Getting Trampled As We Fight The Good Fight

It is November 11th and I’m observing Veteran’s day lost in thought for those who have given their lives in war, especially the recent loss at Fort Hood. A friend of mine is leaving for Iraq on Saturday and I can’t imagine being in his place. His journey over the next year will be a harrowing one, and I’m quite sure I would never survive it. Yet, I see parallels in our lives considering the way both situations [military service and education] are being handled by our government. Cutbacks, paperwork being filed to CYA instead of for the purpose of compassion and action, impossible goal setting and a timeline that just doesn’t make sense- as well as a strategy created in a fantastical world of make believe. A colleague who retired last year referred to us teachers as “Special Forces” and by all means we are, and I’m beginning to understand the mental plight that besieges veteran teachers and leads them to become those stigmatized tenured teachers who seemingly do nothing to “truly teach.” It is a very quiet form of PTSD.*

Tomorrow I have a lesson aimed at teaching my students how to elevate their phrasing by using more sophisticated transitional phrases, stronger verbs, and more descriptive adjectives. To do this, students will pair up  and edit sentences that came from sample essays from the regents. Once edited, students will compete in a “walk off”- Blue Steel style down a fake runway I’ve created with my monitors. At the end of the runway walk, they loudly say their new and improved sentence and the class votes for who edited the phrase the best and showed the most sophistication.

I should be excited about this lesson, but instead I feel comatose. Although there will be heart warming moments and I’m confident real learning will take place, I’m also sure that I will encounter students yelling in the halls at each other that they are “stank ass bitches” while classes are going on, or telling me I’m a crazy white woman so they don’t need to show me their program and recently I’ve become very tired of patiently explaining to teenagers why it is unacceptable to wrestle in the halls (while they are still locked and fighting). I’m also exhausted from planning 15 lessons per week (on average for my three preps) and handling feedback on homework, tests, and classwork for 170 students. Like Esme Codell said in her book Educating Esme- I don’t have one day. I have 170 days with my students. I have 170 inputs minimum daily. I work every second of my day (including when I leave the school) with blind hope that I can educate in a system that leaves me feeling like I am swimming against the current.

Education reform in the news centers on teaching teachers how better to engage students, or hiring more qualified teachers. Time and again this ignores bigger issues of budgetary problems and cultural issues. It burns to hear that the state will only consider our stats for regents scores a measure of success if we get a majority of students from ISS (Instructional Support Services/Spec. Ed) to pass with a 65 or above, on a test where achieving a 55 is the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest to them. That’s no hyperbole either.

It is equally horrible to know that three students that I worked with last year are now pregnant and will soon drop out to pursue GED’s. These students last year went from having 180 absences in their sophomore year, to only being absent 15 days with me. This past June I celebrated those small victories since these three students were part of a handful that I felt I had changed and therefore made a positive influence in my community. But now since they are pregnant and fighting to still get some form of a degree I wonder about the futility of my fight. Teachers are asked to teach better and get absentees back in the class, yet when students are being evicted or getting pregnant I can’t get them back into the room by making a phone call home and I can’t solve that by being more “engaging” (latest buzz word). Cultural issues MUST be addressed if we mean to make a difference! Not to mention that new media components on testing means we need media to teach with! How about Quality Review taking note that we lack the money to get more TVs, other than the three we have for 3,000 students? This would be more helpful to note than whether or not I’ve taken steps to address why nine students are absent. Do the math- with better media I can more effectively teach the other twenty six that are there, and achieve a greater good for a greater number.

Real change is never accomplished by ignoring reality. The reality here is that fixing minor issues has been sold as the cure to the public, and now the burden of proof for effective teaching and its subsequent pressure have put in the corner the one person who knows the truth (the teacher!), and they have no way out with that information. Students need schools that can provide better media, lower class sizes, and a government that will provide monetary support for those families struggling to keep a roof over their head and early sex education and support for areas where the teen pregnancy rate is high. If these things don’t happen, then it doesn’t matter how qualified that teacher is because a Harvard Degree doesn’t protect kids from unstable home lives, it doesn’t magically make teens use condoms properly, or guarantee that this super qualified teacher knows how to speak to a student who wants to jump a kid after school because his hat was stolen.

And the last thing to leave you thinking about is a humorous (yet startling) article from the perspective of standardized test graders. Check out: Reading Incomprehension

*Please Note — In no way shape or form is this meant to undermine the stress soldiers endure. I have sincere amounts of respect for everyone who has fought and continues to fight abroad. I am merely drawing a parallel in the government’s mishandling of these important cornerstones of our society.

Apatow is the new Nietzsche?

Reading “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” for my History of Literary Theory course.  

I wrote the following for the course’s discussion board. Any philosophy majors or other teachers taking theory may appreciate this:

Nietzsche proves that we aren’t looking for truth, we are using language to hide ourselves. There is a pretense of searching for truth by expressing our subjective emotions through metaphor, but that is all an illusion. This is a form of deception we accept in our every day lives and if we believe him, we are running contrary to Western values which tell us to accept our personal feelings as truths to convey. Capitalistic societies exploit our exaltation of the self because to work efficiently they need people to truly believe the idea that “we can achieve as much as we want as long as we try, it’s up to the self.” Yet if Nietzsche is right, we can’t achieve as much as we want because we won’t gain happiness if we remain men of intuition, since we are doomed to continue to make the same mistakes. This vein of thought is still being explored today, and has been found in a somewhat unlikely source: Judd Apatow’s latest movie Funny People. Time Out New York reviewed it (giving it five out of five stars by the way) saying: “Unpretentiously, the film comes around to a grand question: Do we really want to learn from life’s lessons? Or keep on laughing?” I think most of society probably just wants to laugh, and I think that means in Nietzsche’s eyes we remain men of intuition not reason.

Nietzsche’s work also seems to re-pose some earlier concerns about language. Plato’s point of literature as a “copy of a copy” gets new life by Nietzche as he considers the lack of reality truly contained in literature. Sassaure’s preoccupation with the ambiguity of signs and signifiers also seems to lie beneath this exploration of truth. Instead of the pieces of the puzzle coming together though, it seemed like we put them together and found a more jagged edge on it’s outside, one that is harder to make things ultimately fit together because “there is no truth but personal truth” just seems so immature now.

For the teachers out there: Can a high school English class really ever mediate that idea? I tend to think the scope is too large and what we teach kids needs to just be broad themes that resonate as personal truth. Nietzsche might hate me for it, but I’m ok with that.

A Trustworthy Face?- Analyzing Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

We are born liking things that please our senses, but are taught not to always trust that instinct. From a young age,  the saccharine  ”it’s what is on the inside that counts” can be drilled into us. That can actually take time to learn though. Sometimes you need a few bad dates with well-groomed men, or you have to realize that the popular girls really don’t want to be your friend forever. Authors currently capitalize on that theme and there’s a plethora of decent literature to console teens learning the truth behind a pretty face. Yet there’s more to the story, because even those without a pretty face still want to take what they like best, do what feels best, and are attracted to the most pleasing aesthetics of people and objects- without any regard to others. 

Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray interprets this human paradox (lusty amoral desirous people defining what is moral) not by giving a sugar coated message, but instead breaking the one dimensional perspective. He attempts to explore the idea that it’s not necessarily shallow to love the beautiful. The wonder and obsession with beauty has deep and dark depths. Through Dorian’s exploits we vicariously get to plumb those depths and feel the delightful burn of its results. All the while your brain is fighting it off and wants to be the conscience to Dorian or even Lord Henry, who is the ignitor of passion in Dorian as well as a sublime explanatory voice of human emotion.  The pity, fear, and joy aroused by reading this novel continues to be powerful because it confronts values from today’s beauty obsessed society- and Lord Henry is so persuasive it leaves you wondering whether the truth of human nature is that hideous after all. Every time you agree with him you have to consider just how ugly you might be on the inside, and if in someway that has its own merits as form of decadent beauty.

 

Applications for the classroom: Suitable only for a Senior AP course. You can pair this with some of the great NPR radio labs on morality and create round table discussion groups that would be aimed at mediating the scientific approach of explaining human behavior with the more imaginative. Students could even put Oscar Wilde on trial for his corrupting novel and explore the merits of the piece as a cultural tool. For this activity I would recommend a historical lesson on 19th Century England and have students voice some of those more specific societal concerns along with the modern American ones.

Realistic Summer Reading

Some may say the school year flies by, but I won’t lie- I think summer should have been here three months ago. I am ready for a break! Since I don’t have the savings to be trekking all over Europe, I’m happily putting a pile of books together on a chair and getting ready to attack. As for my students, summer reading lists are the furthest thing from their mind. This is partially due to their idea that a summer reading list is simply the black and white copy we hand them before we send them off to beaches, movies, and parties. On the last day of school I plan to remind them of the journey they can make by creating a personalized reading list. Students need to focus on reading what they like and choosing a variety of material! Mix a technology magazine with a graphic novel, then switch up to a sci-fi thriller. In addition, parents should take a trip to the library with their teens and find some books for everyone to take home. Online magazines should also count as summer reading. Even if teens are not settling down to read my favorite Utne magazine, maybe they will enjoy the humorous news source The Onion 

 Just read – and make it more than the cereal box or the back to a video game! 

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My Reading List:

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Heminway

Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini

Grand Avenue by Greg Sarris

An Anthropologist On Mars by Oliver Sacks

Utne magazine (http://www.utne.com/daily.aspx)

                                                           .  x   .   x   .   x  .

I will definitely be blogging about Be More Chill since I discovered many of my students are fans. Grand Avenue I’ve actually read before but am thinking I may be able to use isolated chapters to introduce themes of tradition in Native American narratives. More on all this soon!!

17th century drama- an acquired taste? Thinking about The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

I shamefully admit I used to watch soap operas when I was a teenager, but I’ve since let go of the need for extremely shallow drama. This means One Tree Hill is simply unwatchable to me, but Grey’s Anatomy has enough depth to keep me tuned in. Similarly, I’ve remained a faithful fan of Shakespeare, but found John Webster to be a 16th Century version of Joss Whedon. Some may say Shakespeare’s plays contain soap opera plots too, but true readers know the psychological layers to both the characters and the conflicts make it a worthwhile mirror into the human condition.  The informative note that begins  John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi  indicates that dramatists of his time both praised and criticized this literary work. The criticism was exactly as I suspected: he was considered to be melodramatic. So, much like One Tree Hill and  General Hospital, this play has the ingredients for serious revelations of human motivation and character, but simply loses steam and falls back on one dimensional caricatures of good and evil.  There are glints and gleams of potential for more substantial complexity as the characters struggle against corrupt authority, but then every character is laid out  in the most contrived, silly (but very bloody) ending. It seems so poorly created that it mocks the beauty and insight of the scenes prior where the Duchess is interrogated and tortured. 

Now, as I begin reading The Changeling by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley and ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore by John Ford, I am hoping to avoid the same disappointment I found in the Duchess of Malfi. Or perhaps 16th century drama will just be a taste I’ve yet to acquire outside of Shakespeare. Since I’m writing my paper on ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore, there will absolutely be a follow up to this post.  As far as classroom use, the following are a few great quotes that could be used to introduce themes of corruption or fear, and as practice for the critical lens regents essay:

*”Examine thine own frailty; ’tis more easy/ To tie knots than unloose them.” Act 5 Scene 2

*”The office of justice is perverted quite/ When one thief hangs another.” Act 4 Scene 2

*”Every small thing draws a base mind to fear.” Act 3 Scene 5

The Codes We Live By

I’m re-reading Sir Gawain and The Green Knight for my “disruptive women in the Middle Ages to the Renaissance” literature class. I didn’t care for it after my first read, or to be honest, after my first skimming of it. At the time, I preferred the scandalous Wife of Bath, or even Cristine de Pizan’s more conservative The Book of the City of Ladies. I also just simply  judged Gawain’s journey as another lengthy tale of the male ego. Although not completely off the mark, I was still wrong, very wrong.  

In the story Gawain struggles to remain faithful to two promises he makes. Both religious and knightly codes of honor (that are at times at odds with each other) guide his journey and his decisions. Yet, he is human and he makes a mistake that comes back to haunt him at the end of the poem. The ending is meaningful in terms of how one must accept human emotion (not run from it or deny it) in order to be a true hero, but it is also anti-climactic and derogatory to women. Medieval men thought we were evil. I get it. Anyhow, despite that personal disappointment, I am now thinking of ways I can adapt this 14th century Arthurian poem to be used in a modern day high school classroom with kids who are behind grade level. Perhaps dissecting major speeches for a week in class, and to move the plot along I could provide them with summaries of what we don’t read directly from the poem. The Middle English text would make it an arduous challenge, but the history behind it would be a motivator, as well as a way to open up the classroom dialogue to many important issues. This includes comparing/contrasting the virtues our society still dictates we live by, and examining the vices that continue to haunt us as people. At the end students can write their own codes of honor to live by and creatively write about a something that challenged one or more of these principles.

The Lovely Bones- Lessons and suggestions as promised.

So, today I finished grading essays from part one of the regents. Tomorrow I will move on to tackle the critical lens. The board went with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, “Fear always springs from ignorance.” This may prove to be a challenge for ESL students, but I wanted to again emphasize how The Lovely Bones works well with so many quotes the regents chooses. In this case there are a few options to prove it’s validity:

1. The ignorant accusations of Ray Singh during the first stages of Susie’s murder investigation, which causes the town to fear him for awhile. Thus proving the rise of fear from ignorant accusations.

2. The fear Jack Salmon has over the possibility Mr. Harvey might get away with it. — This is if the students interpret the quote as a fear rising from the unknown/lack of knowledge.

3. The town’s fear once they realize a murderer had been living among them in a quiet suburb, which shows they are afraid as a result of their previous ignorance.

4. If the students disagree, they could have said Susie’s fear of Mr. Harvey in the field was not a result of ignorance but a rational fear of her killer.

I will see tomorrow which path the students took and if it went well, or just confused them. For now, here are some links to lessons I did with The Lovely Bones, including a silhouettes poster project of the characters. Many of the lessons need some editing- so please just use as a way to jump start your own ideas.

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5-mood1
6-csi-harvey2
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A regents winner- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

I just finished a month and a half unit on The Lovely Bones. The length of the book [325 pages] and the complex figurative language made it a nervous beginning for me as I introduced it to my students. I was also warned that students would lose interest at they continued to read. These concerns are valid and need to be addressed if you plan to teach it, however, the novel’s ability to push student’s skills to a higher level trump any other problem you might have teaching it, and this includes the sensitive topic of the novel’s beginning: Susie’s rape and murder.

The novel’s dark opening actually works in an educator’s favor by stirring interest, while the rest of the story is a sentimental ride that will allow students to explore mature themes of adolescence and adulthood. I regret that I did not structure a lesson based on how we define these roles [adult, child, adolescent], but a lesson on male/female stereotypes was extremely enlightening for them, and me! Many students still have very traditional ideas about what men and women should do when in a relationship, and this contributes to their outrage at Mrs. Salmon’s affair and subsequent abandonment of her family. 

The events that play out as the town reacts to the death is rich in opportunity for discussion of character’s motivations (guilt, grief, unfulfilled desire, the influence of our parents). In addition, as I began to prepare my students for the critical lens essay on the English regents, I realized that the multitude of characters and themes explored make it an easy fit for that regents task. Almost every quote from the last few years can in some way be applied to this novel. 

BUT- if you do decide to teach it–please read my follow-up post about “suggestions and cautions.”

An article review on Michelle Rhee- featured in Time magazine last month

Unfortunately due to personal reasons I was not able to get this post up as early as I wanted to. I’ve finally found a moment to myself so I’d like to dissect this piece done by Time magazine on Michelle Rhee and ponder the impact this woman may truly have.

In this article Amanda Ripley characterizes Rhee to have two personalities at best. One where she is understanding and motivated to make change by working with people, namely: students. The other image is a hardened warrior out to bridge the performance gap by firing people deemed ineffective: teachers, principles, and at times entire schools. To examine Rhee’s viewpoints and the articles depiction of her, I’m not going to write this as a formal review, but instead take out quotes from the article and make comments regarding those specific sections. Please feel free to read the entire article yourself by clicking  here.

“Each week, Rhee gets e-mails from superintendents in other cities. They understand that if she succeeds, Rhee could do something no one has done before: she could prove that low-income urban kids can catch up with kids in the suburbs. The radicalism of this idea cannot be overstated. Now, without proof that cities can revolutionize their worst schools, there is always a fine excuse. Superintendents, parents and teachers in urban school districts lament systemic problems they cannot control: poverty, hunger, violence and negligent parents. They bicker over small improvements such as class size and curriculum, like diplomats touring a refugee camp and talking about the need for nicer curtains.”

I tend to wonder as I read this over again whether the “nicer curtains” comment was Ripley’s or Rhee’s. Either way it’s grossly out of line. The broader point is being lost in an attack on ideas that are just as vital as ridding the system of ineffective teachers. The ideas being bashed here are 1) welcome learning environments    2) lower class size. Now, I may groan about being required to decorate my room, but when my students walk in and feel they are in an environment they can work in (and yes they notice), you realize the value. Does it take 5 hours a day? No- it takes a few minutes a week to coordinate with a monitor to put up student work and/or attractive school related posters and reminders, so why are we even bickering about it? or throwing money at it? AND CLASS SIZE DOES MATTER!!! What the real problem seems to be is the higher ups in the education realm spending time debating an issue that does not require debate. Perhaps if Michelle Rhee got off her blackberry and stopped walking out of meetings and instead addressed these inefficiencies in these meetings by positively communicating, there could be further progress. And, if they really need help then here it is… class size does matter and if you have the money make them as low as 25, but set the maximum at 35. Oh and check up on how paraprofessionals are being used because often teachers haven’t been trained enough to put them to good use. BUT stop blaming the teacher for that. Teachers who are ineffective can at times just need a few good suggestions to get them on the right path- it’s not just an issue of tenured lazy teachers. We must be supportive of each other- not start a war amongst each other.

“Where she and the teachers’ union disagree most is on her ability to measure the quality of teachers. Like about half the states, Washington is now tracking whether students’ test scores improve over time under a given teacher. Rhee wants to use that data to decide who gets paid more–and, in combination with classroom evaluation, who keeps the job. But many teachers do not trust her to do this fairly, and the union bristles at the idea of giving up tenure, the exceptional job security that teachers enjoy.”  [near this section of the article an observation of her visiting schools/teachers/classrooms was made and it included her outfit- something I don't think was necessary aside from completing the potential contrast that exists in her image- the softness of a feminine appearance in her clothes vs the hardness of her personality and body language. I get what the writer was doing, but for myself the impact of reading about her "delicate cream blouse" was nauseatingly overboard.]

Moving forward to the content of this quote… from what I’ve read about her closing schools without public hearings, I wouldn’t trust her either and that should have been emphasized more in the article. Not to mention the land mine that is merit pay for teachers. I don’t even mind the whole “teaching to the test” issue as much as I mind the situation it puts teachers in. I just started in a school where I have kids who have failed since their freshman year of high school. A majority of these kids failed because they don’t show up to class. My efforts to reach them have included countless calls, letters, and even finding them in the building to talk about why they don’t show up. They tell me they don’t come because of: pregnancy, laziness, identity issues, and fights with classmates or getting arrested outside of the school. The most popular reason is laziness and these kids give up easily and despite my effort I am only reaching some. I just simply can’t pull them by the ears and force them in class. The ones who show up do improve, but according to Rhee’s standards it would look like I’m not doing my job, and according to merit pay advocates- I wouldn’t earn as much as others with honors kids who persevere despite their situation. Besides, what’s the point? Teachers with more years of experience get paid more and get the easier kids to teach usually anyhow- so merit pay is mostly in effect already- why make that problem worse?

“Rhee is, as a rule, far nicer to students than to most adults. In many private encounters with officials, bureaucrats and even fundraisers–who have committed millions of dollars to help her reform the schools–she doesn’t smile or nod or do any of the things most people do to put others at ease. She reads her BlackBerry when people talk to her. I have seen her walk out of small meetings held for her benefit without a word of explanation. She says things most superintendents would not. “The thing that kills me about education is that it’s so touchy-feely,” she tells me one afternoon in her office. Then she raises her chin and does what I come to recognize as her standard imitation of people she doesn’t respect. Sometimes she uses this voice to imitate teachers; other times, politicians or parents. Never students.”

Even if you disagree with a person’s point of view, I truly see it as childish when someone resorts to voice imitations. The “creativity needs to be developed in students” is a perspective, not necessarily one I put extreme focus on in curriculum, but do we really need to put others down because they think creativity is important or that there is a personal “touchy-feely” side to it? If Michelle Rhee taught for longer than two years she might have figured that out instead of allowing it to be the social experiment of her career.  When a student gets teased for sounding different as they try to read, or when a kid laughs at what someone says during a discussion,  I’m no longer just a teacher but a social worker teaching kids to not bully others as they learn. And, no matter how old you are- you’ve never earned the right to do that to others. Nothing positive can ever come from mocking someone’s opinion- right or wrong.

Teachers-For-Teachers— Going Study Guide Crazy

Recently I’ve come across a site called Teacherspayteachers.com. The site describes itself as: “An empowering place where teachers buy & sell original and used teaching materials and make teaching an even more rewarding experience.” For those who post materials for sale, I certainly can understand the lure of wanting to make some extra money from the lessons you put hard work and dedication into. My value system, however, doesn’t allow me to stop there upon examination of this site. When I found it, I thought of new teachers who just finished student teaching and aren’t making a lot of money, but would benefit from being able to continue learning by looking at more experienced teachers’ ideas. At my school there is a required mentoring program for all new teachers. This program, as long as you have a quality mentor, provides a similar service to this site. Yet, in the mentoring program no one makes you pay for it because it’s just good sense that sharing among teachers makes better teachers. By charging a fee for this quality information, we prevent that from happening. Although there are some great textbooks and transparency products that I understand paying for on this site (and it does include a link to some free downloads), I still think  teacherspayteachers.com and others (like book rags and enotes) are guilty of taking advantage of the busy, new teacher who needs some help getting materials together. Frankly, if you’re a decent teacher you can create them yourself. The main reason someone needs this service is because they are strapped on time (like most public school teachers are) and maybe need something to jump start ideas. Now, since the holiday season is upon us, here are a few of my study guides — FOR FREE. 

 

study-guide-lovely-bones1

study-guide-12-angry-men

othello-study-guide

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