Last week I had kind of an episode. Being sick certainly contributed to the mistakes I made, but it has to be admitted that I lapsed, made a couple big mistakes and was only able to save face in my classroom because at this point in the year most of us (students and staff included) have solidified our personas in the classroom.
On Tuesday I was off grading exams, which was lucky, as I felt ill enough that I was considering canceling my last-period elective and going home early. Wednesday wasn't much better and I planned something that took longer than the minutes I had in class, so I sent the classwork home to be completed. That's usually a bad idea for two reasons: half the students won't turn it in and it starts to set a precedent that the work cannot be completed in class, which in turn leads students to simply not work in class (their excuse being that they'll finish it at home, even though, as just stated, most probably won't). That was not a good way to precede my plans for the following day, to say the least.
Thursday I walked in with a lesson that could have been pulled off if the management had been clamped down, students worked quickly and if the teacher had pushed them. I've had a good number of days like this over the course of the year (compared with maybe one last year), so I strolled into school Thursday thinking I'd pump out another one without a lot of effort and while ill. Then I completely disregarded a truth I'd learned both in the School of Ed and in the classroom last year: do NOT let students pick their groups if you want them to work efficiently or diligently. As much as teachers should be able to give students directions and expect them to be followed, giving them to the option to have a social hour with friends or completing class work has only led to one end in my classroom: a lot of loud conversations and little work, if any.
That's how brilliantly I set myself up for Thursday. While my other periods either ran themselves or were barely held together by some newly-forged alliances with students that used to give me trouble, I should have known going into sixth period (the one with the largest number of crazy maniacs) that there would be trouble. It ended in a whole lot of yelling on my part and eventually my students doing something they did all the time last year, but only once or twice this year: they stopped working entirely and stared at me. This is one of the most humiliating, humbling, and excruciating things a first year teacher goes through. It's a loss of control and students determining the pace of the class- their deciding they are going to stop working and following directions until you doing something besides yelling and cajoling them to comply with your call for order. My class even topped it off one of the things that made my stomach bottom-out last year: they laughed, nearly every one of them, at my frustration with them.
The problem achieved crystal clarity when one girl said out loud, "You let us pick the groups. What did you expect?", which was a demonstration of how the students have a way of being brutally honest in the midst of their defiance. When I heard that I agreed with it in my head, reprimanded the girl for speaking out of turn, stated that there was absolutely no excuse for the class to act the way it was and then I cranked up the pace of instruction, hoping to get the class back to moving at my pace. By the end of the period I'd convinced them to stay five minutes after the bell and assigned them a good deal more work than my other classes. I was so angry at the end of the period (and sick to boot) that when my last-period elective walked in I gave them their assignment and set them to it immediately while I fumed a bit about the previous period.
It all spoke again to the fact that there are still moments like this in the second year. While not nearly as affected by them now, they come out when I'm off my game for whatever reason. All you can do is not let it affect you, follow through with your disciplinary measures (I called about half the class to inform their parents of the students' unruly nature) and walk in better-prepared the following day. Next year I hope there will be even fewer days like this. The nice thing about this May is that I can imagine it happening, whereas last year I still couldn't believe that the second year could improve enough to make me like my job.
Today's Wine: '07 Rosso Di Sicilia- Colosi, Sicily: or so the menu said. This was another at our favorite wine bar, Cavatappo. Medium bodied, a bit smokey and phenomenal. Nero d'Avola does it to me every time.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
The Rusty System & Moving Boxes
In light of the recent move toward using student test scores to evaluate teachers, I'd like to comment on an experience I had on Tuesday at a grading site where very hard-working teachers had been pulled out of their classrooms to evaluate the tests our students completed two weeks ago (the eighth grade ELA exam). To be honest, I agree with the idea that students test scores should be part of how teachers are evaluated, but in order for that to be helpful the way we grade these exams needs to be updated, reevaluated and improved.
On Tuesday I was sent out of my school to grade the state ELA exams. When I showed up the woman running the grading site was incredibly confused that I could possibly be there instead of the teacher that had come from our school the day before. To her credit, schools are supposed to send only one teacher for the three days of grading, as the first day is spent training those teachers how to to score the exams on the second two.
After the initial shock wore off, the woman decided to find a job for me that was not grading, as it would have been entirely impossible for me to just read the instruction manual and then grade some exams (although that is what the training consists of). After pointing out that I was the youngest person there by about ten years and therefore must be far more tech-literate than anyone else, she proceeded to hand me a stack of poster papers that had been used the day before to find out what the teachers who were now grading thought the students' "strengths" were on the exam and what their "weaknesses" were. I spent three hours inputting these into a Word document that will now be emailed out to all the schools in any way associated with that grading center, after which the message will promptly be ignored by all of them.
While completing this very important task (infinitely more important than teaching my students about the integration of public school in the 1960's- what I'd actually planned to do Tuesday), I was able to sit back and observe the scoring process. The teachers grading the exams seemed really to be a motley crew. Such a variety of hair styles (spanning at least five style decades) I've not seen in the DOE, to say nothing about the skill and diligence with which they worked. To be serious, from what I can tell they seemed pretty competent and willing to get the job done as quickly, accurately, and efficiently as possible.
What most concerned me was the way these graders were spoken to by those in charge of the site. The woman in charge of the whole shebang kept making announcements like, "We want to be fair. We want to make sure our students get the best chance possible." These were of course given after muffled conversations about how poorly the students seemed to be doing. I couldn't help but give her sideways glances over the top of the laptop. Was she serious? The "chance" she was referring to was supposed to be the instruction the students had already received, not how liberally those grading tests could bend the scoring rubric. Several announcements like this were made, and the administrators of the site had numerous hushed conversations about specific scorers that "needed to be talked to."
Dozens of boxes of scoring guides showed up around midday, apparently intended for a different site. When she called the person in charge of this delivery, she first sounded confused and then was told by the woman on the other end of the line to just give the materials to whatever school she could. Why they showed up to that testing site instead of the right one? No one knows. What happened at the site that was lacking these materials? No one seems to know. Why am I telling you? Mostly because I was the schmuck who had to arrange and rearrange boxes all afternoon in order to fit them all into a very small space in a gymnasium that was hardly full. I'm just glad I could help.
What's the moral of this story? In spite of how hard people work to defend the education system, it does need to flush out some of its workers, revamp the way it does things and start fresh some areas. One thing about this system that I've thought a lot about lately is that it does not have a market to drive change. This is because the central commodities are our children, their brains, and their growth as human beings. I do believe that this is one of the reasons teachers and other in the field are resistant to change. We are the ones who work with these children and we do not want to see policies implemented that forget about their well-being for the sake of efficiency. That said, we do need to make sure middle school teachers aren't sent to random schools in the middle of the Bronx to move boxes all day when they could be helping students to learn material deemed valuable by the greater society (during a time period leading up to a state exam that may eventually be used to judge his competency as a teacher).
Today's Wine: A glass Casa De Campo Cab pumped from the other night.
On Tuesday I was sent out of my school to grade the state ELA exams. When I showed up the woman running the grading site was incredibly confused that I could possibly be there instead of the teacher that had come from our school the day before. To her credit, schools are supposed to send only one teacher for the three days of grading, as the first day is spent training those teachers how to to score the exams on the second two.
After the initial shock wore off, the woman decided to find a job for me that was not grading, as it would have been entirely impossible for me to just read the instruction manual and then grade some exams (although that is what the training consists of). After pointing out that I was the youngest person there by about ten years and therefore must be far more tech-literate than anyone else, she proceeded to hand me a stack of poster papers that had been used the day before to find out what the teachers who were now grading thought the students' "strengths" were on the exam and what their "weaknesses" were. I spent three hours inputting these into a Word document that will now be emailed out to all the schools in any way associated with that grading center, after which the message will promptly be ignored by all of them.
While completing this very important task (infinitely more important than teaching my students about the integration of public school in the 1960's- what I'd actually planned to do Tuesday), I was able to sit back and observe the scoring process. The teachers grading the exams seemed really to be a motley crew. Such a variety of hair styles (spanning at least five style decades) I've not seen in the DOE, to say nothing about the skill and diligence with which they worked. To be serious, from what I can tell they seemed pretty competent and willing to get the job done as quickly, accurately, and efficiently as possible.
What most concerned me was the way these graders were spoken to by those in charge of the site. The woman in charge of the whole shebang kept making announcements like, "We want to be fair. We want to make sure our students get the best chance possible." These were of course given after muffled conversations about how poorly the students seemed to be doing. I couldn't help but give her sideways glances over the top of the laptop. Was she serious? The "chance" she was referring to was supposed to be the instruction the students had already received, not how liberally those grading tests could bend the scoring rubric. Several announcements like this were made, and the administrators of the site had numerous hushed conversations about specific scorers that "needed to be talked to."
Dozens of boxes of scoring guides showed up around midday, apparently intended for a different site. When she called the person in charge of this delivery, she first sounded confused and then was told by the woman on the other end of the line to just give the materials to whatever school she could. Why they showed up to that testing site instead of the right one? No one knows. What happened at the site that was lacking these materials? No one seems to know. Why am I telling you? Mostly because I was the schmuck who had to arrange and rearrange boxes all afternoon in order to fit them all into a very small space in a gymnasium that was hardly full. I'm just glad I could help.
What's the moral of this story? In spite of how hard people work to defend the education system, it does need to flush out some of its workers, revamp the way it does things and start fresh some areas. One thing about this system that I've thought a lot about lately is that it does not have a market to drive change. This is because the central commodities are our children, their brains, and their growth as human beings. I do believe that this is one of the reasons teachers and other in the field are resistant to change. We are the ones who work with these children and we do not want to see policies implemented that forget about their well-being for the sake of efficiency. That said, we do need to make sure middle school teachers aren't sent to random schools in the middle of the Bronx to move boxes all day when they could be helping students to learn material deemed valuable by the greater society (during a time period leading up to a state exam that may eventually be used to judge his competency as a teacher).
Today's Wine: A glass Casa De Campo Cab pumped from the other night.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Crazy State Exams
In New York there are two tests that matter in the eighth grade: ELA and Math. Our students took both of these tests over the course of the past two weeks and I was especially happy with what I saw them do with the ELA exam. Their writing skills far exceed those of last year's eighth graders and I can't help but think that our concerted effort as an eighth grade team to promote those skills was a large part of that. During the exam I was given several reminders of how valuable their successes are, as they are achieved through far more difficult circumstances than their average peer around the state and country.
During one day of testing we had a milieu of interesting distractions. I was proctoring the exams in our multi-purpose room, which is located on the ground floor of the building facing the busy street outside. Directly above that street is a train trestle (only several yards from our third floor windows) on which trains are constantly arriving and departing as part of the NYC subway system. Needless to say they are rather loud- so much in fact that I had to pause no less than seven times while reading a passage that was part of the listening comprehension section of the ELA exam. In addition to the noise of the trains, numerous buses went roaring by, as well as a few vehicles blaring sirens. At one point a "sick" woman passerby was outside of the window screaming at herself about a quarter. I couldn't tell if she was claiming someone had stolen it from her or if some kind of evil demon was a playing a trick on her that day, but it was pretty distracting. My students thought it was pretty funny, at the very least.
Inside of the building we were placed next to a classroom full of "energetic" sixth graders, divided by a movable partition. Because their test was on a slightly different schedule they had breaks while we were testing and vice-versa. This is a the class of sixth graders we have that has a large number of students who came with "mandated self-contained" on their IEPs- a classification that is generally abused to put the kids who have huge behavior problems into small, separate classrooms. Needless to say, sometimes they can be a bit noisy.
Even without all of these distractions I was surprised by how well the students did on these tests. If you'd plopped a group of soft, suburban students down in this environment I doubt they'd test half as well as they would in their regular setting. I know that at that age whenever I saw anything that even looked remotely like the block outside of our school it was incredibly unsettling. Perhaps our students would also be uneasy being plopped down in the middle of the suburbs, but I doubt it would have the same effect.
Another thing that was astounding this year, as it was last year, was the real sense of urgency the students seem to pull out of no where when the state tests come around. They know these two tests are important and that they will not be promoted to the next grade if they cannot pass them. It would be incredible to create this urgency in the majority of our students on a more regular basis, I can't help to think that it will also be incredibly difficult to do this as long as a large number of stakeholders (not just administrators or teachers) demand that students be socially promoted en masse.
What do other folks do to create this sense of urgency on a regular basis? My only half-smoking, cap guns are: reminders of the state test, vague references to high school and explanations of how I personally have used the skills I teach since high school. Hardly what I keep keep kids trucking along on the front line.
Today's Wine: Casa de Campo Cabernet Sauvignon 2007. I feel like my reviews of wine are generally very positive, which perhaps means my pallet is not yet refined enough, but it may also mean that the stores from which I buy wine know their stuff. This one was less than $7 at the Best Cellars at 86th and Lex and it was nice, a bit spicy and not too fruity. It was a solid cab.
During one day of testing we had a milieu of interesting distractions. I was proctoring the exams in our multi-purpose room, which is located on the ground floor of the building facing the busy street outside. Directly above that street is a train trestle (only several yards from our third floor windows) on which trains are constantly arriving and departing as part of the NYC subway system. Needless to say they are rather loud- so much in fact that I had to pause no less than seven times while reading a passage that was part of the listening comprehension section of the ELA exam. In addition to the noise of the trains, numerous buses went roaring by, as well as a few vehicles blaring sirens. At one point a "sick" woman passerby was outside of the window screaming at herself about a quarter. I couldn't tell if she was claiming someone had stolen it from her or if some kind of evil demon was a playing a trick on her that day, but it was pretty distracting. My students thought it was pretty funny, at the very least.
Inside of the building we were placed next to a classroom full of "energetic" sixth graders, divided by a movable partition. Because their test was on a slightly different schedule they had breaks while we were testing and vice-versa. This is a the class of sixth graders we have that has a large number of students who came with "mandated self-contained" on their IEPs- a classification that is generally abused to put the kids who have huge behavior problems into small, separate classrooms. Needless to say, sometimes they can be a bit noisy.
Even without all of these distractions I was surprised by how well the students did on these tests. If you'd plopped a group of soft, suburban students down in this environment I doubt they'd test half as well as they would in their regular setting. I know that at that age whenever I saw anything that even looked remotely like the block outside of our school it was incredibly unsettling. Perhaps our students would also be uneasy being plopped down in the middle of the suburbs, but I doubt it would have the same effect.
Another thing that was astounding this year, as it was last year, was the real sense of urgency the students seem to pull out of no where when the state tests come around. They know these two tests are important and that they will not be promoted to the next grade if they cannot pass them. It would be incredible to create this urgency in the majority of our students on a more regular basis, I can't help to think that it will also be incredibly difficult to do this as long as a large number of stakeholders (not just administrators or teachers) demand that students be socially promoted en masse.
What do other folks do to create this sense of urgency on a regular basis? My only half-smoking, cap guns are: reminders of the state test, vague references to high school and explanations of how I personally have used the skills I teach since high school. Hardly what I keep keep kids trucking along on the front line.
Today's Wine: Casa de Campo Cabernet Sauvignon 2007. I feel like my reviews of wine are generally very positive, which perhaps means my pallet is not yet refined enough, but it may also mean that the stores from which I buy wine know their stuff. This one was less than $7 at the Best Cellars at 86th and Lex and it was nice, a bit spicy and not too fruity. It was a solid cab.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Explicit Lyrics and Style Points
Today in class I was conducting a partially-bunk lesson on Vietnam that involved the analysis of a song from that period. Going into it I had a feeling it was too much for a single period, which meant the discussion at the end of class (probably the most educational part of the lesson) would potentially devolve into me telling students what the lyrics meant rather than allowing them to think about it for themselves, all the while being irritated at myself for being dense about time management and about the students talking too much and wasting a lot of time.
All of that happened, by the way, which left them with a shallow understanding of the war in Vietnam leading into tomorrow's guest presentation by a veteran of the war, but something else also occurred during my fifth period class that was at the very least amusing, if not helpful for me as we head toward the end of the year. After listening to Country Joe and Fish's "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" and summarizing the stanzas, the students were to talk about how the music changed the meaning of the lyrics. That was fine for most of them, but one of my students located near my iPod had a much better idea about how he should spend his time.
Now, this year I've been much less paranoid about having my things stolen. I've left books out, my iPod sitting on my projector cart while I walk around the room, etc. Last year my students either destroyed or stole everything I brought in that was fragile or worth more than five bucks, so it's the huge improvement is reflected in my being able to move around my classroom without worrying about it long after the iPod has fallen silent. While I trust my students not to take all of my stuff, that doesn't mean they don't pick it up, look at it, carry it around and show it to other students. In this case the student located closest to my iPod reached over and started scrolling through the list of artists until he came to Eminem. From there he scrolled through the song titles until he found, "As* Like That," and it was all over. While kind enough not to blare it over the speakers the iPod was still attached to, a small contingent of my students started to whisper about the song, which caught my attention. What tripped them up was the fact that they never whisper in groups of more than two unless it's important or a big deal.
At first I thought they were just generally making fun of what was on the contraption, but they were hardly too shy to show me otherwise. They thought the song being on there was hilarious and said that, "I (had) a lot of explaining to do," trying to put me on the spot and waiting to see if I could think fast enough on my feet to get out of the situation. I learned too much about this last year (the hard way), which in part kept me from earning the respect of my students until near the end of the year- when I was too exhausted to be at all surprised or jarred by what my students did. This time, instead of coming off as if I'd been caught in some scandal, I just pocketed the iPod and walked off, tossing back over my should the direction to get back to work. While disappointed they didn't get a rise out of me, I could tell I'd earned points for that and more especially for having Eminem on my playlist.
Last year when I faced situations like this one I was always caught off guard. I was so paranoid about screwing up, being fired or reprimanded for doing or saying something wrong in my classroom. That was a lasting effect of hearing loads of stories of teachers being dismissed for seemingly trivial offenses (mostly in suburban schools, it seemed) while I was in the school of ed. When you get put on the spot for something like this, the students give you half a second to respond during which they'll be able to tell if you were even slightly jarred by whatever it was they discovered or heard or saw you do. Good luck getting a class back if they really want to rip into after an incident like that. That button is gigantic. In the mean time, you've got to learn to keep your mind from wandering through all of the worst-case scenarios. In short, you need to learn to react to situations like these quickly and in the appropriate way.
After school today I had the chance to sit around and chat with an esteemed colleague of mine. We talked about stakeholder accountability-something that's been on my mind lately. Within that vein what we spoke more specifically about what could be done to hold students responsible for their actions. In the setting we work in the only thing you can really hold over students is their respect for you. For the ones that give you the most trouble, if they do not respect you there is nothing you can do outside of a bribe to keep them in line. I think that idea would shock and appall my school-of-ed self, but it seems to be a reality on the front line. That version of me might also have found it shocking that I got style points for having a pretty bad Eminem song on an iPod in my classroom. I'll certainly take those point, however, as they'll help as we head toward the end of the year.
Today's Wine: Le Sciare Rocca Normanna 2008. This one was great and under ten bucks; medium-bodied, a bit fruity but also with a slight smokiness. I'd pick it up again.
All of that happened, by the way, which left them with a shallow understanding of the war in Vietnam leading into tomorrow's guest presentation by a veteran of the war, but something else also occurred during my fifth period class that was at the very least amusing, if not helpful for me as we head toward the end of the year. After listening to Country Joe and Fish's "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" and summarizing the stanzas, the students were to talk about how the music changed the meaning of the lyrics. That was fine for most of them, but one of my students located near my iPod had a much better idea about how he should spend his time.
Now, this year I've been much less paranoid about having my things stolen. I've left books out, my iPod sitting on my projector cart while I walk around the room, etc. Last year my students either destroyed or stole everything I brought in that was fragile or worth more than five bucks, so it's the huge improvement is reflected in my being able to move around my classroom without worrying about it long after the iPod has fallen silent. While I trust my students not to take all of my stuff, that doesn't mean they don't pick it up, look at it, carry it around and show it to other students. In this case the student located closest to my iPod reached over and started scrolling through the list of artists until he came to Eminem. From there he scrolled through the song titles until he found, "As* Like That," and it was all over. While kind enough not to blare it over the speakers the iPod was still attached to, a small contingent of my students started to whisper about the song, which caught my attention. What tripped them up was the fact that they never whisper in groups of more than two unless it's important or a big deal.
At first I thought they were just generally making fun of what was on the contraption, but they were hardly too shy to show me otherwise. They thought the song being on there was hilarious and said that, "I (had) a lot of explaining to do," trying to put me on the spot and waiting to see if I could think fast enough on my feet to get out of the situation. I learned too much about this last year (the hard way), which in part kept me from earning the respect of my students until near the end of the year- when I was too exhausted to be at all surprised or jarred by what my students did. This time, instead of coming off as if I'd been caught in some scandal, I just pocketed the iPod and walked off, tossing back over my should the direction to get back to work. While disappointed they didn't get a rise out of me, I could tell I'd earned points for that and more especially for having Eminem on my playlist.
Last year when I faced situations like this one I was always caught off guard. I was so paranoid about screwing up, being fired or reprimanded for doing or saying something wrong in my classroom. That was a lasting effect of hearing loads of stories of teachers being dismissed for seemingly trivial offenses (mostly in suburban schools, it seemed) while I was in the school of ed. When you get put on the spot for something like this, the students give you half a second to respond during which they'll be able to tell if you were even slightly jarred by whatever it was they discovered or heard or saw you do. Good luck getting a class back if they really want to rip into after an incident like that. That button is gigantic. In the mean time, you've got to learn to keep your mind from wandering through all of the worst-case scenarios. In short, you need to learn to react to situations like these quickly and in the appropriate way.
After school today I had the chance to sit around and chat with an esteemed colleague of mine. We talked about stakeholder accountability-something that's been on my mind lately. Within that vein what we spoke more specifically about what could be done to hold students responsible for their actions. In the setting we work in the only thing you can really hold over students is their respect for you. For the ones that give you the most trouble, if they do not respect you there is nothing you can do outside of a bribe to keep them in line. I think that idea would shock and appall my school-of-ed self, but it seems to be a reality on the front line. That version of me might also have found it shocking that I got style points for having a pretty bad Eminem song on an iPod in my classroom. I'll certainly take those point, however, as they'll help as we head toward the end of the year.
Today's Wine: Le Sciare Rocca Normanna 2008. This one was great and under ten bucks; medium-bodied, a bit fruity but also with a slight smokiness. I'd pick it up again.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Diet Pills and Overworked Teachers
A recent article in the New York Times covered the “invisible” burden of family doctors. People seem to oftentimes complain that doctors are paid quite a lot and in spite of that only really see them for a handful of minutes whenever they go in for a check-up. I think a common misconception is that doctors don’t work that much more than the time we see them, which is also a very common misconception of teachers.
The impression most adults have of the classroom is based on what they saw when they were going through school. Indeed teachers themselves are often guilty of falling back on their many years as a student and complaining about how teachers must have had it easier back then. Though I cannot speak to how much work was actually done by my own teachers, it was clearly more than what we saw of them in class. As with doctors, it seems as though what most people believe teachers do is simply stand in front of a class and deliver instruction and aside from that they might grade a few papers here and there, but life is easy once the students are gone.
Wrong and wrong. The article in the NY Times describes just how much family doctors are responsible for in addition to seeing 18 patients per day:
How much do teachers do behind the scenes? It might vary widely, but here are things I am responsible for outside of classroom instruction (seeing 80 “patients”, in my case) on an average day:
I’m of the opinion that many of the issues in medicine mirror issues in education. Perhaps preventative medicine can be likened to solid teaching practices, as preventative medicine keeps you healthy and keeps you on track to stay that way, while sound educational practice keeps students on track to learn the skills they need be successful later in life (reading, writing, critical thinking, etc.). To take the analogy further, test-prep curricula might be likened to a diet pill. Both might get the results you want initially, but they generally cannot sustain a healthy way of doing things in the long term.
Like most of America, I have a lot of respect for the field of medicine. It’s one of the world’s oldest professions and is one in which the professionals have devoted their lives to helping others. In that way, and in many others, the field is like education. The best doctors and the best teachers work endless hours tirelessly to provide support to their fellow community members, hoping to provide them with what they need to be healthy and successful. Perhaps one day we'll figure out a way to pay teachers for their extra efforts in developing and maintaining solid teaching practices for students rather than simply looking at which teachers hand their students diet pills to tease results out of standardized tests.
Today's Wine: JP Azeitao Tinto. This one is under ten dollars and was a great deal. It was a bit fruity, but not a fruit bomb and was smooth all the way through. I give four stars out of five.
The impression most adults have of the classroom is based on what they saw when they were going through school. Indeed teachers themselves are often guilty of falling back on their many years as a student and complaining about how teachers must have had it easier back then. Though I cannot speak to how much work was actually done by my own teachers, it was clearly more than what we saw of them in class. As with doctors, it seems as though what most people believe teachers do is simply stand in front of a class and deliver instruction and aside from that they might grade a few papers here and there, but life is easy once the students are gone.
Wrong and wrong. The article in the NY Times describes just how much family doctors are responsible for in addition to seeing 18 patients per day:
- 24 telephone calls
- Write 12 prescriptions
- Read 20 lab/14 consultative reports
- Review 11 x-rays
- Send 17 emails
How much do teachers do behind the scenes? It might vary widely, but here are things I am responsible for outside of classroom instruction (seeing 80 “patients”, in my case) on an average day:
- Send ten emails per day
- 4 telephone calls to parents
- Writing out between four and ten detention slips
- Making necessary copies for the day (in spite of using computers nearly every day, back-up copies are necessary for various reasons)
- Grading 80 pieces of student work
- Lesson Planning = research on the topic to be covered the following day, creating//finalizing/uploading a PowerPoint presentation and creating a new webpage for each day’s lesson (which will hopefully turn into simply updating those pages next year)/figuring out a way to differentiate instruction for students who cannot read and write and those who can better than most of the students in our high school.
- One 45-minute meeting, generally centering on teacher collaboration
- Sweeping of my classroom in the middle of the day after its use by another teacher
- One hour of punitive duty (paperwork for detention documentation, holding detention, etc.)
- Completion of at least one form necessary to support students with IEPs, to continue receiving breakfast for the students I have early in the morning, paperwork necessary for payroll, etc.
- Meeting with one to five students during my lunch or after school hours to help them catch up or give them extra support
I’m of the opinion that many of the issues in medicine mirror issues in education. Perhaps preventative medicine can be likened to solid teaching practices, as preventative medicine keeps you healthy and keeps you on track to stay that way, while sound educational practice keeps students on track to learn the skills they need be successful later in life (reading, writing, critical thinking, etc.). To take the analogy further, test-prep curricula might be likened to a diet pill. Both might get the results you want initially, but they generally cannot sustain a healthy way of doing things in the long term.
Like most of America, I have a lot of respect for the field of medicine. It’s one of the world’s oldest professions and is one in which the professionals have devoted their lives to helping others. In that way, and in many others, the field is like education. The best doctors and the best teachers work endless hours tirelessly to provide support to their fellow community members, hoping to provide them with what they need to be healthy and successful. Perhaps one day we'll figure out a way to pay teachers for their extra efforts in developing and maintaining solid teaching practices for students rather than simply looking at which teachers hand their students diet pills to tease results out of standardized tests.
Today's Wine: JP Azeitao Tinto. This one is under ten dollars and was a great deal. It was a bit fruity, but not a fruit bomb and was smooth all the way through. I give four stars out of five.
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