Teaching Is Going To Kill Me

Last night I got five hours of sleep. Sadly that is typical for a school night as I diligently attempt to juggle the demands of grading (while providing thoughtful comments for each student), phoning parents, lesson planning, designing bulletin boards, getting supplementary books from my public library, shopping for supplies at Staples for, writing IEPs, collecting and analyzing data and attending professional development classes. 

I'm afraid to go to my doctor because of what she will say to me about my weight and blood pressure.  
During quality review week, I suffer from lower back pain. During state exam month, I get headaches and diarrhea. In general, I don't have time to exercise or even to cook while the Sword of Damocles dangles over my head in the form of teacher ratings, school report card grades (that's right my school gets graded), letters to file, teaching observations and more.

In the early 1900's, unionized workers fought against exploitive employers who forced them to work long hours with little time off in unhealthy circumstances. Workers were literally dying in unvented, unsafe, poorly lit, deafening factories. More than one hundred years later, I work in a dirty building with bed bugs and lice, banging radiators, flickering buzzing PCB lighting, and no air conditioning for approximately ten hours each day (6:30am - 4:30pm). My reward when I get home? Another three to five hours of work preparing for the next day.

I won't die in a headline-garnering tragic fire at the "factory." I'll die at home from a stroke or a heart attack but all the same my death certificate should say, "Cause of death: Teaching." 

Cruel And Unnecessary But Not At All Unusual

Cruel
If child protective services is called about my mistreatment of children, I will understand. Why? Because across six days of the last two weeks, I forced children aged 11 - 14 to sit silently for more than 20 hours of testing.

I teach students with disabilities, sitting is not what they do best, testing is not what they do best, silence is definitely not what they do best. Yet there I stood, trying to keep a lid on their anxiety and youthful energy for hours at a time.

To help them do their best, my students were given test accommodations including: extra test time, breaks, and on-task focusing prompts. Also to help them do their best, I gave out mint gum, tissues and platitudes like, "Try your best, sweetheart."

"Don't give up," was the insultingly useless thing that I said to one boy who reads at a fourth grade level but was handed eighth grade testing materials that he absolutely could not read. How exactly did that test serve to measure any progress that he made during the year? Short answer: it didn't. Instead what it did was make him feel inadequate, stupid and frustrated.

Unnecessary
Worse still is that if all this testing is actually to help students, parents and teachers assess what "Johnny" has learned, it is unnecessary. By this time of year, a student's levels and depths of understanding - their strengths and weaknesses - are very clear. I have months and months of student work (or sometimes a lack thereof) which demonstrates their growth over time.  You can see that in September Johnny did not understand how to plot a point on a coordinate grid but later in October he consistently can. Or you can see, as is the case with some students, that they have made little or no progress.

But then the purpose of high-stakes testing has very little to do with how Johnny is doing. If standardized testing ever was a useful tool for academic growth, it is now mostly used to "control" teachers.

Not At All Unusual
I wish that my role as a test-inflictor was an aberration but it is not. Across our nation, hundreds of thousands of teachers participate in this annual mental flogging of our nation's youth. This month Florida teachers supervised as children sat and sat and sat for the FCAT's. At the same time, Texas educators inflicted children with TAKS and STAARs. Next week, New Jersey teachers will begin abusing their students as they proctor statewide tests. With so many abusers out there, hardly a child goes unscathed.

As you might imagine, I have a long history of abuse having "whipped" students into shape for almost a decade now. I'm not proud of it. I know it is wrong and I'm looking to make a change.

What Have The Common Core Bundles Wrought?

In New York City, the Common Core has brought with it bundles - or as the DOE describes them, "aligned tasks embedded in a unit of study." At my school, we are obligated to administer a minimum of two bundles in each major subject. It can take weeks to plow through the bundles with all their attachments (the 6th grade special ed class has been working on the same unit since Martin Luther King Day).  I refer to them as "piles." Why do I have such a low opinion of the tasks designed to "support schools?"

Before Easter vacation, I looked at a hallway bulletin board. It proudly displayed the culminating task for an English assignment. I saw ten essays written by ten different students each of which said the exact same thing. Each essay made the same arguments. Each essay cited the same evidence. Each essay used the same transition words. It was a model of uniformity.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. And then I looked at my own bulletin board. I don’t teach English. I teach another subject which has been similarly “blessed” with piles, I mean bundles. And there bright and bold for all the world to see were ten examples of student work each espousing the same reasoning, the same ideas, the same answers.

I used to take pride in the work I did as a teacher. I worked for hours creating projects for my students that offered multiple ways to demonstrate the learning they were doing. Now I work with pre-made piles that demand uniformity. How do students feel about this one size fits all approach? Do other teachers feel as I do? You know... ashamed.

The Loveliest Child

This year, I have been blessed with a student who may be the nicest kid I’ve ever taught. Always prepared with an ear-to-ear smile and enormous enthusiasm, he is friendly to everyone even the mean kids. When he walks past my classroom door, he will pause and wave heartily, like he has been waiting to see me all day. When he arrives for class, he greets me as if we haven’t seen each other in years. No matter how challenging the lesson is for him, he works hard to understand. He is a walking ray of sunshine. Each day I am delighted to see him; if he is absent, I miss him. He’s the kind of kid you want to clone because then every school day would be a joy.

Also this year, I have been saddled with a student who cannot retain any information. Nothing, zippo, nada. I model it. I give him manipulatives. I’ve had other students tutor him. I’ve given him extra homework. I’ve given him no homework. I’ve let him investigate the topic using videos or computer games. I’ve kept him at lunch for private tutoring. If he does understand the lesson, it lasts only a short while and certainly not into the next day. He drives me crazy because he has made absolutely no lasting progress. When I see him, I see a walking “1” because that is the score he is going to get on his state exam.

Have you figured it out yet? It’s the same kid. The boy with the warmest heart can process information in the moment but not keep it or use it later. The mixed emotions he stirs in me, epitomize the current battle over my teacher’s soul. I want to appreciate and nurture all the children placed in my care but I also feel resentful when I think about how their test scores could drag down my evaluation.

           

One of the hallmarks of the education reform movement has been assessing teachers by measuring the progress of their students. Because I feel such tremendous pressure to show constant student growth for each and every child, I find it challenging to simply appreciate this young man's genius. Instead, I often see him as an obstacle to my being labeled an “effective teacher.”

And that makes me sick. It is not who I am as a teacher. It is not who I am as a parent. It is not who I am as a human being.  

Each child deserves to be loved for the blessing that he is and for the gifts that he possesses. I am ashamed of myself. I've allowed the funhouse mirror that is the education reform movement to distort my relationship with my students. Anyone have a hammer?

How Many Absences Are Acceptable?

With approximately 70 days of school completed, how many absences are acceptable? Three, one, none? How many absences begin to effect learning? How many of those absences are the teacher's responsibility?

Thus far, four of my cherubs have been absent twelve or more days. One of those has been absent 21 days. One-third of my students have missed 10% or more of all school days. Last year one of my students missed more than one-third of all school days. Of course since learning is merely measured by passing an exam, he was promoted after passing the summer school test. At our school, there are students who are absent when it rains. Students who regularly fail to attend school on Fridays. Students who think it is acceptable to stay home on their birthdays and students who are absent the day before a vacation begins and/or the day after one ends. Some students and their families extend vacations so that five days off, say for Christmas, becomes 10 days off. And I'm pretty sure most teachers have experienced those students for whom summer vacation extends well past Labor Day.

I've tried to encourage good attendance by buying lunch or prizes for those kids who have perfect attendance. I've conferenced with those who have poor attendance and tried to motivate them to come to school with regularity. I've called parents. I've brought it up during parent-teacher conferences. I've also tried to help the frequently absent keep up academically by working with them at lunchtime or after-school but it is not the same. We don't have enough time and moreover, the students and I are both resentful during make-up sessions. After all, I've already taught the material while they went out of their way to not be responsible for the missed material.

Our school has a policy of paying home visits to students with poor attendance. In general, it doesn't help. By the time a student and his or her frequently complicit parent(s) have decided that it is acceptable to miss 10-30% of all school days, there is little that cajoling can do to improve attendance.

Besides poor student attendance is, no doubt, MY fault. Not exactly sure how, but I am certain that in the current education climate the teacher is definitely to blame. The poor state test scores of these "phantom" students will fall on my shoulders as I am labeled "ineffective" via my value add measure (VAM). A teacher's job is difficult enough when the students show-up but when they don't even show up, what are we supposed to do then?

I used to have compassion for students with many absences. I worried about their health. I was concerned their parents were depressed and kept them home for company. Now that I'm held responsible for student test scores. I'm just angry because a day out of school means a day of lost learning, which will eventually show up on some exam somewhere. Pissed-off and without any ability to do something about it: that seems like a healthy combination.

Tragedy's Tomorrow

Tomorrow the kids and I will return to our classroom. It should be like every Monday, one in which I review last week's material while introducing new ideas.  But tomorrow's Monday will be different. Tomorrow I will need to fully focus on my students' emotional well-being and nurture them through this tragedy.

A tightrope, that is what I will walk:  needing to stress the importance of safety drills without frightening the kids; growing compassion without instilling depression; engendering political action without taking sides.

I will give them a chance to journal and draw, talk and cry.
I will give them the opportunity to angrily discuss how the daily violence in their own community is often ignored by the media.
I will keep it age-appropriate.
I will remind them that there is good, and there is kindness and there is courage on the darkest of days. And that those things exist because of choices people make.
I will reassure.
I will nod and hug.
I will coax them back to normalcy.

Tomorrow I will not test them, I will not gather or analyze data about them. I will not burden them with this month's Common Core bundle. I will share my humanity and open myself to theirs.

Tomorrow I will be inspired by the memory of people I never knew: Mary, Lauren, Rachel, Dawn, Anne Marie, and Victoria.

Is it worse to be called a "bitch" or to be treated like one?

How often are you called a "bitch" at your job? If you're a teacher in NYC, then odds are you have enjoyed that moniker in English and/or one other language at least once in the course of your career. A much more frequent and debilitating occurrence is how often you're treated like one.

Let's start small. At my school, the principal announced that there was no money for after-school programs. Knowing this, several teachers agreed to work for free to: 1) prepare students for the specialized high school exam; 2) prep students for Regents exams; and 3) tutor low-performing students for the state exams. Meanwhile, it just came to light that she is paying herself per session for the days she deigns not to leave early. Bitch.

Let's move on to the city level. In NYC, we sometimes have a program called "Teachers Choice." I say "sometimes" because the funding comes and goes. Last year it went, this year it comes - sort of. Courtesy of the City Council, teachers will be reimbursed for the purchase of instructional supplies to the tune of $45.00. No you did not read that wrong, we will receive a whopping $45 though most of us spend hundreds of dollars each year. What other job do you know of where the employees have to purchase basic supplies and are NOT reimbursed for them? Does a fireman buy his own hose? Bitch.

Let us move up to the state level. New York state wants to tie students' test scores to teacher evaluations but fails to fully fund schools so that there is no after-school money. Thereby putting teachers in the position of having to volunteer their time if they want any chance of pushing up student test scores and keeping their jobs. When it snows, sanitation workers get paid overtime. If a police officer stays late to complete paperwork, he is compensated. Why are teachers expected to volunteer their time? Bitch.

Let's move up one more level to the federal government which unrealistically demands through the No Child Left Behind Act that every child be proven through endless testing to be, as political scientist Charles Murray put it, "above average." This ill-conceived legislation narrowed the focus of my profession from the development of the whole child to that of data reader and test prepper. And since one insanely detrimental program deserves another, the feds followed up NCLB with Race to the Top. RTTT sets school against school as they fight over pathetically small sums of money to implement policies and programs that will ultimately cost them more than they receive. And then there are the latest, much-touted, rarely tested cure-alls that we are told to implement and adhere to such as the professionally disempowering Common Core standards. Bitch.

And lest society as a whole think they are without sin, let us hold a mirror up to America's face. Hi America, here is what your stewardship of our economic and education system has wrought. In a recent Daily News article Juan Gonzalez revealed how employees at AIG enjoy many free perks.  Perks such as free Snapple, Starbucks, soda, Tylenol and Advil. The company also buys breakfast and lunch several times a week for its employees. The insurance bastards, who were saved from bankruptcy by sucking $182 billion from the public teat, have funds for this nonsense but at Intermediate School Who Gives A Fuck, teachers have to buy their own paper. What the hell, America? Get your priorities straight. Teachers who want to take their students on a trip to the theatre, ballet or Statue of Liberty must beg at the altar of Donors Choose because there is no money for such unholy "extras" but inept corporations (of which we still own 52%) get no oversight. Bitch.

Some of my friends think the most challenging part of being a teacher is dealing with the students. They're wrong. When an inarticulate and frustrated fourteen-year-old calls you a name, you can handle their momentary lapse in judgment. But when your administration at every single level, indeed your country, repeatedly and methodically treats you like a bitch, well that is a hell of a lot worse.