I'll have Dictionary.com with a side of assault and battery.

My students have discovered dictionary.com. They are clever. They have also discovered that dictionary.com has a feature where the computer will pronounce the word. So far so good. They have such a thirst for knowledge. Looking up words is important for meaning and proper spelling. Some of my boys have discovered dictionary.com will say most anything if you type it in. I have to laugh in the privacy of my room as I write this. Kids will find ways to tweak and twist things just enough to steal some humor or create some mayhem. The humor part is OK but the mayhem part is not. The other day some of the boys got the computer to say a girl's name and then a rude thing you could do with/to a girl. Her reaction was to punch a boy dead in the face and then attempt to strangle him. Game, set, and match. Clever boy saw none of this coming.

I was out the other day for breakfast and ran into a former colleague. She told me of her new life of teaching. "It isn't anything like what we used to deal with. Please! My job is simple. The kids sit there with their hands folded. A 'problem' is when a kid talks to his neighbor during a test." What no kids getting the computer to say "back that thing up" with a side of strangulation?

Violence is just another thing...

I reflect on my life in the inner city a lot, of course. I've been doing this a long time and I wonder about myself. I accept a lot of things as normal now. Strange things. I drove around the corner from school today and the street was taped off and there were a bunch of cop cars parked at crazy angles. There were numerous little red numbers spaced all over the street. Someone was shot or shot at a whole bunch of times. This was a block from school. Didn't hear it while I was there. Didn't hear the sirens either. I kept on driving. A couple of weeks ago, a colleague and I were talking after school. We heard a whole bunch of what we thought at first was fireworks. We realized "drive by shooting" at the same time. We exchanged knowing looks and kept on working. Just another normal day.

It's strange that it doesn't make much of an impression. It reminds me of a passage in a Celine book where an officer is standing in the middle of a road during a battle and is giving orders and the bullets are flying by and the officer just keeps giving orders and not even noticing the bullets. The danger is everywhere and he is immersed in it without concern. I work in a dangerous place and sometimes the danger is closer than ever. The last few weeks my students have been involved in lots of outside violence with kids from other schools. Some of the students are coming to my school to start fights. Our security guards have been heading most of the kids off at the pass. It's hairy, though. There are minor things all the time. I hope it doesn't escalate. Who knows if the violent evidence that I saw today is connected with the school violence in the neighborhood. It's not good and it's only going to get worse as the weather gets warmer.

I got a call about an interview at another school today. Hopefully, some good will come of this.

My kids are getting worse and worse. I have my good days and bad. They are mostly bad the past few weeks. I wonder why the Hell I do this. My kids just want to fight with each other, insult each other, and annoy each other. I've been teaching these kids since September and what have I done. They're just as violent and disrespectful now as they were when I met them. Ugh!

Cologne is not just a city in Germany.

I have a student who has discovered cologne. He was very excited the other morning. "Mr! Mr! have you heard of 'Cuba'?" "Yes. The country?"
"It's a cologne. I'm wearing it."
As he's saying this I'm realizing that I'm inside a smell. I've climbed inside without realizing it. My student has put on so much cologne, I'm tasting "Cuba." Thank goodness there weren't any open flames around.
This kid is an interesting case. He's discovered girls in a major way but has no idea what to do. He's calling girls in class and harassing them. He tells them inappropriate things that he'd like to do. Everything is just a bit off because he doesn't actually have all the information he needs. It's sad. We're all trying to "reprogram" him. Hopefully, it works. He's a good kid but all mixed up. A steady diet of "back that thing up" doesn't help.

*****

On another front, I'm sure you're noticing the major negativity coming toward teachers from everywhere lately. Obama's got it out for us. New Jersey is cutting a billion dollars out of education. Detroit is cutting days out of the school week because they're out of money. It's all the teacher's fault and specifically the teacher's unions. Where is this going to end? More on this to come. I'm reading Diane Ravich's book The Death and Life of the Great American School System. It deals with a lot of the stuff going on. It's nice to see Diane has come around to what most teachers would say - NCLB and relentless testing is wrong. It sucks that Obama hasn't.

My People.

I have been so busy this year. I apologize for not writing. I'm taking grad school classes and it's taking a lot of my brain this semester. Both classes require a ton of reading and some is the most boring stuff imaginable. I'm taking a leadership class and one of the books is geared to the business world. This book requires me to ride the exercise bike in my basement while I read. If I don't ride, the book puts me to sleep immediately. I've biked to Harrisburg and back while reading this week. Ahh!!! Still, I love my grad school. I really do. It keeps me sane and helps me realize that I'm capable of doing things and being an adult.



On the teaching front, my class is ridiculous. They will not stop talking this week. What do you do when all else fails? I call home, give detentions, give lunch detentions, send them to counselors, send them to administrators, have principal's conferences, enact behavior plans, keep copious anecdotal data, and do every other f@cking thing that a good teacher should and it's still bananas. I don't know.



This class is very low in maturity and skills. Their maturity issues are getting the better of me and every other teacher right now. They can't follow simple instructions and they can't get along with each other. I want to cry.



Yesterday, one of my girls was working on her current event in the computer lab. This girl, "Annabelle" says she has a story. It's a story about a 11-year-old kid being butchered in a holdup. We've been doing current events for a month and I'm tired of articles like this. There's more news than murder, mayhem, and Justin Beiber's dog. I ask her to find something else. She's in the Philadelphia Inquirer's website, there's dozens of articles to choose.
"This is the only article, Mr."

"No, there's a lot of articles online. Take another look."

"This is the only one."

"The entire Internet is there for you. Take another look."

"Guess he only wants news about his people."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, nothing."


My people. Yes. My people. Apparently, I only accept news articles about white guys who like punk rock and roast pork sandwiches. Christ on a crutch. I'm sick of kids who just say anything. I'm at a low ebb in the teaching year. I'm wishing for June.

Sigh and explode.

I can't seem to get a handle on this 2010. My kids have been off the hook since we got back from break. We have had lots of teachers out and there are never any subs so my room has had extra kids in it almost every day. It's pretty hard to get in a groove when you have kids in your room that aren't yours and they're just out to cause mayhem. The days that have been my kids alone have been days spent reclaiming what was mine. I'm very frustrated. It's always a struggle getting in the groove again with the turn of the year, but this year is particularly heinous.

Today was a struggle. It started in the yard when I picked them up and it didn't stop until I dropped them in the yard at 3. It isn't easy to teach in the 'hood. It sure isn't a game for sissies. I wish that I had some answers. Actually, I do. They might even be the silver bullets that could kill the inner city madness that I teach in. It's all Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I could get so much more done if I could help the girl in my room with the rotten teeth that keep bothering her, if I could fill the empty bellies of the boys in my room who never have enough, if I could get winter coats for the kids who have only sweatshirts to wear, and if I could get solid jobs for the parents in my class that keep losing them. It's pretty hard to concentrate when you didn't sleep in your bed last night, you slept in the train station waiting for your father. Fixing all of these things would allow us to start to teach something. Doing this is a hell of a lot harder than filling bubbles in on standardized tests.

I'm in a cynical mood, however, and I know that no one is listening who will do a goddamn thing. The Supreme Court just gave away our country to corporations and Massachusetts put the last nail in the coffin on health care. My lillylivered Democratic Party is going to slink away in defeat without attempting to do anything. Sigh.

I'm still here. Happy New Year!

Yes, the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I didn't die, although a very heavy bag of student paperwork nearly dislocated my shoulder in December. Happy 2010 to you and yours. I'm pleased to be teaching in 2010. I'm still in the inner city. Still teaching and trying to teach in the midst of chaos and confusion. Most of the chaos and confusion is happening in my school, at present, although I do have a few beauties in classroom that are giving me fits since we got back from Christmas break.

I wish I could report more than the usual. I don't have much. It's a rough job teaching where I work. I was reflecting today that I've lasted longer than the average new teacher. Something like half of us leave after 5 years according to retainingteachers.com. I haven't left. I am trying to leave my current school. I have a couple of things going in that respect. I'll keep everyone posted.

Morale remains abysmal at my school. It's not good for the soul when everyone around you is miserable and looking for a way out. Our administration could do so much to help things and they don't care. Simple communication would do the trick, yet they don't talk to us.

On a positive note, my first semester's classes went well. I've got a 4.0. A principal's position is hopefully in my future.

World Serious

We've been talking about baseball and the world series in my classroom. Mostly it's been me. I love baseball. The kids don't like baseball. They don't understand it. Don't understand the slow pace. Don't understand the complexity of the game. Don't know the history. Don't recognize the beauty of the game. It's not their fault. They haven't been taught the game. In my neighborhood, what you don't understand, you must hate. It's sad because the Phillies are in the World Series again. They're in back to back World Series and that's special for a lot of reasons. From a Phillies perspective, this just never happens. We've only won the world series twice. Now we're in back to back championships and we get to go against the Yankees. Our team is fantastic. I keep talking about the success we're having and keep trying to tie it to our success as a class. It falls flat every time.

One of my kids kind of likes baseball. He wrote in his journal "The Phillies are going to play in the World Serious against the Yunkees I think." Casey Stengel talked about the World Serious. My student could be channeling this. He also wrote "You should see the look on their feces." in another journal entry. I think he meant faces instead of feces. These spelling errors made my day when I read them. Small things like this can mean a lot.


Go Phils!!!!!

Musings at midnight after a sh%t day.

Good golly, I'm in a bad mood tonight, Miss Molly. This was a lame Monday. I don't enjoy being in my room sometimes. Mostly on Mondays and Fridays. My students are so mean to each other and that gets me down. They are so negative and it seeps into my bones. I'm with my students more than I'm with anyone. To be around such negativity is rough on me. I'm not really that negative a person. I defy anyone to shrug off the negative waves that I'm immersed in.

I'm up to my neck in grades, paperwork, and meetings. I go to so many stupid meetings each week. The meetings are almost always with administrators who know nothing. Today's meeting was an hour out of my day to sit with a lady with a stack of papers in front of her. Paper lady hadn't read any of the papers in her stack. She expected me to read her the highlights. This lady makes probably $10 - 15,000 more than me a year and teaches no classes. I'm expected to teach my load and perform statistical analysis, too. The meat and potatoes of this meeting: the students are having trouble in language arts and math. How do we motivate them? Hmm? We needed to have a face to face meeting about this? How about letting me alone to do my paperwork? Please? How about letting me alone so I can decompress after my sh%t day of disciplining kids?

I'm really pissed off about my day, actually. What puts it in perspective is talking to the other teachers on my floor. They're all just as pissed off as me. I was cleaning the room after my meeting and thinking about how much I hate my job some days. I was fantasizing about how much better my year would be if some of my students had manners. Fantasizing about how much better my year would be if some of my students were transferred to reform school. I packed up and walked to my car and ran into some teachers who were talking about how they want to write their resignations and email them to the principal. They want to resign because they're so pissed about the lack of concern for the teachers, the lack of direction in the school, the senseless workload, the nonresponsive administration, the lack of support, the kids, the neighborhood, and the deluge of paperwork. It was nice to hear teachers that I thought had their program squared away talking about walking away and never coming back.

I'm not walking anywhere, but I'm going to try again to get the hell out of the inner city. I'm losing power. I'm not sure that I'm making any difference at all. I know this, that the inner city is changing me into someone that I'm not sure that I like very much. I've spent my time here. Done some great things. I've been teacher of the month. I've been the golden boy and I've been a horse's ass. I need a change. At least a different school where perhaps there's some morale?

Just thinking.

Today was a great day off. I'm tired. I've been relaxing, watching baseball, getting a few papers graded, and unwinding.

It's officially fall, a beautiful chill in the air, dappled sunlight and falling leaves everywhere. Fall even makes the abandoned buildings across the street from school look good. The paperwork never stops in the classroom. I'm thinking about a few random things. It would be helpful to have a classroom aide to assist in the grading and organizing. It's never going to happen. I wish that some of the highly paid literacy coaches and math coaches could help out with the load. I'll pause while the teachers reading this laugh. They aren't going to help with anything other than adding junk to my schedule to eat up my time. Coaches don't do any work that they can't pass off on someone else. There are so many highly paid people in education that don't do anything. Why are they here? They can't be fired because of the union. They can come into your classroom and wreck your day at any time. They could do things to help out in the classroom. They could teach small groups, teach demonstration lessons, write lessons, etc. Why are they here? In my school, these people are always talking, eating breakfast, and drinking coffee in the hallway.

I need to go back to watching the Phillies and correcting papers. Thinking about waste is going to make me crazy. I can't do anything about it until I get a job as a principal.

Excitement!

I was interviewed for another blog. This is a first for me. Excitement! Perhaps my thoughts will help another would be teacher out there. Here's hoping.

Today was an enjoyable day. The kids were ok. It's Friday. I'm starring in another blog. I'm off to bask in the glow. Tomorrow it's time to grade papers while the little one is at a skating party.

It's easy. Become a teacher. Live the high life.

I got home tonight and helped with homework, ate dinner, and went running. I'm grumpy. I'm not feeling it right now. I've got to write these enormous lesson plans because we have a new system at school. It takes me like 8-10 hours to write these things. I don't have time to correct the work from the kids. I don't even want to look at their work after writing these lesson plans. The kicker is, I hardly use them anyway. I already know pretty much what I'm going to be teaching. Our administrators have to have these plans. We don't make AYP and we're under the gun from the state and having enormous lesson plans is going to help our kids make AYP.
I want to make AYP. You're goddamn right I do. This isn't the way to do it.

Friggin' waste of time. I'm tired. I can't look at another thing and I'm going to bed. Mad. Being a teacher is really easy.

Reflection

I've started taking classes again. In a couple years I'll be able to be a principal. I just spent a weekend in a class about supervising. I've been reflecting the entire weekend about how rotten our principals are. Supervising is supposed to be reflective and developmental. Our principals don't do anything to help us become better at teaching. I would like to become better at my craft. Our principals are all about gotcha! Their emphasis is punitive and always comes from that negative place. It sucks because helping the teachers get better improves instruction. Improving instruction is the most important way to improve student learning. Beating up the teachers destroys the school from the inside out. I'm hoping to reverse this negative idiocy.

A month in.

I've been meaning to write and there's been a lot to write about. Between issues with students, the new workload at my school, my coursework, and the whole political scene there's more than enough to keep my fingers busy.

My school is requiring new ultra detailed lesson plans and they have to be in by Friday morning each week. The plans take me a lot of time and they're making me nuts. I get home from work 3 nights a week and write the damn things. I don't have enough time to correct papers any more. This was my year to get that stuff under control. I was finally going to stop procrastinating. I'm not procrastinating. I'm just not doing them. No time.

My new classes for my grad school program in supervision have added a lot of reading to my schedule. That's taking my time. At least the reading makes me smarter. Doing the plans just eats my brain. Filling in the grids, triple checking the work, sending it to about 12 different administrators.

The kids are OK. There are a few who are definite behavior problems. There are a few with profound learning difficulties. Hopefully they'll get on track. Experience tells me that probably won't happen. I experiment on different methods to get them on track and learning. We'll see.

Did you see Gingrich and Sharpton in Philly? They like Mastery Charter School. Big deal. Charter schools aren't the answer. A question. What happens when they've converted so many regular schools to charters that they can't cherry pick any more kids? They'll have to take regular kids - regular, unmotivated, angry kids. It will be deja vu all over again.

Just a few thoughts before bed. I'm going to get my blog back in my schedule. I've got lots to write and think about and share. Now sleep. I'm exhausted.

First day. 2000 more to go.

We started school today. My class seems to be a pretty good group. A bit sleepy. More than half hadn't eaten breakfast. One of my fabulous games sussed out that factoid. A bit reluctant to work together. That's pretty normal. All in all a good day. Nobody had any problems. I can tell a few students that may be trouble later. I've got my teacher eye on them. We'll see.

It's all routines at this point. How do we sharpen our pencils? How do we ask to go to the bathroom? And so it goes. The thing is, teaching this stuff and team building is the most important thing now. You give up some time but get so much more back later because you don't have to keep teaching and practicing stuff that should be basic. No matter how many years I've done it, there's an impatient voice in the back of my head saying "ok, let's move on." I ignore that voice for a long time.

The funniest thing that happened was long after they left. I was reading the 3/5 cards they filled out. I asked them to tell me if they're allergic to anything. Most wrote nothing. The others wrote things like bugs or pollen. Jennifer wrote "cheap jewelry." I bust a gut laughing. I guess it's ok to surprise them with a treat here or there without worrying about food allergies. Just no cheap jewelry surprises. Someone will turn green.

The Room is Ready!

I can start teaching. The room is ready. It's not complete and that's ok. My room is always a work in progress. It's always good to have somewhere to go anyhow in terms of decoration and arrangements. You don't have any idea how the room will work until the students start to use it. You see after a few days that certain things don't work where they are and need to be moved. The kids usually take up more space than you imagine and that blows apart your perfect floor design. The "perfect room" doesn't exist anyhow. Johnny can't sit next to Sammy and Brenda decides she hates both of them and is allergic to peanuts. Suddenly there's a room change. Desks move and it's all gone. Same with the wall stuff. The district or the teaching coaches decide you must have rubrics. Ok, then, these giant rubrics take up a hell of a lot of space. Already have the word wall, number line, job chart, and everything else up. Guess I'll have to take down some stuff.

I have to say the smartest thing I've done this year is to bring in a small level. $2 from Home Depot and it's magnetic. Saves the "Is this straight?" problem. I'm always working alone putting the room together and for years have put things up and got down off the ladder and it was crooked. Up and down. Up and down. This year the level makes it one and done. Much faster wall hanging. Working smart Rookie Schoolteacherstyle.

Here's hoping my community building activities get the year off to a good start. It all begins in a few days. Hopefully, these ladies will like my teaching as much as they liked my room during their visit.

Beware of morons with 2-cycle engines.

I forgot about the people who ride motorcycles, scooters, and ATVs. Let me explain. I'm out of practice after a summer away from my hood. When it gets warm people in the inner city start riding dirt bikes, scooters, ATVs all over the place. I'm not exaggerating and it's scary and dangerous. They ride the wrong way down the middle of the street, on the sidewalk, weave in and out of traffic, and dart into your lane from anywhere. Sometimes these are kids but usually these are grown adults. Almost all of them have no license plates and wear no helmets. I usually leave work with the windows down because you can hear the note of the exhaust pipe before you see them. That split second warning helps you avoid having one of these idiots as your hood ornament. Yesterday, I was driving home and a guy rounds a corner and rides up the middle of the street on a dirt bike toward me. He's going the wrong way down the middle of a one way street at 30 miles an hour. He's wearing a pair of shorts and a grin. Lucky for me I saw him and had some grace under pressure or he would have been a goner. How stupid can you get? For those novice teachers reading, be careful.

I've been taking things to work and doing the room in between the meetings. The meetings are winning, by the way. Our administration wants to get the safe harbor and we're all about the meetings. We're always trying to make AYP, safe harbor, you name it, and always under the gun. Meetings, meetings, and more meetings. My favorites are the meetings were we meet and report out about the meetings. That way you get to have a meeting and at the same time double or triple your pleasure by virtually attending more meetings.

Anyway, it would be nice to have more time to get stuff put up and put away. I'm just thankful for my hand truck. The best $20 I ever spent. Another bit of advice for you newbies, get a cheap durable hand truck at Harbor Freight and save your back. It will also save you time because you won't have to wait around for the school's hand truck as it goes from teacher to teacher. You'll look smart and make friends when you invariably lend it to a beleaguered colleague.

Enough for today. I don't have any school homework and I'm going to the gym.

Back at work.

I sat in meetings all day. Meetings about a whole lot of nothing. Some new folks on the staff seem nice. I wonder how long they'll last. A few were putting down bets on who'll resign first. I don't play those games because bad stuff happens on the way to good teaching. The classes we're dealt will play a huge part in the way the year goes. I've seen good folks eaten alive because of all kinds of factors. Sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar eats you. Words to live by. I've done both.

I'm whipped and heading to bed. Sitting listening to blowhards blow is tiring. I'm bringing in a lot of boxes of teaching goodness to my classroom tomorrow. Going to get my set up done in between all the important meetings.

Going back tomorrow.

It's been a while. The summer is winding up. I'm going in tomorrow for classroom setup and some meetings. School begins soon. I'm a bit grumpy about sitting in meetings tomorrow. I find most meetings to be tedious and unnecessary. Hopefully, they will be short and I can get on with the important things concerning setting up the room for the best possible learning space.

I never properly finished up the last year where the blog is concerned. I'm sorry about that. Nothing happened to me or anything. This year's finish up was more involved than most. I had to plan a ceremony for the kids to move up to the next grade and it took up a lot of time. Those that teach know the end of the year is hectic enough without creating a ceremony from scratch involving speakers, songs, music, parents, programs, and food. Not more than 5 minutes of help from any administrator on the ceremonies. Not one word of encouragement or thanks from an administrator after it was finished successfully. Needless to say, I was happy to pack my sh%$ up, hand in my keys, and go home when the contract said the year was over.

This year, hopefully, will be my best ever. I say that every year, but this is the one. I'm still a rookie and this is my 6th year. I'm working my way through Mosaics of Thought to get some new ideas to rev up the teaching through all of the subjects. Read a great book from the ASCD called Rethinking Homework the other day. Lots of good ideas going through my brain now.

Got to sleep and recharge.

The President's views on education.

I'm an Obama man but on the subject of education we differ. Mr. Obama is on the side of merit pay, charter schools, and school reorganization at the expense of the teacher's unions. Reading this article by Dana Goldstein in the Nation didn't change my opinion. It put into words all the things that have been floating around my brain these days. Take a read and see what you think. Why must we destroy the existing system and replace it with a worse one? Why is Mr. Obama not meeting with anyone from the other side of the equation? As the article points out, most students are going to be taught by unionized public school teachers regardless of the reforms. Every school in the nation isn't going to be replaced by a charter school. Why isn't he talking to anyone from the other side? What's really going on here?

What a day. It's over.

Wow. What a day. One of the teachers on my team was out and her students were doubled up in my room and the rooms of the others on the team. It's hard enough to teach my students at this point in the year. It's really hard to teach and motivate students that you barely know along with your own. I'm tired and angry, but it helps to do something else after teaching. It's important to forget. To cleanse yourself. To let it all go so it doesn't poison the rest of your day. I'm having a cleansing ice cream sandwich. I read outside on the hammock instead of cutting the lawn. Reading restores me. I'm about to grade some stuff. It's good to know that it will be over soon. There's not much left in the year. Soon, I'll be off. I'll do what I want for a while.

The summer will be a refreshing change before I go back to school and to grad school in the fall. I'm going back to get a supervisor's certificate. I'm psyched about grad school again.