Expanding my comprehension of comprehension

I feel so many inadequacies as a new teacher. There are far too many to enumerate. I always leave my readings feeling like I'm now even more aware of what I am NOT doing to help my students, but where is the energy and the time to develop all of these strands of improvement? It often seems like some kind of voodoo is required to harness the powers of all of these strategies of assessment, classroom management, and literacy aligned with the curriculum and still be a living, breathing human being.

How will I get through this? Will I go get through this? Certainly I will but at what cost? My health, my friendships, my family relationships, my sanity, my faith in human kind, my faith in myself?

Ok, I'm kind of in a rut, and I'm at home sick with a throbbing sinus infection, so I'll try to focus on practices for expanding comprehension, as I'm called to do.

Over and over I have been told that we need not only teach our curriculum but also teach strategies for thinking through our curriculum. For example, our students do not know how to go through the internal questioning process required to determine which of the eight parts of speech this word "sleep" actually is.  I need to model for them how they should be approaching this task. "Is this word a person, place, thing, or idea? If yes, then it's a noun. Does this word show action? Is this word a form of "be"? Does this word describe something?..."  I need to give them a framework for thinking through these problems.

I've also found that my students overlook key words that clue in skilled readers to important parts of the text. "Where is our most important reason in this paragraph? .... Do you see any words or phrases that clue us in to one reason being more important than all the others? ... Yes, there it is, the phrase 'most of all.' And which reason follows that?"

At first it was a bit baffling to me that all but a few of my students did not register this type of distinction in text. All of the words seem to look the same to them, and the importance of the words they read seem to lack hierarchy. Unfortunately I feel like I have done little in these thirteen or so weeks to help them see those distinctions on their own. I continue to guide them through these questioning techniques but have done little to give them the tools to do it without my direction. I found the "List of Common Connecting Words and What They Signal" to be helpful in spurring ideas for how I could present these text clues to them.

Other resources that I found helpful were the illustration of text mapping, the opinionnaires, and the class discussion strategies. I feel like partner and group work would greatly benefit my students. My sixth-graders find it very difficult to stay quiet in the classroom, and they all want to make a comment at the same time. However, I'm still in that novice/insecure teacher mode of not feeling confident enough to take the risks that come with group work.

Let's keep this in perspective. Six months ago I knew almost nothing about teaching or managing a classroom. I've had my own classroom for four months. At this point, I may be learning more than they are. I suspect that they are learning something in spite of my learning curve.

Five rollings and October's gone

I wrote this mid-October:

The funk of October has set in without my permission, and yet it feels like October is extinguishing itself. I drift in and out of days and weeks like a long morning sleep--not to be confused with my actual abrupt wake up at 5:15 a.m. October feels like a waking dream;  it's almost black when I pull out of the driveway in the morning, and before I can shake off the mental replays of the day, it's dark again. 

How am I already halfway through the month? It's crept in and out like the vanishing day-lit hours I get to live at home. It was set up to be the great white shark lurking in the water. It's more of a lingering, nagging dark albatross than a great white. 

Funny thing is, I'm a creature of the night. It was very difficult at first for me to force myself to go to bed at 10:00. I love the darkness and the adventurous, unknown landscape that night provides. Late night drives, impulsive hour-long e-mails written to old friends about the latest life revelations, sitting and staring to music, reading my favorite poetry call-and-response style with Englishy friends…whatever it is that kept me up until 2 a.m. most nights for no real reason. 

The difference between the night then and the night now is that the darkness feels oppressive. It means that I'm that much closer to the next cycle of school day. Darkness means time to go to school in the morning, and at night darkness means time to plan my next day's lesson. Darkness does not mean adventure and wandering freedom; it means responsibility and obligation. 

I've reflected on the questions, "What's the deal with October? Why do people loathe it so?"  While I was resistant for awhile to giving October the special attention as "the most difficult month," I must admit that it got the best of me. There are the obvious reasons: the accumulated tiredness, the end of the honeymoon period of student behavior, the classroom floor getting streakier and streakier by the day, and the papers piling up. 

In my case, I noticed that I was a bundle of emotions for the last half of the month. I felt like I had regressed. School seemed more daunting again; one Monday morning, I literally cried my way out the door. I think that after the first nine weeks came to a close, I felt more pressure on myself. I could see clearly my failings from the first nine weeks, and as I became more knowledgeable and gained more experience, I had the classic consciously incompetent person's revelation: I know close to nothing about what I'm doing. I was terrified that at parent-teacher conferences I would be discovered as a fraud. This type of scenario was playing through my head: "Yes, I teach your baby. Do I know why she got such a low grade on test 3? What did she not understand about the material? You know, I can't really pinpoint it, but it may have been the fact that I taught the material in a confusing order, and by the time I figured out how to teach it the right way, all the students were bored with the material." 

The self-examination set in. What am I doing here? Am I helping anyone? Am I teaching anyone anything? Why am I putting myself through this experience if I'm not even helping anyone? 

But there were excellent, affirming moments, too! Like when I received a letter from a student on a day when nothing seemed to go right:

"Dear Ms. Gray,

You are a nice teacher and I love your class very much that I want to go to your class in 1st period but it be board in Homeroom time.

So sometimes you are not mean you are nice on everything you have or got and I promise that you are not going to have a fit on every student at school.

From: KJ

P.S. Ms Gray how old are you?

And another thing: you are sweet like candy."

On the non-school life front: 

The Holly Springs community seems to be heartily welcoming Lloyd and me. This is evidenced by the fact that our house has been rolled or attempted to be rolled with toilet paper five times in the last three weeks. Each one is a story. The common thread is that all the stories involve Lloyd and me chasing the Marshall Academy kids down the road; the variations involve our injuries (sharp pebble lodged in the bare foot, large asphalt cuts on the palms) and our tricks  (hoses, a sawed-off baseball bat, vegetable oil, Mrs. Butterworths, taking hostages, calling police, and sprawling on the hood of a getaway car). I've seen something very strange in myself in a couple of the instances. When I'm roping in those private school rollers to clean up our yard, I hear Mrs. Gray. I never would have said those things to those kids before I was a teacher. Mrs. Gray had edged her way into Catherine. 

Time to face the assessments

Assessment is a big weakness of mine right now. It just seems like there are not enough hours in the day to properly grade and process my students' work. As a writing teacher, I could spend countless hours reading the work of my 140 students and providing feedback. If I spend merely one minute on each student's work, that comes out to 140 minutes--2 hours and 20 minutes. And it certainly takes me longer than that...

On top of that, I started out with no real idea of what effective assessment looks like. How do I effectively measure student learning of an objective when there are so many variables: word choice and format of the questions, comprehension and recall, the amount of time testing takes? It's overwhelming at best and sometimes seems impossible. I have hope, however, that the more I get the hang of the everyday motions of being a teacher--lesson planning, issuing and documenting consequences, calling parents, attending meetings, handling paperwork--the more time and energy I will have to assess my students before, during, and after learning objectives.

The chapter we read on "Classroom Assessment of Literacy Growth and Content Learning" was helpful in providing ideas and models of assessment. I particularly liked the idea of having students create learner autobiographies in which they "examine their personal histories as readers, writers, and learners both in and out of school" (101). It would be helpful to understand a student's experience with and feelings toward the subject area in his or her own words. The Observational Checklist to Screen for Struggling Readers was also helpful in providing ideas for informal assessments. I liked its specificity in body language and the links between content comprehension and behavior.

I agree that effective assessment involves students as partners. I liked the idea of having students recommend possible assessment activities, create rubrics, use rubrics in grading their own and each others' work, and engage in self-reflection about their performance. I have used rubrics in editing and peer review in the past, but I would like to challenge students to create a rubric for an assignment in the future. I also liked the idea of fill-in-the-blank learning inventories such as: "This week I really liked ______ because __________; what really confused me this week was __________; and I would like to know more about ________ because _________." I think that for my sixth graders this would seem less intimidating and would provide more structure than simply asking questions reflecting on the material.

I think I will return to this chapter in the future as a resource for assessment ideas and as a guide for specific modes of assessment.

Is the teacher fair?

Most of my students think I'm fair. I asked "Is the teacher fair?" to all five of my classes. Seeing my students' responses delighted me. Even my most vexing and draining class gave me pretty good reviews in fairness, which was a big surprise. I thought they pretty much despised me and thought that I was inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on them by not taking them to the bathroom as a class after lunch.

Reasons cited for fairness include: the fact that I let them go to the bathroom (which is required by school policy, by the way); I treat everyone equally; I give tickets for answers; I don't get angry; I am nice; the rules are easy to follow; I call on many people in class; I "do the right thing."

Reasons cited for unfairness include: the fact that I don't let students go to the bathroom; I give too much work; I don't let the class have parties or watch movies; I gave someone a check when he/she didn't deserve it.

I'll take it. Seeing these responses made me proud of the foundation I've laid in my classroom. Students seem to think overall that my room is a place where justice reigns--where if you did something wrong, you deserved a consequence, and you got one. They also think it's a place where they will be rewarded for hard work by getting tickets and having the chance at picking something from the Treasure Chest. They know what to expect in my room. Some of them said that I am "nice," "caring," or willing to help.  I was happy my students could see these qualities in me, since I certainly feel a lot less caring and nice than I do in every other part of my life. On the other hand, some of the comments about being "nice" and "fun" worried me a bit because those aren't necessarily the best qualities for a student to associate with you.

The responses also made me proud of my students. Most of them are mature enough to see the reasons why I'm running the classroom the way I am. Even if they groan or roll their eyes about a consequence, they know later that they deserved it. I'm reading between the lines a bit.

I'm very glad I asked my students the question. It made me feel like my students really respect me, which is such an important difference from summer school. I'm seen as an authority figure but not as a dictator.

Below is a solid, lenghty sampling of student responses. But first, here are some of my favorites/most interesting:
 "Yes because they yell at us. She are trying to help us do better. She is fair because she lets us draw ticket when other classes don't. She is trying to teach to go to the next grade."
"Yes because she always cares for everyone and she always treats everyone equal and she's very nice."
"She will not punish the class if one person is talking. She will help the best way she can."
"Yes because when you get a warning you do not get mad."

"Yes Mrs. Gray is fair because she's only teaching us reposabiluity and manors."

"She is fair she treats everybody the same and she does not have favirites."

"Ms. Gray is fair because she is careing for every single class she has."
"Yes, she is doing the right thing."

"Yes because she never get loud with you she's a good teacher. And she's one of my faviort teacher."

"I think she is fair because she is a good teacher and she is not being mean when he as to make rules or consequences. She also lets us do activities and fun little challenges."
"The boy ran to school, I love to play football. The games is good."

"She lets everyone get a turn and everyone gets consequences."
"I think the teacher is fair because all the rules are easy to follow and if your nice to the teacher and follow directions, you'll make a good impression on the teacher."
"No. Because we never have a party or something like that."
"Yes. Because she treats everybody the same."
"Yes because if we mistreat her then she will mistreat us."
"Mrs. Gray is nice she is fun she try to make class fun for us so we will learn better."
"Yes she treat all children equal."
"Yes because when we have a test you let us review before the test."
"Yes because she always try to do the same for everyone if she see someone doing something she gives them a check she will do that for everyone."
"Fair about what, but I know you are"
"Mrs. Gray you are fair."
"Sometime because sometime she want let you go to the bathroom but else she is fair."
"Yes! Cause she lets us go to the bathroom but some people mess it up for ones who want to go to the bathroom."
"No because she don't take us to the restroom after lunch."
"Fair because you let us take turns going to the restroom."
"Yes because you shouldn't let us go to the restroom everyday because you are suppose to go when you leave activity instead the student are talking in the hallway that is why she is fair."
"No because she always give the whole class a punishment because of a few people."
"No because she don't give people checks when they do something wrong"
"Because we do too much work not"
"No because when someone gets in trouble at lunch she don't take the class to the bathroom."
"Yes because you let us go to the bathroom."
"Yes because you let us do stuff fun."
"is because she get the people who be bad."
"Yes because she does things right."
"Yes because she treats everyone equally to me."
"Yes she is fair because if you and a person are talkin shell get both of you"
"Mrs. Gray is fair because if we be nice to her she will be nice to us."
"Ms. Gray is fair I do not know why she would'nt be fair she lets us do fair work and gives us breaks and lots of tickets."
"I think Ms. Gray is fair because she only gives us checks for a reason and thats for talking, getting up out of our seat, and touching somebody. Also shes made it clear to us the rules, rewards, and consequences, so we should not be breaking the rules"
"No because she always giving us checks."
"Yes your rules are simple."
"Sometime because she is nice but I said sometimes because she gave me a copy assignment and it wasn't me talking because I stopped when she told me too."
"Yes because gives us warnings and then she gives us consequences but other teachers just give you no warnings they just give us an referil."
"Ms. Gray is not fair for that is that she gave me a check by my number becas derol had got my pensol and throwe it on the floor and I went to get it"
"Yes because she always let you answer question if you want to"
"yes because she is nice"
"No because when Jamel waz talking yesterday she put a check by my name."
"Yes she tell everyone the same thing."
"Yes she is fair because when someone gets in trouble she has the right to give you a warning or write you up."
"sometimes and sometimes not?"
"Yes because she is a nice teacher and she do everything fair and right."
"No be cause she gives checks to me but not to other kids."
"Yes because she thets ever stunteds have a cance to talk"
"Yes because she give us tickets when we get a question write"
"Yes because many people need consequences for their actions."
"Yes because she is nice."
"Yes. She lets us use her: pens, pincels, paper and she lets us go to the bathroom."
"Yes because she is nice and we have a lot of fun in her class."
"No, she's just not"
"She is fair, she gives us updates on how much time we got left on assignment and she gives directions"
"No because you should give us two warnings instead of one and we don't really do any fun things like watch a miove if we be good."
"Yes because she's not like all the othe teacher giving people writing assiments or conceuences for no good reason."
"Yes bcuse she have is the nisest ere in the school"
"halfway. sometimes she the best but sometimes she not."
"yes, because she is nice and cool and her rules in her classroom should be followed and if they are not she will give you a check."
"Yes becaue if were stuck you help us and if are grade is low you can do extra credit."
"Yes becaus every friday she let us git somethin from the Tresure Box and she is nice and a smart teacher"
"Yes, the teacher is fair because she let's you answer questions, and you get a ticket when you answer a question right. Also, at the end of the week the teacher would pick a ticket out of the bucket and who's ever name gets picked they get a prize."

Gold dust at my feet on the sunny side of the street

"How are you liking it?" "Are you enjoying teaching?" 

These are questions I often get from friends at home and new people I meet. "Like" and "enjoy" would not really be appropriate words to use for what is happening in my life in a little corner of North Mississippi. Neither would they be an appropriate measure for what I feel to be the worth of what I am doing here. 

"I'm glad I'm doing this," I can say on my good days. "It's exhausting. It's a struggle, but I'm making it," I can say on most. "I'm  pushing through Friday to Friday," I say on others.  

The experience is less difficult than I thought it would be in many ways but as difficult as I thought it would be in others. Summer school was a roller coaster, a whirlwind. It was painful, and then it was numbing. I think I was in shock. Each day I felt like I could step on a land mine at any moment and end up with the most vulnerable parts of me blown to pieces in a room full of overgrown eleventh and twelfth graders just dying to make a summer classroom a fun spectacle of gladiatorial hilarity. Excuse all the mixed metaphors. I'll go with it. Basically just picture me exploding on a roller coaster in the middle of a gladiator pit while 17-21-year olds point, laugh, and throw spitballs. Welcome to English 11/12. A place to teach and learn? Hardly. A place where you'll get out alive? Likely. 

I felt so helpless and never knew what to expect. I just knew to expect something horrible. But that mess of intestines and tendons blast-strewn across trees turned into something beautiful. It made me brace myself for two terrible, horrible, no good, very bad years. 

Those are two terrible, horrible years that I'm not going to have. (And not because I'm packing up and going home.)

Waking up at 5 a.m. when it's dark, and you feel like no other person in your time zone is living--it's hard for a day. It's really hard when one day turns into another and another until you've been wrenching yourself out of bed IN THE ABSOLUTE DARK OF NIGHT for 7 weeks. 

It's hard to get used to saying the same thing five times in a day, operating like a robot on replay, giving out consequences with the same objective detachment in every hour. "Won't there be a day when they just know how to act?" "No. There will not be," you soon realize.

It's hard to feel like you'll never get ahead, like there will always be one (or three) too many assignments to grade, parents to call, homeroom paperwork fluff to turn in, lessons to plan, pieces of paper to pick up off the floor, and readings to do for your grad school classes. Oh, and that planning period of yours? You may end up subbing for another teacher, which means that your only window for peeing between 7:25 a.m. and 3:35 p.m. has just been closed. 

It's tough as hell. Every day you just have to keep going, keep moving, never stop, keep going. There's a huge difference, though, between summer school and real school for me. I know most of my students respect me. I know that I'm in charge.   I know that I'm a real teacher with real consequences. And I can dish them out. I know that when a few kids are actin' a fool, at least half of the class is probably thinking, "Why they gotta be so difficult? I just want to learn." Ok, maybe that's wishful thinking, but I don't think it's too far of a stretch. I know that I genuinely like a lot of them and that even that kid who's giving me trouble may point to my Eiffel Tower figurine on my desk at the end of the day and ask, "Mrs. Gray, you been there?"

I still live Friday to Friday. I still groan multiple times every morning and drag my feet on the way to school. I still love and crave being at home more than I ever have in my life. But I think I'm going to be alright. 

Plus, Quentin and I are joining a church choir in Holly Springs, and we'll be participating in the Christmas Cantata. Can life be too bad? No, it's getting better all the time. 

Middle school is more hilarious the second time around

Life in Ms. Gray's world is quite different from life in Ms. Schmidt's world. I don't miss Ms. Schmidt and the "Ms. Sh--t" that I could just hear about to roll of my twelfth graders' tongues this summer as they paused unnecessarily long on the S-H- sound of my name about to forgo the "M". 

Mr. Gioia and I live in a sixth-grade land called The Annex. This is a building that is separate from the main buildings of the middle school. Mr. Gioia teaches in a renovated (but only slightly) football locker room, and my room is a renovated steam room/sauna. I've sterilized my room with hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes. We've both de-sterilized our rooms with leafy flora, and Mr. G lets me borrow his watering can in the afternoons. We usually eat lunch together during our planning period at 9:15 a.m. Yes, lunch at 9:15 a.m. "Lunch" is really more like "Eat now or forever hold your peace." Our rooms are adjoining, which means that a couple times throughout the day we can poke our heads into each other's rooms and ask things like, "What's up with the lockers? They told us to assign them to students, but I don't even know at which number the lockers begin and at which they end." It also means that some students think that we're married: Mr. and Mrs. G. 

I love sixth grade. I think that's the first time those words have come out of my mouth considering that they certainly did not when I was a sixth grader. My kids, overall, are extremely enthusiastic and determined to participate. They're resilient and generally forgiving. They bounce back a minute after I give them a consequence and raise their hands to answer a question. This is so different from my blasé, grudge-bearing twelfth graders of the summer. My kids give me the opportunity to welcome them back into the learning community by volunteering to answer a question after they've been noticed for their misbehavior. It makes all the difference. 

Not to say that management is a breeze. It's difficult every single day. There is an intense breed of an in-the-moment presence that is required for managing a classroom. I would consider myself someone who is "in the moment" and generally focused on the present, but this is a whole different pot of rice. I'm used to being peacefully in the moment, but at school I feel a little bit like an attack dog, poised to lurch at rule breakers in every moment when it would be so much easier to be a house dog and lounge on the floor chewing on my rawhide. Not only do I need to respond swiftly but also meaningfully as I try to guide the class in understanding why I'm being a bitch. My feet aren't the only parts of me that are tired at the end of the day. 

My kids fight over cleaning my room at the end of the day. These words have come out of my mouth: It is a privilege to clean my classroom, not a right. The first time I see you talk to someone or touch someone while you are cleaning, you will sit down, and someone will replace you. Understood? 

Point of pride so far: 

There is a boy in my sixth period class who has a very short fuse. He blurts out answers and comments with the same frequency that he dishes and defends himself from insults, like being called "pinto bean head" on one occasion on his way into class. On the second day of school (the honeymoon period for most) he almost started a fight with a girl at afternoon dismissal. Every day in the first week I felt like I was trying to figure out how to diffuse him while letting him know that by no means could he behave that way in my class. I didn't want to make the same mistake I made at Holly High of giving consequences in a way that made one kid ask me at the end of the summer, "Why did you look at me all summer like you didn't like me?" 

I knew I needed to reach him in a different way. I started having firm expectations-oriented heart-to-hearts with him at the beginning of every class. I talked to his grandfather on the phone. I gave him a positive note in the middle of class one day when he was working really hard. I don't know what's to come for the rest of the year, but I feel like I've made some real headway. It's hard not to beam when I recall this: Yesterday he walked into class talking. He got about 1.5 feet into the door when he looked over at me and saw me merely looking at him. An "aha" look popped onto his face, and he calmly turned around, walked back out, and walked back in silently. I didn't have to say one word. He knew what I expected of him, and he knew to expect more of himself. 

Best student name: Jihaad

Favorite neighbor story from Mr. Gioia: "I just convinced several kids that I am 63 years old. I told them, 'Yeah, if you take good care of yourself, eat well, exercise, sleep right, you can look young for a long time.' The best part is that one of them said to me, 'No way you're 63, Mr. Gioia. You look like you're in your forties.'" 

Next time a student asks, "You married to that guy over there?" I'm going to say, "Do I look like I'd be married to a 63-year-old?" 

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Take Two

The overall impression of my second video is that I seem more confident and ready to respond to the unplanned. I don't talk quite as slowly because it's not like I'm just reading a script, and it's easier for me to focus. 

I seem to have a good rapport with students who regularly answer questions and a rocky rapport with students who regularly get consequences, but the students who are in the middle don't get enough of my attention. 

The bad news first:

-There are several heads down throughout this video. It's first period in the last week of school, and students are not into it at first. The bad thing is that I'm used to so many management issues usually that having heads down seems like a very minor issue when I'm up there teaching.

-There's too much noise during Guided Practice, and I'm once again not consistently issuing consequences.

-I tried to fit too much into one lesson and should have left more time for Independent Practice. 

-I don't make it around to enough student desks during IP. It seems like my student interaction has dwindled in this video.

-The first half of class always drags and the second half is always rushed. I see that here.

-The relationship with a boy who was giving me trouble in the first video has only gotten worse. He thinks I single him out to get him in trouble, and now he refuses to come up to the board to write his answer like everyone else has. Later that week he would tell me that I did not let him come to the board to write his answer when everyone else got to go to the board.

Improvements:

-I make it easier on myself by having student helpers. I have a student erasing the board and other students passing out papers.

-I get all but a couple kids to the board in this lesson! The kids that did not go to the board chose to not participate in the activity.

-I change the lesson up and integrate math by having students graph coordinates for their quiz results. It was cool to have students tell me about the x and y axes in my English class. It was like airing out a musty room. They were confused about why we were doing this in English, but I saw a few students light up. "M'Schmidt, it's rise over run!" 

-When I notice that several students are confused about graphing, I pair them with someone next to them who has finished the activity. 

-I seem less scattered and repeat directions a few times while standing in one place rather than wandering around while giving directions.

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Bam! Spice it up!

Watching the video of myself teaching is not horrifying, not painful, just bland and boring. I watch it with the same eerie detachment that I’ve felt at the end of many summer school days. I notice more of what is going on in the classroom--like, who threw that tiny wadded up piece of paper at me? How did I not notice that when it happened? I rewind the video four times, and I still can't tell. How on earth am I supposed to know in the moment? 

Impressions of Ms. Schmidt:

1. I talk really slowly. One of the second years told me to think of having a $100 bill for each class period. Each word is $1, and once you spend your hundred, you have no more. The kids aren't listening. Well, in the video, it's like I think $1 will be tripled if I just say one word in the amount of time it generally takes someone to say three words. It's so boring. 

2. I move around too much while giving directions. I'm usually looking for a handout or trying to locate something as I'm giving directions for an activity. This is very distracting, and it makes me talk in an even slower and disjointed manner because my mind is in two places. 

 3. I have good movement across the room, but my movement doesn't look methodical and purposeful enough. Sometimes I look like I'm ambling about senselessly, and other times it looks like the waitress effect--I rush over to any student who has a question.

4. I’m not consistent with consequences. I tell them one thing-- “This is a silent activity”--and then let a buzzing undercurrent wash through the room. I think back to what Dr. Monroe told me after observing me, "I was telling myself, 'She seems confident and like she knows what she's doing. Why isn't she giving out consequences?'" 

What surprised me was how much work students were actually doing. Much of the class period was Independent Practice because students were revising persuasive essays, but it surprised me that for the most part students actually did what I told them to do. It seems like just being up there as the teacher does give me some automatic power. 

Overall impression is that I seem calm and pretty confident, but I don’t seem on fire about the material. It doesn’t seem like learning the material is very important because I’m not excited about sharing it with the class. 

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Ms. Schmidt or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bombed Days

Haunting moments and affirming moments resurface daily from the summer. It's like I have a pensieve that I peer into every night, and all these memories come swirling into view.

"M'Schmidt, why can't you get some order in here?"  "Are y'all real teachers?" "I don't appreciate the way you been lookin' at me all summer. You lookin' at me like you don't like me." Then there was the girl who would ask every day on her way into breakfast, "You teachin' today?" "Yes, I teach every day." Blank stare. There's the image of one of the students cleaning up the room on the last day and taking down the "Classroom Teachers" sign, tearing off all the names except "Ms. Stewart" and "Ms. Lawrence," and then taping the sign back on the wall. 

I guess it's mostly the hauntings that pull me in.

The failures abound. Every day I came out of the classroom having no idea whether or not I actually taught the kids what I went in there to teach. All I knew was that someone flicked the overhead on and off, and five other people talked back when I gave out a writing assignment. I was so caught up in my living nightmare of management that I had no idea what kind of learning, if any, was taking place.

The weird and kind of scary thing is that I don't feel bad about what happened this summer. I feel almost embarrassingly at peace with what went on in English 11/12. The reality: two kids were expelled under my watch, and we could have prevented it; I could have prevented it with better management. Those kids needed that credit. The reality: there are kids in the class who should have failed but whom we could not in good faith fail because we did not have proper documentation. The reality: someone could have really gotten hurt in that room. And we were incredibly lucky that no one did. How can I be a good person and feel ok about this? How can I feel ok about utterly failing 27 kids who showed up every day, in theory, to learn?

The only explanation I have is that I know I did all I could with all I had every day this summer. I typically got 4-5 hours of sleep. If I wasn't planning for my kids, I was talking about them, trying to figure out what went wrong and how I could change the next day. I woke up at 5:30 and started over. I felt sick to my stomach many mornings, and I showed up. Every day I was there with a thorough plan, hurriedly navigated finicky copy machines, and forced myself to tell students things that would have been much easier unsaid in the moment. Every day I faced the students, and I faced myself.

This John Wesley quote comes to mind: 

“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”

I feel like I did no less. Yes, there were countless mistakes and things I should have done differently, but I tried. I tried something fierce.

Ok, the affirmations, the little lights that flicker for a moment like a lightning bug in a night thick with Mississippi kudzu:

The three students who wrote on their evaluations that I was a particularly helpful teacher this summer. The several students who named one of my lessons as the favorite or most important thing they learned this summer. The boy who rushed in one morning and blurted, "Ms. Schmidt, I made a 20 on my ACT on my first try!" The girl who came to me during break one day--"Ms. Schmidt, I'm really having an issue with someone else in the class, and I wanted to let you know before something happens, and I disrupt the class." The boy who came in after a day of absence and said, "Good morning, Ms. Schmidt. I missed your class yesterday." 

I feel like resilience was one of the most important things we could have learned this summer. Showing up with a plan and ready to start a new day--sometimes that's all we'll have going for us this year. I made it through the summer. I made it through the summer. I can make it through the first nine weeks. And the second, the third, the fourth. Keep moving forward day by day. 

It's weird to think that only my students this summer will know me as "Ms. Schmidt." "Ms. Schmidt" will stay locked in time at Holly Springs High. I can see her at the overhead awkwardly positioning the transparency to fit on the screen. It's Mrs. Gray who will show up to teach sixth grade in August. Ok, class, let's try this again. 

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Here and there

I spend hour upon hour planning a lesson--making sure everything’s clear, flows well, will fit within a 50 minute period, and is relevant to my students’ lives. I walk into the room, and the moment the bell ringer begins, the material we’re learning that day is no longer my focus. It’s like I have a script for how we’ll go through the material, and my energy then shifts to making sure the room doesn’t devolve into chaos. This leaves very little room for the “teachable moment” because I’m plowing through my plan and afraid to deviate for fear of my lesson crumbling. 

There are the same students who act up day after day, and I feel torn at the start of every class. On the one hand, I don’t want to give them an inch to test me again. I want them to know I’m serious. On the other hand, I want them to start over new every day. I don’t want them to think I’ve pigeon-holed them. 

Small victories so far:

-I called a mom last Friday to introduce myself and to her update her on her child’s progress in the class. I told her that her daughter was doing really well in class, completing her work, and being respectful. The mom said, “Thank you so much for calling me. You don’t know it, but you just made my weekend. You really did. No one ever calls me to tell me that she’s doing well. I always expect bad things from her cause I don’t want to be proven wrong, but you just made me so happy.”

-There was a boy in Photo Club who never wanted to take any photos. Finally I pulled him aside and just put a camera in his hand. I asked him if he had used a camera before, and he said, “No.” He was a shy boy, younger than the other students in our group, and didn’t have much confidence, so I didn’t want it to be obvious to the other students in our group that he did not know how to use a camera. I just guided him in setting up a shot, demonstrated where the button was to take the photo, and modeled how to zoom in and out. The next few days he was more open to using the camera. The next week he was passing me on the way out of breakfast and fist bumped me as he said, “Yeah! Photo club!”

-One of the boys in my class has opened the door for me a few times and greets me with, “Good morning, Ms. Schmidt” or “Have a good afternoon, Ms. Schmidt.” I have an official greeting duty at the door to the cafeteria during breakfast, and more and more students are starting to look me in the eye at 7:30 in the morning and say, “Good morning” back rather than walking by with a blank stare. 

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Reluctant Disciplinarian

"How often do teachers get to witness a totally out of control classroom? Rarely, if ever. Yet it is only by observing such a spectacle that teachers can truly appreciate how important discipline is” (Rubinstein 38). 

 

Thank you, Mr. Rubenstein. I could not agree more. As a matter of fact, I get to witness a totally out of control classroom on a daily basis and often find myself at the center of this mayhem. In the past week, one thought that has returned to my mind over and over again is, "Thank God I'm in the midst of such a horrible mess of a classroom right now because I will definitely not be a softy by the time the school year arrives." 

I burst out in raucous laughter when I read fellow English 11/12  teacher Mr. Gioia’s invitation to our class:

"Mr. Rubenstein says that it may be far more helpful to see a classroom out-of-control, and on that note I want to invite everyone to come to the 11/12 EN classroom at some point in the next two weeks and witness the absurd spectacle that is the power struggle between myself and my class of really garrulous rowdy boys (and a couple girls) who just wanna have fun!  Come one come all."  

I extend this invitation to any of my lessons, in which you may hear a student call me “Ms. Snitch” and see another student taking off his shoes and urging the girls around him to smell them and then protesting, “But my feet hurt!” when I demand he put his shoes back on immediately. You may also find a student asking me at the height of mutiny, “All these teachers in this school--have y’all taught before? Are you real teachers?” and I may respond hesitantly, “Yes, we are teachers.” I can only imagine the showdown that will happen this week when the students realize that Mr. Gioia and I will be teaching them all day every day with the exception of Ms. Stewart’s occasional lessons. 

I think I’ll have to spend the next two weeks trying to redeem myself as a “real teacher,” as Rubinstein describes. This means that on Monday, Mr. Gioia and I need to give a rules speech. Our rules have been treated as suggestions in the past two weeks. We need to practice procedures. I need to be decisive and able to answer a student with a one-word answer in two seconds. I need to whip out that textbook and not be afraid to bore them with worksheets and copying down notes. This is obviously what they expect real teachers to do, and we are not convincing them. 

One thing that I really disagreed with in the Reluctant Disciplinarian was Rubinstein’s comment that you should not waste your time on a parent who believes their child is perfect and won’t believe you when you say that he/she did something wrong. Rubinstein suggests, “Don’t waste your time with this type of parent. If you don’t accomplish anything in your five minute time limit, just end the call and try to avoid contact with that parent in the future” (86). I think that is completely unreasonable and a horrible solution. I don’t think you should ever cut off communication with a parent because every parent deserves to know about his/her child’s progress, and simply cutting off communication and ignoring the problem is not a solution. Document, document, document. If you have enough documentation, I think most parents will work with you. 

The Reluctant Disciplinarian came at a good time in my teaching journey. I’ve had enough experience in the classroom to be able to relate to the examples and also enough exposure to shenanigans that I am hungry for some classroom structure. Here’s to killing reluctance. 

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Ready or not...

If there's one image that I'll remember from these few weeks in my life, I think it will be looking out the front of the bus the moment before we cross the old, rusty bridge on Highway 7 between Oxford and Holly Springs. At 6:50 in the morning, it often has this mythical quality with mist hanging over its edges. It's beautiful. Every morning, I find myself centered as we cross: The world works its beauty and wonders no matter what will happen that day at Holly Springs High. And that bridge will still be there on the drive home. I will, too. 

I can't believe we've only been teaching for two weeks now. Each day goes by so fast, and yet, they're longer days than I've ever lived. On average, I go to bed at 1:30 a.m. to wake up at 5:30 a.m. Each day is different and distinct, and yet, they all run together in my mind in retrospect. I'm a teacher. I do the teacher thing and end up talking about the classroom and my students for much of the time when I'm not at school. I guess it can only be expected since our lives currently revolve around Holly Springs High School and our future schools. I'm a teacher. It's still kind of hard to believe.

It surprised me how easy it was on my first day teaching to live into my teacher persona. I felt pretty natural, and the class was under control and engaged. I felt so relieved, grateful, and downright happy about the way my first lesson went that I cried that afternoon when the bus got back to Oxford. The next two weeks, however, came with less ease. I felt my class testing me more and more as they became comfortable in our room and maybe realized the temporary nature of our summer school interactions. I've been happy about the way I respond to my bad days. If one of my lessons goes poorly and the students don't respond in the way I had hoped, I have been able to look at it pretty objectively and not be hard on myself. I think that's essential to surviving these two years. 

In the first week I felt like I was able to get to know a few of my students outside of class. At the end of the second day, one of the girls in my class told me, "Ms. Schmidt, you smiling all day. That's good." I thought it was funny since I had been trying to look a little bit more serious than I usually am, but I knew that I would not be able to keep from smiling for an extended period of time, as had been recommended to us by a few veteran teachers. 

Later in the week the same girl passed a scrapbook to one of her friends in the classroom. At lunch I told her I saw the scrapbook and told her I like scrapbooking, too. We talked about it for a few minutes, and the next day during one of our breaks, she handed her scrapbook to me and left it for me to peruse. That day at lunch I asked her questions about some of the things she wrote in her scrapbook--that her favorite trip had been to Jackson and that she was in the JROTC. The fourth day of summer school she and her friends asked me to sit with them at lunch. 

I've found that she is someone I can really count on in the classroom. If I ask for a volunteer, and no one responds, she will often volunteer. I've been careful to not be lenient on her behavior just because we've interacted so much outside of class, but it's good to know that there's at least one student in the room who respects me and maybe even likes me. 

I've learned so much in these two weeks, and I can only imagine all I will have experienced and learned after two years. 

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Questioning strategies

Dr. Monroe instructed us to utilize a new questioning strategy in the classroom, and I decided to try "cold calling." I tested the method during fourth period on a Friday afternoon after the students had just taken a long test. I wrote every student's name on a notecard and briefly described that we would be answering questions differently that day, that I had a stack of cards with everyone's name and that everyone would answer in the class period. There were no groans or moans, and the class seemed open to the idea. 

This was not an "on" day for me. I felt like my teaching was very forced that day and being in front of a group of students felt unnatural all of a sudden. The students were ready to wedge open any seam in my lesson. They were ready for lunch and for the weekend and were resistant to activities. Rather than buoying class enthusiasm by teaching in a more excited, "can't-you-see-this-is-more-important-than-anything-in-the-world-right-now" way, I became less confident, and the lesson became less cohesive. Calling students' names from index cards seemed to complicate the situation since I felt a bit scattered to begin with, and towards the end of class I gave up on the cards. 

It's hard for me to gauge my students' and my response to the cold-calling method from this day. It's definitely something I will try again since we often have the same few students responding to every question. In the past week I have randomly called on students, and it usually works well whenever I do that. It is difficult sometimes to keep from calling on the students with their hands up, and I think that having popsicle sticks or index cards would help with the flow of cold calling. I think cards would also make it seem less like I'm calling out someone who is not participating. 

Cold calling, you and I will meet again.  

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Holly Springs summer, Delta Autumn

I found Delta Autumn to be a very interesting read. Before reading it, I imagined a collection of philosophical accounts of the first year of teaching, and I would have enjoyed that, but I certainly appreciated the very specific information and advice that the book offers. My favorite sections of the book were the "History of Education in the Mississippi Delta" and the "Parental Involvement and Mentoring" chapter. 

While I knew that many of the private schools in the state were created in response to integration, I really didn't have an idea of the big picture. I think it's easy to go into many of the schools where we'll be teaching and just look at them in freeze frame--to just see the worn-down facilities and low achievement levels and not connect them to the history of the system. It can be easy to think, "Why didn't anyone fix these broken blinds that are falling off the window? Doesn't anyone care about the way their school looks?" or "Why don't the parents do something about their child's behavior? Why don't they come to Parent-Teacher Conferences and find out about their child's progress?" It's easy to blame. Our perspectives and experiences are so far removed from most of our students and the communities where we'll be working. 

I underlined, "As late as 1950, seventy percent of blacks aged twenty-five and over had not completed the seventh grade. Only 2.3 percent of black students completed high school. In 1950, Mississippi spent an average of $122.93 per pupil on white students, and $32.55 on black students" (6). Sixty years ago most black people in Mississippi did not go through the seventh grade. Sixty years ago. That's less than a lifetime. These are our students' grandparents and great grandparents. 

After working with Parents for Public Schools in the last year and spending a lot of time with the parents of kids in Jackson Public Schools, I thought that the chapter on parental involvement was fantastic. Things that I'm so glad were mentioned: 

-"Parents may not always feel at ease when dealing with your school." 

-"Parents may have bad memories of their own experiences in school. Parents may not always feel welcome at the school. Often parents view the relationship between the school and their child as a source of conflict and distrust... Many parents in the Delta work more than one job, work irregular hours, or have obligations at home that do not allow them the luxury of visiting or calling the school during school hours. In fact, many parents do not have phones."

-"A general lack of accessible information regarding school policies and goals is commonplace in the Delta... teachers and administrators may keep parents in the dark."

-"Sometimes school contact is done exclusively by mail, but this is ineffective for parents who read poorly or not at all. They may feel excluded from the school community or feel humiliated about their lack of education."

Most importantly, "Parents really do care about the well-being of their children, regardless of what actions or interactions you may associate with them... All parents want the best education possible for their children. This may mean different things for different parents, but no parents want a poor education for his or her child, and no parent wants poor teachers." Lack of caring is the last thing we should imagine when thinking about our students' parents.

I think I'll be using Delta Autumn as a reference in the next couple years. It's wonderful to have a book that was designed just for people in our situation in this program.  

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Hello, Oxford. Hello, teaching.

I'm not new to Mississippi, and home is only three hours away, but life in Oxford is very distant from life in Jackson. Jackson holds my heart, but Oxford is a welcomed change of pace. It's easy to feel the creative landscape of Faulkner and the rich cultural heritage of the state. I love how it's one of the few places in Mississippi where you can realistically walk to many of the places you want to go and that many of these places are local businesses. I love the way the University flows into the community, and it's interesting to observe the relationship they share. A year after graduating from college, I like being in a college town. Before I got to campus last Saturday night, one of the dominant feelings I had was the excitement of getting to know Oxford as more than a stopping-over place. 

The first week in the Teacher Corps has been different from other categorically similar new beginnings in my life. I've loved getting to know my fellow first year teachers and the second years, and meeting these people has been an altogether different experience than meeting my peers at the start of college. We're a small, tight-knit group (I know, I know, I went to a college with little over 1,000 students, so it's definitely on the small side itself). There's so much support and collaboration, and it's free of petty conflict and social pressure--we all just seem to get along. We're a very diverse group, but we're unified in our central purpose to start a new life as a teacher. We all have guts, and we all must be adventurous to a certain degree to commit to starting a life in a new place, a life that will most certainly challenge and change us. On the first day Ben Guest encouraged us to get to know each other and to not be apprehensive to strike up conversations with each other, commenting, "There aren't a lot of assholes who do this kind of thing." 

One of my favorite moments of solidarity happened when Dr. Monroe was placing us in classrooms for the summer. There are so many first year middle school English teachers that some of us had to spill over into teaching high school English classes at summer school. I had been placed in 9th/10th grade English with fellow middle school English teacher Matthew Gioia, but one of us was going to have to move to 11th/12th English. Moving to English 11/12 meant we would be that much further away from the age group we'll be teaching for the next two years. Dr. Monroe asked if she should decide or if we wanted to decide who would move. I made the comment that we'll be teaching English at the same school next year, and she asked, "Oh, so do you two want to stay together and both move to 11/12?" Before I could respond, Matthew, who is very calm and fairly soft-spoken, firmly declared, "We want to stay together." Matthew and I had only spoken to each other a couple times at this point, but it was clear that we already felt bound together on parallel journeys. My class already feels a bit like a family to me.

Joining the excitement of a new place and new people is the wad of emotions about teaching--nervousness, eagerness, anticipation, confusion. It's starting to sink in that I'll be teaching in a classroom in three days. For the past few months the Mississippi Teacher Corps has loomed ahead as some nebulous collection of small triumphs and daily failures that would happen some time in the distance. I could picture myself at the end of the two years as a confident teacher who had managed to gain control of her classroom, to light up a few young minds in the world of literature, and to make empowering, lasting connections with kids who have had such different life experiences than I have. I could imagine how rewarding the two years would be at the end and how accomplished I would feel. I could even imagine the friendships I would make with my fellow Teacher Corps teachers. But the day-in and day-out life of being a teacher--planning a lesson with a set and closure, enforcing classroom rules, and finding a way day after day to simultaneously manage and excite students so I could actually teach them something? I had no idea. 

All week we've heard about how trying these two years will be and how we'll think about quitting many times. From Ben: "If you're crying yourself to sleep every night then you need to go home but if you're only crying yourself to sleep three nights out of the week, then keep going." I fear he was only slightly kidding. We've heard repeatedly that we're the type of people who are used to succeeding at everything we try but that this will be very different and that we're inevitably going to fail time and time again, especially at the beginning. Surprisingly enough, it was comforting to hear this. It was reassuring to know that the program doesn't expect us to go out there and shine from the start. It's nice to know that if we try and fail, we're not a disappointment. I realized yesterday, however, that I've spent most of my time here imagining the different ways things could go wrong in my classroom. I've imagined myself utterly failing on delivering my first lesson--being stilted and blatantly unnatural and unconvincing in enforcing classroom rules. It's important that I've envisioned less than desirable classroom scenarios because I'll find myself in the middle of them many times. I knew it would be hard, and it's invaluable to hear about the trials the second years and their predecessors have encountered, but I need to start imagining myself succeed. I need to imagine myself as that confident, inspiring teacher that I thought I could be when I applied. If I keep replaying scenarios of failed lessons and management in my mind, then I won't have the confidence and composure I need to channel when I step in the classroom. 

My fiancé, Lloyd, described me one time as "steel wrapped in cotton." I consider myself a strong person at the core but essentially gentle, sensitive, friendly, and not outwardly tough. After talking to current and former teachers about the importance of being strict and unrelenting in class at the start of the year, I worried that I didn't have what it takes to command authority. I know I can do it, though. Sometimes I'll just have to be more like cotton wrapped in steel. 

What a grand adventure these two years will be.

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