To add on to Chimaobi's post and the dialogue, there is a serious problem with whites, and Austin is right about reintroducing White people to public education. Not just in the Delta either. Anyone see the Republican Convention and all the talk about "school choice?" That's straight out of segregationist rhetoric. A lot of the problems being discussed are not solely White problems, but there are significant White problems that cannot be ignored. Chimaobi is also right about the need for more Black participants. I think making MTC more diverse and recruiting more at Black colleges would have a lot of advantages. Anything to expand the pool of qualified and committed applicants and to recruit more teachers who can make the sort of impact that he has would be great for the program.
However, I think a homogeneous group, whether overly White (which MTC probably is now) or overly Black would have limitations. In addition to positive Black leadership, we need White people and White communities who are detached from, ignorant of, or close-minded towards the problems in poor communities and in Black communities to make some sort of connection with and a commitment to those communities.
Having White people involved in programs like MTC is not only a benefit to those teachers, like myself, but it's a benefit to white families and communities as well. My extended family has much more of an understanding of and an empathy for the community in which I teach, just through the small experiences I've shared with them. Without more connections like that between communities, how can we expect any type of top-down systematic changes without the racist sort of reactionary politics familiar to places like Mississippi.
There are also benefits to the children who have White MTC teachers in some of these schools. All the children I've taught and coached know that not all White people would cast them aside, look down on them, or use them for personal gain. To be quite honest, at my school they weren't going to get that lesson if MTC didn't select me and place me there. Now there are examples of some schools in this area where most students are Black and most teachers/students/administators are White. I think that is very destructive. But in schools like mine where the White community is almost totally uninvolved, having a few positive White teachers has benefits for everyone.
In terms of what a Black teacher can or a White teacher cannot do in the classroom, Rob points out some good examples. But I think it's important to realize that when a White teacher can reach a level of trust with students and can initiate some constructive dialogue about race with Black students, there is potential for lots of positive growth. That's something that can't happen when everyone in the room is Black or White. And where are the students I teach going to engage in any respectful interracial dialogue? There are two sides to every coin.
In conclusion, I agree that MTC needs more recruitment of Black teachers. 2 or 3 Black teachers out of a class of maybe 30 is unacceptable. It would benefit the program itself as well as the classrooms those teachers are placed in. As Austin points out, it would also be beneficial to recruit more local Whites. However, it would be counterproductive to avoid recruitment of Whites, regardless of where they come from. There is strength in diversity, even if it causes discomfort along the way. But the #1 priority here is solving a serious problem, which is putting fresh, committed, talented teachers into critical needs classrooms. We have to start where we're at and improve as we go.
Another political blog. I watched the Democratic Convention last week and so I thought to be fair I'd try to stomach the Republican version this week. What I saw last night probably buried any chance a Republican will get my vote until there is a total revolution in the values of the party. Between Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin, you saw exactly what the Republicans are all about and who they care about.
Giuliani was as belittling and smug as anyone I've ever seen on a national political stage. Besides his usual narrow-minded fear-mongering about Muslims and 9/11, and besides the dishonest link between bin Laden and Iraq for the millionth time, he took personal cheap shots at Obama and at everyday American people. I could not believe that he stood up there and literally mocked and laughed at the fact that Obama was a community organizer in Chicago. He actually stopped speaking to laugh out loud, and the audience (a bunch of rich people that would not be missed) joined in. My first thought was that he made a horrible mistake. There is no way that it's appropriate or even politically advantageous to do something like that. He's laughing at the fact that unlike all the other rich people in that room, Obama gave up a lucrative career in order to go help poor, working class people in Chicago who had lost their jobs, a job in which he made next to nothing. The fact that this is a joke to the Republicans shows just how little regard they have for working people and especially poor people. They also have no manners or respect.
After watching that scumbag, I had the pleasure of watching Sarah Palin follow with the exact same garbage. So it was definitely planned and arranged to make fun of Obama for his experience and service as a community organizer. There's no way 2 idiots would slip through the cracks like that. Anyway, watching that disgraceful night of speeches made me think thoughts I'm not proud of and will not describe. I hope Obama's campaign spends some serious time and energy making it clear that those belittling comments show us what Republicans are all about. Mainly, they're all about the big CEO's that have been giving speeches night after night about how they need to pay less taxes. We've had 8 years of cutting taxes for rich people, and anyone with common sense can see that it did nothing but harm for the majority of Americans, and for the economy as a whole. Palin asked how it would help her brother and his family if they raise taxes on his business. First of all, if he's rich, I don't care, because he'll be fine. If he's not, how about the fact that his family could be provided with health care, a decent education, and an affordable college education for his children? I would feel that justice had been served if some of these people died penniless in gutters.
So much for ending the old politics. Karl Rove must be back in the mix. The Republicans are back to personal character assaults, lies, and mocking their opponents. I don't usually identify myself as a Democrat, but I am most certainly an anti-Republican, and will be for a long time. I will be thoroughly depressed if Americans are stupid enough to elect another one of these scumbags to the White House.
Starting off year 3 is basically picking right back up where I left off. I feel 100% comfortable with the kids, have no problems telling them what to do, disciplining them, joking around, or interacting with them. The great thing about teaching grades 9-12 is that after being here a few years I know so many kids that I know about half of my students before the year even starts. Coaching helps a lot with that too. The main difference between now and where I was 2 years ago is that a new teacher is nervous and the kids are on the attack, but a veteran teacher is on the attack and the kids are nervous. It was really funny to notice this year how sheepish and nervous a lot of my kids were.
As usual, the first day consisted of a lot of holding homeroom, which sucked less than in the past, but still sucked. My homeroom kids aren't as awful as they were either of the last 2 years, but they're still there and there are some big mouths in there. So on day 1 I only got to see 4th through 7th periods, and I missed my planning period. Overall it was definitely my best first day. I just went over rules, memorized almost every name within the first day, got kids involved, and I enjoyed it.
The only hiccup in the day was 4th period Physical Science, where I have some kids coming back for the THIRD time, and some more trying for the second time. There are some major jackasses in there. The worst one (by the end of last year he wasn't even allowed in the door) came in acting a fool immediately. I had to yell at him, get him to go back out into the hall, and then he started rolling around on the floor. I went ahead and chewed him out and told him that I wasn't putting up with any of that crap this year. I let him in and after not even 5 minutes I had already given him a writing assignment and almost had to paddle him. This is the first 5 minutes of the first real class of the year. He actually wanted me to paddle him instead of doing the writing assignments (he worked his way up to 2), but I made him do them. Today he earned two more and 3 other students in there also got them. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm paddling in there tomorrow. I've got a handful of kids capable of ruining that whole class, but hopefully some of them will work their way into a GED program or alternative school.
The other classes are typical. The kids with all the bad reps that were on my role are the thuggish males who don't really disrupt class and cause problems, they just fight a lot. I have some hyperactive sophomores 7th period that will probably be my worst problem, just because it's 7th period. All in all, the first 2 days were a thing of beauty. 178 more to go.
Went home for 3 days and got to celebrate my Mom's birthday.
Worked on some grad school application stuff and read a few good books.
Met the new MTC people and got to see the "veterans." Teacher Corps people are good people.
Watched and evaluated a LOT of teaching. Got some good ideas of what to do and what not to do by watching others.
Got to reenact my worst students in role plays and act a fool, definitely the most fun I've had at work (thanks Ashley).
Played lots of poker and came out +$50 for the summer (thanks Ben).
Went to a lot of Ben's cookouts (Ben).
Shot some big and small guns, hit a clay pigeon, chopped up a tree, got swarmed by cattle, and stepped in a huge pile of cow shit (Austin W.).
Played some atrocious golf on July 4, but made a spectacular birdie from the woods on the last hole (Hunter and Temac).
Went to Memphis and saw a Redbirds game and ate a $7.50 Turkey Leg (Meredith, Landon, Hunter, Emily).
Went to Nashville and ate bbq, tried out line dancing, played pool, ate one of the best meals of my life at Monell's, and saw the new Batman (Ashley, Taurean, Hunter, Ward, Meredith).
Saw Batman again. Awesome movie.
Got two new paddles, thick and thin, so I'll never have to wait again (Alred).
Broke a board karate style, and hopped around in pain a little more than I'd have liked (Meredith).
Got used to having some semblance of a social life that'll probably be a distant memory in a few weeks.
Can't believe I got paid, although between gas, entertainment, and food, it's probably a wash. I'll take it.
I taught my "model lesson" today in 2nd period. All the 1st years had to stay in there and watch kids work from before the bell until after it basically. It was my 9th lesson of the summer, and I'm 0-for-9 on closures. Sorry, Teacher Corps; the closure is just more of a special-occasion thing for me. I think I pretty much taught a throw-away lesson, because it was not really in the flow of the rest of the material, and I wasn't really sure what to teach. I'm big into sequence and organization, and so I plan units as a whole. I never just plan a lesson.
I basically approached it like I would a physical science lesson, which means a set where I try to get the students interested and outline the material, and then lots of well-managed independent work. The most important part of my lesson was going to be the end, where students would have to articulate what they'd learned to their classmates, and I could actually assess what they'd learned and refocus them on the objective. Unfortunately, I lost 5 minutes in there somewhere, and so that part of the lesson disappeared. I overplanned, which isn't a problem during the year, because I plan a unit all at once, and I'll just make adjustments as I go through it.
This seems to be a recurring dilemma for me this summer. When I'm teaching, or when I'm managing a class or doing role plays, should I do what I really do during the year, or should I do what I expect people want me to do? In this lesson, I would have just killed it after the independent practice, taken up the work, brought it back tomorrow, and finished the rest of my activities later. There's 180 days during the year, and with my Physical Science kids I'm basically aiming to train them to work and have some self-discipline, hoping they learn some science along the way. Since this was my only lesson this month, that won't happen, and my model lesson was pretty much worthless in terms of modeling good assessment or a closure, or even for teaching the content in a coherent way.
On the other hand, there were some valuable things to take out of it. For one, I kept them on task and busy literally from before the bell until after it. I gave very clear instructions, had good transitions and management, and monitored them well. I had the students rotating between 5 stations, which makes boring worksheet-type work go by faster and seem less like torture. It wasn't a perfect lesson, or even really good. But it's the kind of lesson I can pull out of the bag any day of the week, and lessons like that got me through 2 years of teaching some crazy classes.
I'm so glad I've paid my dues and been graded and evaluated and got my diploma so I'm through with all of that. I still hate teaching or managing a class with other adults in there. I hate being judged. In the role plays I'm afraid to do what I'd really do, because if someone with a different personality or different tolerance for crap tries it, they might be miserable. I'm glad Ashley's in there with me. With her they get to see a strict teacher who prevents a lot of problems and takes no crap from kids. With me they see a more laid back teacher who will pile on consequences and let kids vent a little, keeping as much as possible in the classroom. I'm the type of person who you can push pretty far, but when I go over the edge, it's not pretty. Ashley says, act mad before you get mad. I'm not an actor, so I have to get mad before I get mad. I think my style works better the more dysfunctional the school is (like where they won't let you have detention and they send kids back to class after they cuss you out). I think hers is preferable anywhere that you have administrative support.
I also think that next summer there should be another category of role plays that just addresses day-to-day issues. They get to see the extreme stuff that will happen on maybe a monthly (or maybe weekly) basis, but what about just the everyday kids who won't shut up, won't do homework, won't do their bellwork, or can't sit still. How do you handle the seating arrangement in your class? How do you deal with tardies? How do you prevent cheating? How do you organize and plan your lessons to prevent problems in the first place? That's the type of stuff that will really make you more effective as a teacher and enable you to keep a lot more students on task.
I went back to Greenwood to sleep in my extremely comfortable bed where it's actually possible to have dreams. It was pretty awesome. I fell asleep to Cool Hand Luke, got up, and lifted weights. While I was at the gym, I ran into a teacher from my school. Last year was her first year at my school (or teaching period), which makes her a hardened veteran. After the usual small-talk, she delivered some bad news.
Coach Fant is gone. That's the 6-4, 300 pound disciplinarian who strikes fear into the hearts of children (and adults). He is the head paddler (or ass-whupper, as he'd say) although I can pretty much handle that on my own now. Apparently, they're moving him to the other school in the district. I'm surprised about that, because he's been at my school over 30 years, and he could retire and make more money off pensions and driving buses than teaching next year. So there goes the closest thing our school has to a tyrant, and also the best person to sit down and shoot the bull with. I liked to keep my class in the cafeteria a little too long while I talked with him at lunch. Tyrants aren't the greatest people in the world, but at my school he served a very useful purpose. He was also kind of a mentor for coaches, and even for teachers as far at that's concerned. In the words of the woman delivering this news, "Next year is gonna be real."
Another thing that will make next year "real," as if it wasn't far too real already, is that the assistant principal is moving to the elementary school. She was the only administrator with any cojones, despite the fact that she was indeed a she. There was a clear difference in the behavior at our school when she was gone on certain days. That difference was basically that kids were running wild and tearing shit up. Now it is fairly likely that we'll get to see that every day. She was also the administrator most likely to support teachers, although she was often undermined herself. Her leaving, compounded by the fact that the principal is not, is going to make next year pretty damn real, unless they replace her with some sort of drill sergeant or something.
After hearing all the good news, I told her that I guess I'd better start pushing up a little more weight. If nothing else, that gives me plenty of motivation to work out hard in July. Like she said, either get strong and get that swing ready, or get fast and lace up those running shoes.
Coming back after finishing MTC and teaching in the summer has already been an eye opener and a privilege. As a "third year," I assume I'm expected to model good lessons for the new Biology teachers and help them get started. As of today, I've taught four lessons, and I don't think I've done a real closure yet. If I remember right, that's supposed to be where you review the lesson, relate it to their lives, and preview the next one. I'm sure I wrote them down in my plans, but I don't know what happened to them. I'd say since maybe September or October I've basically been trying to make it through the procedure. If I can do that every day, a closure just seems like showing off, and I'm too modest a guy to do that. So coming back and putting the pressure on myself to teach good lessons from start to finish is definitely good for me. Hopefully it will get me out of some bad habits.
Another eye opener was teaching first period. At my school, we have a homeroom period which is a brief and useless, but often intense living hell, but it does serve some purpose. The kids usually come out of homeroom hyped up (that's how they come out of mine) or at least awake. Teaching first period here in summer school is like teaching the dead. I hope the first years are ready for that. I had a pretty good lesson with my Homer Simpson lab safety power point going strong, but all I could manage was to keep them awake and get a few laughs. At least they didn't throw rotten tomatoes at me. I guess it was mildly successful. Unfortunately, I blew through the presentation too fast and ran out of stuff to do because Lab Safety is easy and they finished a quiz really quick. I had about 7 or 8 minutes left, and I was feeling my body pull me over to the desk, where I like to relax. During the year, I'll get on my stool, relax, and maybe shoot the breeze with some of my kids. That would probably not be the best example of a good finish to a lesson here, and it takes a while for me to build that familiarity with my students, so Pete offered to bail me out with some filler activities. He asked them some good lateral thinking questions.
Pete is an awesome teacher, and he's great at interacting with the students. I didn't see him teach last year, so I don't know if he's a natural or not, but I'd guess he is. It doesn't really matter though, because he's damn good. I look forward to getting some good ideas from watching him, and I hope our first years will do the same.
Thinking back to how I teach during the school year, I realize how much more there is to being a good, successful teacher than teaching good lessons. I think MTC, and especially the summer program, is awesome at making teachers who know how to teach great lessons. But I'm not sure that all that translates to being a good teacher at a school like mine. I guess the rest consists of being able to relate with the kids and adapt to the environment, but mainly being able to cope psychologically with some absurd stuff. In addition to being able to teach, relate to kids, being determined and resilient, I think the ability to laugh has been as important as anything in helping me succeed.
Maybe we've been having people quit more often lately because those other non-instructional qualities are so hard to identify in people until they're put into the real situation. And I don't even know if it's possible to teach them to someone. Teaching these kids at summer school is as good (and easy) as it gets when it comes to learning how to teach, but it's really lacking in terms of preparing someone to survive in certain schools. I don't know if that's a problem that should be solved or just a reality that has to be accepted, but it's something that seems obvious again this summer.
I just finished a book called There Goes My Everything, and it's a pretty thorough study of white southerners during the civil rights movement. It describes all the different positions that whites occupied on the topic of segregation and integration, from brave freedom fighters to the violent bigots with dynamite, and all those in between. The majority of whites in the south felt that race relations were good, that they knew and understood their black peers, and that everyone thought the Jim Crow status quo was pleasant for all. It was psychologically necessary to believe this in order to justify such an oppressive system. But as blacks began to demand rights and activism spread throughout the region, whites would first dodge the unpleasant truth by attributing these demonstrations and protests to "outside agitators," mainly communists. By linking efforts to integrate and pass civil rights legislation to communism, southerners could feel patriotic in their opposition, that they were doing their duty to defend America (or to defend their homeland from a tyrannical federal government run by communists). When they finally had to face reality as they saw "their negroes" marching in the streets and demanding civil rights, many whites felt betrayed and lost whatever trust and esteem they may have previously felt.
Another interesting point was the inability for the majority of whites to comprehend the notion of equality between the races. They felt that any rights won by blacks would mean rights lost by whites. They were so entrenched in a caste system characterized by oppression that they assumed giving blacks the rights that whites had enjoyed for so long would put blacks on top and whites on the bottom of society.
In an analysis of white attitudes toward integration, it seemed that the majority of whites approved of a "separate but equal" system. Many favored equal rights for blacks, but still supported segregation and felt it was a necessary division between different cultures. They just thought it was the natural order in the south. As integration became widely accepted as inevitable, many whites went with the flow, favoring integrated schools over no school at all. But some of the most violent bigots terrorized whites who integrated restaurants or schools, running them out of town or out of business. In some towns, the Klan would bomb restaurants that had been forced to integrate if they served black customers. This caused many restaurants and hotels to resegregate illegally and against some of their own wishes. In some places the treatment for whites who challenged the status quo was worse than it was for blacks, although obviously that wasn't the norm, and not too many whites were being lynched.
These violent attacks often backfired. Many white southerners, regardless of how they felt before, were swayed by violence and ugly behavior. Whites who felt sympathy for blacks may have felt threatened by more militant or angry protests from blacks and become staunch segregationists. Likewise, some whites who opposed integration and civil rights were often won over by the bombings and beatings and other violence and ignorance shown by klansmen, policemen, and race-baiting politicians.
The book also addresses the stereotype that the poor, ignorant, and working class whites were the most violent and racist people. Upper-class whites often ridiculed them for their treatment of blacks, and this is something we still see today. The truth of the matter is that the poor, working class whites were the ones who actually were affected by integration. They couldn't afford to move to suburbs or gated communities. They couldn't afford to send their kids to private schools. While many of them may have reacted in ugly and hateful ways, their upper-class counterparts still had black servants and sent their children to segregation academies.
This book is really worth the read for anyone who wants to understand the mentality of whites in the last 60 years in terms of race relations. So much civil rights history is centered on events and powerful figures, many of them black heroes from the movement, but the truth is that many of the problems we still have are due to the unwillingness of whites to acknowledge the ugly history of the treatment of blacks and the racial problems that still persist as a result. Much of these problems are white problems that can't be solved without first understanding things from that point of view.
I have a lot of kids failing, especially in my chemistry class, so I gear my final to help them. I make it optional, essay format, and take-home. Each question is worth 15 points, and there are 10 of them, so 7 questions would add up to a possible 105 and one could try all 10 for a possible 150. I allow them to get help from me or other people, to use the internet, or to use any textbooks, but I require that it be in their own words, hand-written, and not the same as anyone else's test. Most of the students who are passing opt out of the test and just take their grade the way it is, and the ones who take the final are borderline or failing and need a miracle to pass.
My hope is that the students will take me seriously when I say that I will actually be grading this, not just giving them a grade for turning something in. I also hope that they will take me seriously when I say that answers that are identical to those of another student won't receive credit. I also hope that they will use the 2 WEEKS time I've given them to work on it and ask questions about things they need help on. I hope they'll read the questions and follow the instructions. Basically, despite a whole year of them demonstrating the opposite, I'm still expecting respect, responsibility, and honesty, the very expectations hanging on my wall since day 1.
So, today was the due date for the tests, and let me tell you, I have never seen so much pitifulness (is that a word?) in all my life. First, the tests were atrocious. I had to take a break while grading them so that I wouldn't become physically or emotionally ill. Many students didn't even attempt enough questions to pass in the first place, and most of the questions that were attempted did not even remotely address the prompt. In addition to the pitiful tests, I saw some truly pitiful students. After realizing they'd failed the test, or that they'd cheated and wouldn't receive any credit, I got to hear the question that I hate as much as "Can I go to the bathroom?" That would be, "Is there some extra work I can do?" I remain outwardly calm, but my inner voice is screaming, "HELL NO! How can you even ask me that ridiculous question after a whole year of doing nothing?" I calmly tell the student that this was the extra work, and there will be no other chances. Better luck next year.
The truth is that I am the person who is the dumbest in this situation. I've trusted the very kids who have shown me that they are the least trustworthy, and I've given a chance to the very students who have wasted almost every chance I've given them this year. A lot of them will cheat. The dumbest and laziest of them will copy word for word, making it easy to put down a zero. Or better yet, they'll have someone else write it and it won't even be in their handwriting. The others will get a friend whose grade is not at stake to tell them the answers, and the resulting work will be very low quality, since that friend doesn't have any real reason to think too hard or work too hard. Then there are a few who just don't take me seriously, which is why they need this miracle to happen in the first place. They usually turn in something that a normal student (or even a lazy cheater) would be ashamed of.
The majority of them are in this final category, at least in combination with some of the other categories. They don't take me seriously, so they didn't take the test that seriously. They don't take me seriously when I tell them their grade and that they must pass the final to have a chance. They don't take me seriously when I tell them that after all the interventions and paperwork I've had to do because of them, that I'll certainly be failing students who deserve to fail. They don't take me seriously when I tell them that I don't just pass people like other teachers do, that they will get what they deserve in my class. Of course, I'm sure every teacher who does just pass them along tells them the same things. And it is only my second year, so maybe I'm still establishing my reputation. But here's hoping that next year the 30+ students retaking my classes will serve as a good example for the new students to whom I'll be giving the same warnings that I've given to all my students the last 2 years.
I'm finally getting fed up with the democratic primary, so much so that I'm writing my first political blog. I'm the left leaning type who doesn't want to consider himself a "Democrat," but that's pretty much what I vote for. I'm certainly not voting for a Republican these days. But another person I won't be voting for is Hillary Clinton. I've decided that if she is given the nomination (by which I mean it's stolen from Obama), I'll vote Green Party or write in Obama.
After the primaries last night in Indiana and North Carolina, Hillary's chances at fairly winning the nomination are over, and all she can do now is fracture the party and try to tear Obama down even more than she has already. Her argument to keep running is that she can win the white, working class vote and Obama can't, and that a Democrat has to win that group in order to win the election. Here are some things that I find troubling about this and about the way the media covers it.
First off, it's illogical to suggest that these voters who may prefer her over Obama will not vote for Obama if he's the Democratic nominee. Why is it that Hillary can win 60% of the white working class vote, and we assume none of them will vote for Obama in the general election, but I don't hear the same argument when Obama wins 90% of the black vote. No one makes the assumption that the black voters won't back Hillary if she's the Democratic nominee. On the news this morning, they said that Hillary won big in the "much sought after white working class vote." No mention of Obama winning 90% of the black vote or of the huge black turnout in North Carolina. No mention that the black vote was "much sought after." No mention of the fact that a Democrat who cannot win the black vote has no chance in a general election in the post-Civil Rights bill era. The coverage seems to be implying that the black vote is not as important as the white working class vote and that Hillary can take their votes for granted if she is the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile, she continues to alienate them through divisive campaigning focusing on Rev. Wright in states that have long histories of racial division.
Another thing is the fact that Obama is labeled as out of touch, liberal, and elitist. Hillary was on the damn corporate board at Wal-Mart until Bill ran for Pres. in 1992. And she's branded as the populist who is in touch with the working class. There isn't a more anti-union, anti-working class operation on earth than Wal-Mart. Obama spent years working as a community organizer in Chicago, probably with people who were poor and lacked important services due in part to companies and policies like those of Wal-Mart.
There are some troubling implications that can be made from the coverage I've seen lately. I've mentioned most of them, but I think the main one is that the coverage of this primary is slanted against Obama for whatever reason. Maybe they want Hillary to win. Maybe they want to take Obama down a peg in hopes that McCain will win. Maybe they just favor the negative, shit-slinging style of campaigning that Hillary runs. Maybe they just want this mess to go on as long as possible to boost ratings. I don't know, but I'm sick of it. It's time for someone to get Hillary out of the way and let Obama run against McCain.
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
