Between Form and Freedom

so…one of my dear mentor teachers is now weaving herself into the classroom.  I feel a bit like I am on  a game show or some kind of comedy hour…if only we had a microphone we could pass back and forth, then I may be able to get into the spirit of team teaching fly-by style a bit more.  Instead I am practicing gracefulness with the hostess.  I smile and try not to show my true feelings.  And yes, I actually have had discussions with her hoping to clarify how and when we should be transitioning her back in.  She isn’t really waiting though.  I am reminded of my mother teaching me how to drive…I still love her but I would rather ask for help when I need it than have her grab the wheel.  Any advice?  I still have a few more weeks…

and to complicate matters a bit…she really likes me…came to see me sing this weekend and after the show suggested that we sing together with one of her friends…she offered to record some of my songs and then she would learn the harmonies…she WANTS us to be team teaching I think.

I realize we are meant to write some kind of critical thinking paper on this topic.  At least I think so.  No offense Lockhart, but your assignments have not all been clear and organized.  Though I do like the way you put a rationale for each paper on the assignments you actually hand out.  Anyway, after class on Wednesday night I did quite a bit of reflecting on the emotionality of the article, the discussion forum, the holding or lack thereof for emotional debate. Are we able to separate our own story, our own biography from a discussion?  Should that be a goal?  Or perhaps the work and insight happens later, after the show.  If we carry it into our dreaming life, asking those unanswered questions as we fall, when we wake the new day will bring revelation and newfound determination. Right?

And then…well, solutions to these questions must be found, at least temporarily, with an allowance for future revision, because the fact remains:  we are still student teachers put back into the fire of teaching and studenting, dancing back and forth and up and down between supervisor, mentor teachers, students, discipline problems, discussion forums, professor, cohort, school administration, the education system, and our potential future role and responsibility in that system, not to mention curriculum delivery…

To be conscious or not to be conscious…this seems to be the question.  Or to live in that place of denial…that place where we can fairly comfortably convince ourselves that the problem lies within the weak.  Those victims who are not able to rise up out of their personal struggle, whatever that may be…it’s all As and Fs…success or failures….an entire culture built on how to assess the other.  This is the paradigm we have inherited.  What now to do once we have identified it?

This week we had two grading/conference days. Parent/Teacher conferences that is.  On Thursday, I was working in my classroom doing prep for the coming week before the parents arrived, when an announcement came over the intercom that we were on code blue lock down and no one was to leave their classroom.  Apparently, there was a fellow a few houses away threatening to kill himself or anyone who gets in his way, and he was armed.  We continued to receive updates on the situation over the next few hours.  Also my supervising teacher was on her way for our midterm meeting.  The street going south of the high school was barricaded.  And many cops were surrounding the house.  Then, outside my classroom door, which is on the back corner of the building, closest to the scene, shots rang out.  Cop suicide they are saying.  I wonder how many times they shot him.  Or if they really needed all that reinforcement.

Last night two teenage boys were taken to the emergency room.  One dead on arrival, shot in the head.  The other may be dead this morning.  It didn’t look good said my friend who works in the ER.  Gang related?  Alcohol related, anyway.  No,their ethnic background doesn’t matter.

Three lives ended.  And those are just the ones I know of.  Not so common in the Willamette Valley. This was more a part of my life when I lived in larger cities.  I was used to navigating the grief and and seemingly numbing prevalence of violence, and to supporting others on their journey through these realities.  Here, I have grown accustomed to the illusion of non-violence.  Ha.

My mentor teachers were both teaching during the Thurston Shootings.  McKenzie?  Jack?  Were you in high school then?  One of my teachers had Kip Kinkle in class, though she was not at school the day of the shooting.  My other mentor teacher worked with his mother.  So both of these folks had an enormous amout of fear come up on Thursday during our lock down.  And we had many conversations about the teacher’ s role during times of tragedy.  We spoke of teaching on 9/11.  And of more pressing reasons to be a strong presence for these young people. More than just compulsory education. To be an anchor.  To provide a rhythm of foundation, a rock from which the students can fly from and return to as they navigate their own path, college bound or no.  The real stuff. When times are dark. The other work.

I’ve been thinking about the job we must do…teaching.  What happens if we decide to be bad?  To be less than our ideal?  To choose not to learn and grow and be creative as the world through these students pushes against us?  If we settle.  If we lack integrity.  If we avoid seeing the big picture and choose to be self-indulgent and self-serving.  After all, we do get summers off.  And long winter breaks.  And spring breaks.  I mean…everybody is doing it. We sit around after the show and gossip….eeeeww.  (Thanks for that picture Ian…I was trying to ignore that part)  So let’s say I decide to be bad.  What will happen?  There are so many of us after all.  What is one little indulgence over to the dark side?  It is so much easier than the rigor required to manifest goodness, strength, uprightness.

I began thinking about the loyal forces we have in our lives. The sun rises everyday.  (Yes I realize the sun is still and we are moving etc….just follow the metaphor a moment) The plants grow.  Upon these things we can rely.  A time may come when this may no longer be true. How would we be impacted by the loss of sunlight?  The loss of rhythm?  The loss of those loyal rhythmic forces that hold us to what is true?  If I then choose to slack off or be bad…who might I impact and in what way?  What is the true task then?

This week I was observed by my supervisor.  She witnessed one of my worst days of teaching.  I purposely invited her on a day when I would need lots of feedback.  I have and interesting situation integrating technology in my ceramics class because I need to wheel a cart from another room and then get it out and locked back up before I can let the students get the clay out.  (Mentor teacher’s requirements)  The transitions are not always smooth.  She had lots to offer in way of suggestion, but I felt I had let my students down.

I now have a choice.  I can use the new information to try for next time.  Or I can just allow that there will always be this wasted time during transitions and let it go…like a movie day.  But then this sets up the notion on the part of the students that any time I bring art history or criticism via media, it equals a day to goof off for  the rest of the period.  Which creates a form of disrespect for the subject and the teacher bringing the topic. Or I can plan for the high level of energy required to pull off a seamless transition while harnessing the students and keeping them in the ring.

It is in the failing that we are offered choices.  We then must choose.  But no pressure.  And remember to laugh.  xxooxxoo, Laurie

When do we know that we have tried everything and given a student all the possible chances to pull himself (as is the case in this instance) up out of the hole he has been digging?  I am using up the normal everyday tricks and tools and pulling out the extra use in case of emergency ones.  He does not want to work on his projects.  He was sad that he did not get an A on his first one.  And he has given up.  He whines, argues that he can’t or it’s too hard.  He said he wasn’t creative and needed more clear specific instructions, which he was given rather generously.  He then continued to make excuses and find other social activities in the classroom, still not beginning, much less completing a project.
My mentor teacher offered to step in, take him out of the class environment and offer him the opportunity to assist her in hanging a glass and ceramic mural.  Hmmmmmmmm.  I wondered if this would be the best solution for him.  I am now spending the weekend coming up with three choice assignments.  They actually are not choice assignments.  They are behavioral, work ethic, and project contracts.  The behavioral parts are all the same.  The choices are for him to find a way to embrace the curriculum and avoid failing the class.  I also made check-lists for us both to sign at the end of each period the first week or two, then maybe transitioning to once a week if that seems doable.  My mentor teacher  is supportive of this.
At some point I know I will have to let go of my attachment to his success.  You can lead a horse to water.  Right?

The Work Sample is Finished.  Yes.  Now I can relax and teach the way I believe in, with formative and practical assessment of learning, rather than testing which is formatted into graphs and charts. Oh those graphs, how I love them in their proper form and place. They are so clear.  So precise.  They are fantastic at measuring things like inventory in a stock room…or how many patients used a certain insurance company last year…or maybe even population…(if everyone is included). They are great for bean counting. They create order.  They make us feel safe.  And comfortable.  And we all love to feel comfortable.  We love to point to our graphs and shout to the world:  “See how well I did”?!  How anything ever had meaning without them I will never know.  We are so very lucky to be living in such a logical time during which everything can be quantified.  And made so much more meaningful. Ok Ok…so I don’t feel in my heart of hearts that quantifying learning gets to the truth…..

My post-assessment actually went fine.  There was measurable learning.  But for the lower skills folks, the test was not helpful in making them believe they actually understood the concepts.  I wish I could graph their projects.  Perhaps I will speak to a math specialist…are teachers specialists?…about this.  Because the lower skills folks could use the boost of being able to mark their learning by oral or project based assessment.  The test was not so easy for them.  But the projects they completed demonstrated understanding of basic concepts not reflected in the test scores.  And while in my work sample I can explain this in writing, I cannot help but feel saddened by the way public schooling and testing marginalizes these learners. I saw the lower skills students and the really smart ELL students and the students with IEPs or 504 plans…ADHD etc…struggle with a written test even with two days of review of varying types.  And many of them demonstrated fabulous (not to mention Beautiful) projects which pointed to the true understanding of the unit concepts. In that capacity they were successful learners….Where is the solution?

So I certainly don’t want to complain or bite the hand that may one day feed me…but who invented this whole system anyway? I think about history and all the educational evolution we read about in Nancy’s class and I wonder where in our culture or society do we acknowledge the need for change, for revisiting our intentions, for asking ourselves is this still working? does this still make sense?

My mentor teacher says my heart is too big and that I just need to find a job in a real school without as many problems.  Community problems, social problems, economic problems, gang problems, addicted parent problems, the list of these problems is a mile long according to her.  And I, for one, do not consider Springfield the ghetto. I mean, I have worked across the street from crackhouses and tutored children on the streets where drive by shootings happened. I can’t believe the solution to these students who don’t care about school or suspension-it’s a vacation after all-or detention or grades…how can the solution be for teachers who care to work in a different kind of school district?

I have one student who straight out told me he expects to end up in prison.  I have another who thinks he will get rich and powerful by working the ladies and moving dope.  (what does dope mean? pot? heroin? cocaine? meth? which dope will make him powerful and rich?)  A referral for skipping class does not matter to these kids.

But here is my real question.  Why are they still here in school at all?  Maybe it’s because there is a great market for the selling of goods and services. But maybe they are hoping someone will show them another way.  If I don’t believe this is at least a little bit true, then maybe she is right and I am not suited to a school environment which is less than ideal…but I’m definitely not ready or willing to surrender.  And PBS is not the answer.  Deal making is a temporary solution to a much larger question.

Teachers are busy.  Overworked. Burnt out. Is this a helpful state of mind for change and healing to occur?  Do we need to start a revolution?  The problem with revolution is that no one  is willing to risk the loss of their own rut of comfort.  what then? what now?

Gotta love those other teachers.  Models of truth and integrity.  Guardians of the passage into adulthood….OH Wait….that was my fantasy idealism taking over for a moment.  This week I was confronted with, a bit too forcefully for my liking, the disrespectful teacher.  eeewww.

Now don’t get me wrong…I realize that many of us, as humans, are far from perfect.  We are often awkward in social situations and as a defense mechanism we use sarcasm and cutting remarks to get a laugh from someone. Perhaps, if we think some member of the listening audience will laugh, smile, wonder at our wit, we may not behave in the most upright of manners.  Maybe it is a habit we have formed while learning to cope with new relationships in order to avoid intimacy.  So I tend to give folks lots of chances to peek out from behind those covers and show the real stuff…the good stuff…the pie filling…the rich story behind that hard exterior.

My struggle this week is with how to negotiate the working, hired, paid, contracted potential peers of mine.  The bad ones.  The ones who are not much of an up-level from what may already be all too familiar for most of these kids…..I know in my brain (the thing inside my head) that I will always work with folks who have different work ethics, morals, ideals etc. from my own.  I can even enjoy and celebrate this diversity in many types of community.  But my heart is longing for something more.  Like some kind of agreement that teachers need to uphold in order to get to be teachers. And no, I don’t mean more regulation.  I’m speaking in a more philosophical realm.

So this guy (maybe this is his way of flirting?…he is single) said to me…in front of his class….that if any of his students have me for a teacher they shouldn’t listen to anything I say.  That I’m not worthy of them wasting their time.”She doesn’t know anything,” he added.  He didn’t stop there…I stopped listening because as I realized he wasn’t going to say “just kidding” in the near  future. When the bell rang I suggested that maybe this wasn’t the best thing to model for these kids, who will be earning their grades with me.  He retorted with a smile …well it doesn’t matter…you aren’t a real teacher or anything.  He went on to glorify himself by telling me about how he worked hard at connecting with a Vietnamese student before he even had the student in class.  That he made the student feel comfortable first by recognition and now this student does well in his class…feels comfortable asking questions from this safe teacher.  I told him that this poor student is now probably suffering from some inner conflict…a teacher he trusted just sent a confusing message by undermining another teacher.  Dai is also in my ceramics class.  NOW he said just kidding.  As I walked away.

I never have been good at biting my tongue. Although I am much better at diplomacy.  Silence is difficult…and not necessarily appropriate.  But I am the student teacher. sigh.

I can feel the Autumnal pull as I move into this week of teaching.  The rhythm this time of year always has a hurried feel…bringing in the harvest and bedding down for winter…preparing to go inward for a bit of dragon taming….

The end of last week was quite delightful in the classroom.  Many of my students cried out with joy…yes they did…one even danced a little skip, incredulous that he made something so nice…as they finished their journals/sketchbooks. There was a spirit of community as the ones who were finished started new ones to make as gifts or (hooray) generously assisted their classmates to insure the success of all.  And with very little arm twisting.  (figuratively speaking Vanessa)  I do enjoy this part of teaching.

My struggle is to find a way to embrace assessment.  I read so many of those articles from Shelly’s class…It’s just that… the ones I liked the best were the ones that focused on minimizing the value of assessment….more qualitative (easy for me, though time consuming) than quantitative.  I can’t help but believe that each student should be measured with the right tool…and measured against their own striving and accomplishments…are they reaching their own goals?…are they learning?…are they growing as students and as people?….or are they merely hoop jumping?…

The leaves will change soon…and I must post grades at the start of next week.  I’m hoping to find the balance between meaningful assessment and squeezing each student through the cookie cutter of standardized education.  This will always be the puzzle if I choose to continue my journey as a teacher in the public school setting.  A small price to pay.  I’ll just keep asking the questions…the answers will change anyway.  Hope you all are enjoying your own questions…Delight in this next week.

Peace