Flight back to LA was at 7:25am. The latest ride I could get to the airport was at 4am. Got to the airport at 4:18am and napped on a bench until 5:30am when the check-in desk opened. Went to the gate and napped right next to the gate at 6am. Woke up at 7:30am. Now I'm out $127 and waiting for the 12pm to LAX.
I'm such an idiot.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Amazing Deal.
Went to a place last night with 25 cent hot wings and $1 drafts. I was in heaven. Apparently, though, to get into heaven you need to be patted down by the security guard. They were some good chicken wings I guess...
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Truancy.
Coming off that high from the last week.
The boy that made huge gains in reading and then realized he was a math genius hasn't shown up the last two days of school, and so has missed all of his final assessments. I'm not sure if he gets to move to 5th grade now, and of course he doesn't get to see his hard work pay off.
I called yesterday and his mom said that she got a flat tire so she'd try to get him in today, but when I called again today the phone was disconnected. I hope they're all right.
I'm going to keep calling to give them information on how to get set for next year, but this kind of sucks.
On a related note:
Baltimore City Public Schools just came out with a press release that said:
The boy that made huge gains in reading and then realized he was a math genius hasn't shown up the last two days of school, and so has missed all of his final assessments. I'm not sure if he gets to move to 5th grade now, and of course he doesn't get to see his hard work pay off.
I called yesterday and his mom said that she got a flat tire so she'd try to get him in today, but when I called again today the phone was disconnected. I hope they're all right.
I'm going to keep calling to give them information on how to get set for next year, but this kind of sucks.
On a related note:
Baltimore City Public Schools just came out with a press release that said:
"75.2 percent of students who attended school regularly last year scored proficient or advanced on the reading MSA, compared to just 59.6 percent of students who were chronically absent, meaning they missed at least 20 of the year's 180 school days."Since we've started summer school, we've lost 13 students because they missed three days and were dropped from the roster. We have 12 now.
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Literacy/Achievement Gap.
It's said all the time that the achievement gap between the students we serve and more affluent schools and students is in reality a literacy gap. One of our instructors, a literacy specialist, put up a pretty shocking chart to illustrate this point:
Most of our students just aren't getting enough time reading, and when that happens they lose out on all sorts of language, vocabulary, and writing skills as well. Of course, this doesn't just have to do with the resource differences between urban and suburban schools. Plenty of reading time takes place at home. However, the sheer size of the difference in word exposure between percentiles is shocking.
Anyway, I got the perfect in-person illustration of this the other day when I got one of my struggling readers' math midterm back. It was obvious he hadn't tried, since he had just circled "A" four times and then flipped the paper over. I knew that he has trouble reading word problems, and this particular test only had word problems and directions on it. I called him over after class and told him that I knew he didn't try at all. I asked him why, and he just shrugged. So, I said:
After school, we sat down and I read the questions to him (this is allowed even during a test since we're supposedly only testing their math skills). He quickly answered the first two questions correctly without any hesitation, but got the other two wrong. The two he got wrong tested concepts he didn't know since he had been absent that day. I graded the test and quickly taught him the other concepts. He immediately understood and started applying the most difficult objectives (distribution of factors, doubling and halving to find products) to solve the problems immediately without any help or guidance from me.
I asked him if he understood what had just happened. By not asking for help, and not trying, he had failed a test and given people the message that he was stupid or lazy, even though he was neither of those things. He was just ashamed and afraid to ask someone for help.
The student I'm talking about is 12 years old and was just held back in 4th grade again. It's not hard to imagine him going through year after year understanding what is going on in math class, but unable to demonstrate it because of a huge literacy gap that prevents him from reading the questions on a test. It's so easy to see him get frustrated, stop paying attention, and then get labeled the lazy student who just doesn't apply himself in class.
If there's one thing I promise I won't do, it's label a student and give up on him or her. Sure, it's a lot of work, but something tells me that there's more little geniuses out there who are just about to give up because no one ever took the time to ask what was wrong, and then actually teach them something. I just think there's absolutely no reason why that should ever happen to a child.
Most of our students just aren't getting enough time reading, and when that happens they lose out on all sorts of language, vocabulary, and writing skills as well. Of course, this doesn't just have to do with the resource differences between urban and suburban schools. Plenty of reading time takes place at home. However, the sheer size of the difference in word exposure between percentiles is shocking.
Anyway, I got the perfect in-person illustration of this the other day when I got one of my struggling readers' math midterm back. It was obvious he hadn't tried, since he had just circled "A" four times and then flipped the paper over. I knew that he has trouble reading word problems, and this particular test only had word problems and directions on it. I called him over after class and told him that I knew he didn't try at all. I asked him why, and he just shrugged. So, I said:
"I'm going to ask you something, and if it's not true, please don't be mad, because I just need to make sure. If it's true, though, you need to let me know so we can figure something out. There's no shame if it is... Did you give up on this because you couldn't read the words?"He was silent for a couple of seconds, then muttered, "There were too many words. I didn't want to do it." I told him that I understood, and that he needed to ask for help since he couldn't let his reading take away from him demonstrating how much he knew about math. We agreed to meet after school to take the test again. This time, I would read the questions and he would do the math.
After school, we sat down and I read the questions to him (this is allowed even during a test since we're supposedly only testing their math skills). He quickly answered the first two questions correctly without any hesitation, but got the other two wrong. The two he got wrong tested concepts he didn't know since he had been absent that day. I graded the test and quickly taught him the other concepts. He immediately understood and started applying the most difficult objectives (distribution of factors, doubling and halving to find products) to solve the problems immediately without any help or guidance from me.
I asked him if he understood what had just happened. By not asking for help, and not trying, he had failed a test and given people the message that he was stupid or lazy, even though he was neither of those things. He was just ashamed and afraid to ask someone for help.
The student I'm talking about is 12 years old and was just held back in 4th grade again. It's not hard to imagine him going through year after year understanding what is going on in math class, but unable to demonstrate it because of a huge literacy gap that prevents him from reading the questions on a test. It's so easy to see him get frustrated, stop paying attention, and then get labeled the lazy student who just doesn't apply himself in class.
If there's one thing I promise I won't do, it's label a student and give up on him or her. Sure, it's a lot of work, but something tells me that there's more little geniuses out there who are just about to give up because no one ever took the time to ask what was wrong, and then actually teach them something. I just think there's absolutely no reason why that should ever happen to a child.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Test Results.
At the beginning of the summer, we gave all of our students reading diagnostics. We used them to figure out what our students' "instructional reading level" (the level at which they need help to understand) was, and each student got a score within that level. The goal for them this summer was to grow by six points within the level by the end of the summer.
After we figured out what our kids' levels were, they were divided up so that they could get more pointed reading instruction on their level. I took the three lowest-performing students. One boy and one girl were reading at a first grade level, and another girl was reading at a second grade reading level. Over the next two weeks, we went over summarizing, the elements of stories, the 5 Ws (Who, What, Where, When, and Why) and how to actively read any text.
Last Thursday, we gave my group the final DRA to see how much they have grown in their original level. One girl went from a 28 to 41, the other from 23 to 37, and the boy improved from 26 to 42! I couldn't believe it when they read out loud, and when they answered my comprehension questions about plot, what they predicted would happen, the characters, and the lessons in the story. As I sat and listened to them, I thought I was going to cry because I was so proud of them.
Even though they all did a fantastic job, the boy in my group made me the happiest. He was two points off a maximum score of 44, and the reason he lost points was because he read too slowly. But, the reason he read slowly was because while he used to just guess and skip words that he didn't know before, he stopped and sounded each and every word out before moving on. Two times in the passage I saw him use his finger to cover up parts of big words, sound out the bits, and blend the parts together into a new word. He never used to do that and I taught him that!
What was even more exciting was that he misread six words, but after he read those words he realized the sentence didn't make sense and he went back to fix his mistakes on his own! To someone who is reading this entry without problems, this really doesn't sound like a big deal. But to a beginning reader, the ability to self-monitor for meaning is a HUGE step forward. By the end of the passage, he had missed only two words, for an accuracy rate of 99%.
Probably the best part of all this is that when I told those three students how well they had done, they all lit up like I have never seen them before. I could tell that they believed that they could read, that they could do well, and that if they worked hard the way they did every morning in my small reading group, they could achieve anything they wanted. Like I said, I wanted to cry. But I didn't. Come on.
Anyway, bottom line: Every child can learn. We just have to find what it is that's blocking their way forward, and then we can work to untie the knots that are keeping them back. Of course, there's so much that my three students have still to do in order to catch up next year in 5th grade. Hopefully, I'll be able to help them get the what they need from their teachers next year, and they'll be able to continue their success.
So cool.
After we figured out what our kids' levels were, they were divided up so that they could get more pointed reading instruction on their level. I took the three lowest-performing students. One boy and one girl were reading at a first grade level, and another girl was reading at a second grade reading level. Over the next two weeks, we went over summarizing, the elements of stories, the 5 Ws (Who, What, Where, When, and Why) and how to actively read any text.
Last Thursday, we gave my group the final DRA to see how much they have grown in their original level. One girl went from a 28 to 41, the other from 23 to 37, and the boy improved from 26 to 42! I couldn't believe it when they read out loud, and when they answered my comprehension questions about plot, what they predicted would happen, the characters, and the lessons in the story. As I sat and listened to them, I thought I was going to cry because I was so proud of them.
Even though they all did a fantastic job, the boy in my group made me the happiest. He was two points off a maximum score of 44, and the reason he lost points was because he read too slowly. But, the reason he read slowly was because while he used to just guess and skip words that he didn't know before, he stopped and sounded each and every word out before moving on. Two times in the passage I saw him use his finger to cover up parts of big words, sound out the bits, and blend the parts together into a new word. He never used to do that and I taught him that!
What was even more exciting was that he misread six words, but after he read those words he realized the sentence didn't make sense and he went back to fix his mistakes on his own! To someone who is reading this entry without problems, this really doesn't sound like a big deal. But to a beginning reader, the ability to self-monitor for meaning is a HUGE step forward. By the end of the passage, he had missed only two words, for an accuracy rate of 99%.
Probably the best part of all this is that when I told those three students how well they had done, they all lit up like I have never seen them before. I could tell that they believed that they could read, that they could do well, and that if they worked hard the way they did every morning in my small reading group, they could achieve anything they wanted. Like I said, I wanted to cry. But I didn't. Come on.
Anyway, bottom line: Every child can learn. We just have to find what it is that's blocking their way forward, and then we can work to untie the knots that are keeping them back. Of course, there's so much that my three students have still to do in order to catch up next year in 5th grade. Hopefully, I'll be able to help them get the what they need from their teachers next year, and they'll be able to continue their success.
So cool.
Monday, July 19, 2010
More Than Halfway Through.
It's been a while since I've posted since it's been nonstop work since I got here. Institute has been a roller coaster. I've gone from having a great day where all of my students understood the lesson to watching every single one of them stare at me without a clue about what I was asking of them.
I'm barely keeping up with my lesson plans, and it still confuses me that they're allowing me to teach kids who are on the cusp of getting into the next grade, and that if they do not do well, they might be held back and be seriously off track for the rest of their lives. Most of the time I really don't understand how anyone can think I am a competent enough person to have this kind of responsibility. I feel like I'm failing them, and they deserve better than me.
They keep saying that it's all right since we're all new teachers and we don't have that much experience, but given how far behind some of these kids are, are we hurting more than we're helping? Our students have grown 29% in their math scores so far (we're supposed to get 100%), but I have a feeling when they get their mid-Institute test based on what I had to teach them last week, that's going to drop a LOT.
Maybe I am getting better as the weeks go by, but sometimes I get so burned out that putting everything I can into this every day means less than I know I am capable of.
All right, that's enough complaining. If there is one thing keeping me going through all this, it is that my kids all work incredibly hard. It's very clear that although some need extra help, they're all very bright students. Back to work. For them.
I'm barely keeping up with my lesson plans, and it still confuses me that they're allowing me to teach kids who are on the cusp of getting into the next grade, and that if they do not do well, they might be held back and be seriously off track for the rest of their lives. Most of the time I really don't understand how anyone can think I am a competent enough person to have this kind of responsibility. I feel like I'm failing them, and they deserve better than me.
They keep saying that it's all right since we're all new teachers and we don't have that much experience, but given how far behind some of these kids are, are we hurting more than we're helping? Our students have grown 29% in their math scores so far (we're supposed to get 100%), but I have a feeling when they get their mid-Institute test based on what I had to teach them last week, that's going to drop a LOT.
Maybe I am getting better as the weeks go by, but sometimes I get so burned out that putting everything I can into this every day means less than I know I am capable of.
All right, that's enough complaining. If there is one thing keeping me going through all this, it is that my kids all work incredibly hard. It's very clear that although some need extra help, they're all very bright students. Back to work. For them.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
A Sample Schedule.
This was my day today... so far.
5:45AM Wake Up
6:45AM Breakfast
7-7:20AM Leave for School
7:20-8AM Classroom Preparation
8-12:30PM Teaching
12:45-1:15PM Leave School
1:30-2PM Go to Post Office
2-5:15PM Sessions
5:30-6:15PM Dinner
6:30-present Lesson Planning
I've finished two lesson plans. Only four more to go! Then I can edit my old one and print out all my materials for tomorrow!
What did I sign up for...?
UPDATE: The day is finally over. It is 3AM. So... 20-hour work day? Take that, I-Bankers. Now really, why don't we get PAID?
5:45AM Wake Up
6:45AM Breakfast
7-7:20AM Leave for School
7:20-8AM Classroom Preparation
8-12:30PM Teaching
12:45-1:15PM Leave School
1:30-2PM Go to Post Office
2-5:15PM Sessions
5:30-6:15PM Dinner
6:30-present Lesson Planning
I've finished two lesson plans. Only four more to go! Then I can edit my old one and print out all my materials for tomorrow!
What did I sign up for...?
UPDATE: The day is finally over. It is 3AM. So... 20-hour work day? Take that, I-Bankers. Now really, why don't we get PAID?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Style.
Oh yeah. One more thing.
I wore a V-neck shirt today for the first time in my life. I'm still trying to decide if I'll keep this going.
I wore a V-neck shirt today for the first time in my life. I'm still trying to decide if I'll keep this going.
We Have Students!
School let out early today because the temperature was over 100 degrees (I heard 103), and many schools are so old they do not have air conditioning. Regardless, we taught our first lessons today. My classroom has only 15 4th graders, but they are a great group. They're all bright and eager to learn. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of work to be done.
Over the next four weeks, we will be responsible for teaching a multiplication unit, as well as a reading and literacy unit that has 18 distinct objectives outlined already. All of our students have already taken a multiplication pre-test, and they are all finishing up their reading assessments. Keeping in mind that all of these students have already finished 4th grade once, it is more than a little striking to find out that the average score on the multiplication pre-test was 49%. Reading levels, at least by our preliminary tests, show a number of students reading at or below a 1st grade reading level, with one or two at a 4th grade level, and one reading above 4th grade.
Like I said, there is a lot of work that needs to be done over the next four weeks. But, I know that I am willing to do it, and from the looks in the students' eyes, they are ready to do it, too.
The workload and stress seems to be catching up to some people. I heard that one person quit last night out of the blue, packed up, and left. Still, looking around and talking to the people here, you hear a lot of, "Today was all right. Lots of room for improvement, though." It's nice to know that there are so many people here who just want to get better, and aren't afraid to admit they don't know everything. What a great experience this is turning out to be.
Over the next four weeks, we will be responsible for teaching a multiplication unit, as well as a reading and literacy unit that has 18 distinct objectives outlined already. All of our students have already taken a multiplication pre-test, and they are all finishing up their reading assessments. Keeping in mind that all of these students have already finished 4th grade once, it is more than a little striking to find out that the average score on the multiplication pre-test was 49%. Reading levels, at least by our preliminary tests, show a number of students reading at or below a 1st grade reading level, with one or two at a 4th grade level, and one reading above 4th grade.
Like I said, there is a lot of work that needs to be done over the next four weeks. But, I know that I am willing to do it, and from the looks in the students' eyes, they are ready to do it, too.
The workload and stress seems to be catching up to some people. I heard that one person quit last night out of the blue, packed up, and left. Still, looking around and talking to the people here, you hear a lot of, "Today was all right. Lots of room for improvement, though." It's nice to know that there are so many people here who just want to get better, and aren't afraid to admit they don't know everything. What a great experience this is turning out to be.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
This is How Bureaucracy is Born.
I appreciate TFA trying to help us lesson plan, manage behavior, invest our students, and all of that. Really, I do. But I feel like in an effort to help us out, they're micromanaging every decision for us.
In the last few days, I have gotten forms for lesson planning, forms for thinking about lesson planning, forms for managing behavior, forms for organizing the management of behavior systems, forms for investing the students with forms for every procedure, and forms for thinking about the procedures that we need forms for. It's a little overwhelming.
But, then again, I guess if they didn't make it so painfully obvious, 99% of us wouldn't ever have thought of it. So, maybe in the end it's a good thing. It just feels ridiculous sometimes.
In the last few days, I have gotten forms for lesson planning, forms for thinking about lesson planning, forms for managing behavior, forms for organizing the management of behavior systems, forms for investing the students with forms for every procedure, and forms for thinking about the procedures that we need forms for. It's a little overwhelming.
But, then again, I guess if they didn't make it so painfully obvious, 99% of us wouldn't ever have thought of it. So, maybe in the end it's a good thing. It just feels ridiculous sometimes.
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