem...you're obviously bright enough to put together good 50 minute lessons that'll keep kids engaged. Just don't forget to know what the essential question of the day is, post it on the board, and be prepared to explain how it fits into the NC Standard Course of Study. (You should have that memorized, by the way. It's not hard; there are only about five dozen bullet points for each. Oh, and be prepared to tell how you differentiate the lesson for slower learners, kids with learning problems, and kids who don't speak English at home, as well as the kids who are working above grade level, okay?)

Take attendance (on the computer), make sure you change the absence status of kids who bring in notes (on the computer) and keep track of kids who come in late. If they come in late more than three days a quarter (let's face it, some come in late more than three days a week), be prepared to keep them after school for detention. This means you have to find something to do that keeps them occupied for an hour that isn't class-related, so be sure to figure it out ahead of time.

You'll have about forty-five minutes of planning time (that's why the job is just part-time!) a few times a week. This is a great time to (a) straighten up the room, (b) find some good supplemental lessons on the internet, or (c) figure out the technology you're going to use that day, if you're lucky enough to HAVE technology. If you're not, this is a good time to make sure your overhead bulb still works. Of course, the last few minutes of planning you should tinkle, because you won't get another chance for a couple of hours.

Some days you will have meetings. Your meeting might be with other teachers who teach your subject (if you teach two subjects, you might go to two, or just feel like you're completely out of the loop). Sometimes these meetings are fun and you get to discuss great ideas, but sometimes they are not fun and you talk about tests. When you talk about testing, feelings get hurt. And no matter how bad you feel, you CANNOT have a DRINK, even if you are over twenty-one!
You may have parent conferences, as well. Know that no matter how wonderful you are, there are parents who HATE YOUR GUTS!! Please understand that they don't really hate you, they hate their CHILD right now because he/she is thirteen. They may call you a lesbian, they may use cuss words, and they might cry...but none of this really has anything to do with you. They are frustrated, and because you are a public employee, they feel like they can take it out on you. They want you to fix their kid and you can't. Because if you could you would write a book about fixing kids and every parent in America would buy it and you would make a bajillion dollars and you would QUIT TEACHING and never look back!

After you have done all the stuff other people need you to do, then you get to teach! Yay! After all, that's what we come to school for, right? And how hard can it be? You stand there and talk about the subject for 50 minutes and the kids take notes.
But that's just some days. Actually, those days are few and far between. Because that's not the best way for kids to learn, and the whole point of school is so that kids learn, silly. So you have to mix it up. Today, for example, we did vocabulary review in Social Studies. It was a group activity, so kids got to talk a little. And they were to find out what things like "The Anaconda Plan" and "Jim Crow Laws" and "Reconstruction" were as review for a test. They could use the Social Studies textbook, but that wasn't enough for some of them. They wanted to know which pages the various topics were on! I used the word 'index' and they looked at me as though I had three heads! One boy REFUSED to do the activity unless I told him a page number! (I said "42" just because I will take any and all opportunities to be a smart-aleck. Because I'm not allowed to drink.)

Of course I do get a lunch hour, even though it's really only a lunch twenty-five minutes. Even if I got an hour (an hour! Who gets an hour? What do they do with all that time, fercryin' out loud?), I would have to spend it in the cafeteria, monitoring kids. So it's eat, tinkle, back to class (or tinkle, eat, back to class if I'm feeling frisky) except Monday and Friday we have exercise!

Then it's back to class for more teaching (don't forget to differentiate!) and then the day is over! Wasn't that quick? Sure...it's part-time! Just tidy the room and pack up--it shouldn't take you more than thirty minutes. Unless, of course, it's tutoring day. You have to tutor failing kids, it's part of your job. Some kids stay on Tuesday, some Wednesday, and some Thursday. And if you have a group project, the kids stay after because they can't drive and therefore cannot conveniently meet at Starbucks. Your room is like Starbucks without the mocha frappacino, so you may have to stay until 3pm. Unless someone's mom doesn't show or you have corraling. Then it might be 4. But that still is just part-time, right?

Oh, I forgot to mention grading papers and entering grades in the computer. Sometimes you can get that done during planning, but sometimes you might have to take stuff home at night or over the weekend. But how long does it take to grade 100 research papers, really? No sweat! For the big bucks and incredible benefits I get?

I know you wish you were me.

Job Interview #1 - Should have been suspicious when they held it at a mall.

I decided to go out on a limb--a really loooong limb--yesterday and audition for a new segment on a local television station's morning show.

So did hundreds of other people.

(And yes, I'm well aware I don't have the hair for it.)

Anyway, I thought it would be a good experience, just so that I am in practice for the spring. Although I have applied for various jobs throughout the school system, they are LOUSY about contacting teachers, even to let us know our application was received. They usually end up hiring someone from an adjoining county--in an effort to keep the teachers from getting into jobs where they can actually talk about classroom needs. This is just my opinion, but it is widely held among my colleagues.

I didn't even make the first cut, though they did film me briefly for a segment about my 8th graders writing letters to this particular station about why I am the perfect candidate for the job. It's supposed to air next month when they advertise their new hire.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to practice interviewing and keep on keepin' on with Kirb Appeal and its various auspices. Stay tuned for more adventures of the new thirteen.

So, why the change? Why now?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-d-slekar/value-added-measures-and-_b_811963.html

In a nutshell? Teaching isn't fun anymore. Kids can't have fun learning anymore.

Instead, we're looking at "Value-Added Measures"--basically a series of standardized tests--in order to judge students and their teachers. Why?

Well, one thing I know for sure--it's a lot easier to give a standardized test than it is to go into classrooms. We don't really want to see what a teacher is doing to get the students jazzed--no one cares whether or not my students feel safe, their opinions and insights as individuals valued--and never mind that I introduce them to things they never even knew existed; things like the parallelism between "West Side Story" and Shakespeare, "Weird Al" Yankovic and parody, and the shootings at Kent State and political activism.

First, let me tell you why I became a teacher.

I became a teacher because I had great teachers. I had teachers who were not afraid of standardized testing. I had teachers who did not have to worry about having their names published in the paper for having "failed." These teachers: Dorothy Johnson, Norma Crane, Hilde Griggs, Bob Strong, Betty Nelson, Ginny Johnson, Bill Reilly, Norma Gunkler, Steve Murphy, Mike Savage, Nancy Compton, Carm Pascarella, Nancy Bauer...even Betty Coman, despite the fact that she didn't give me the English prize, though I was CLEARLY the best English student in the class of '78 (and to her credit she admitted such many years later) are remembered for making my educational experience important. I remember every single one of them for different reasons--they may have challenged me, or enriched my life in some way--but I am fifty years old. To remember these teachers after all these years is to affirm their lives as teachers.

On the other hand, I have had over a thousand students in my career, and I doubt if even one of them can say I made an impact. I have had to spend the bulk of my career "teaching to the test," and worrying whether or not my kids will "make the numbers." They end up hating school, and who can blame them? Several days each quarter are used up by testing, and kids are having to sit quietly for hours on end, focusing on multiple choice questions, sometimes with no right answer, filling in scan-tron bubbles.
DO YOU REMEMBER 8TH GRADE??
Because if we're being completely honest here, we'll admit that it was really hard to concentrate for more than thirty minutes at a time. For some of us, it was hard to focus at all.

Honestly? I don't want the responsibilty any more. When my principal tells me that if I don't make the numbers, he won't go to bat for me--and 52% of my 8th graders have to make the 99th percentile--it's time to do something else, because this is statistically impossible. I can do a lot of things--like get kids who've never read for pleasure to VOLUNTARILY pick up a book--but I am not magic.

Administrators ask us to "create a safe environment" for our kids. They ask us to monitor our charges and report any bullying we might see. Yet, they are creating a climate of fear and distrust.

And it's not fun anymore.