New Everything

I survived my first week teaching 12th grade English and 11th grade American Studies at Mercer Island High School. Key word: survived.
The job transition between PSKS and MIHS had me working obscene hours and I still entered the classroom this week entirely unprepared and overwhelmed. The learning curve is very steep, especially for a new teacher like myself, who is trying to figure out:
1)the logistics of the school (I have three different classrooms, different tech set ups in each, how to check out laptops for students, utilize online grading, submit attendance, check my email...the list goes on)
2)the students, school climate & culture (I am in culuture shock! It is a big switch to transition from working with 5-10 homeless young people to teaching 120 students who are unaware of their wealth and privilege).
3)and lastly, ummm....what am I supposed to teach? I am entering without any curriculum and without having read or taught the books students are reading.
So, this is a tall order to fill. Everything is new; everything is difficult and time consuming.

But enough of that. I good friend of mine told me that I need to write down what I learned and what I did well every week. This is a skill that I do not exercise and needs practice. It's called cultivating perspective and compassion for myself and acknowledging my success.

Nov 5-9th:
-Showed up (and found all of my classrooms)
-Found my CORRECT parking spot
-Learned how to do student attendance, enter grades, and make a seating chart
-Learned how to have students check out books from the library
-Created my website & learned how to post assignments
-In process of learning student (& staff )names

I am sure there are many many more things I have learned is this one roller coaster of a week, but I'm going to take a moment and remind myself that this is enough because it is already a lot. I just have to keep on surviving one day at a time.

Quality Education is the Luck of the Draw

I just finished watching "The Lottery" and "Waiting for Superman," two documentaries which chronicle the lives of students and their families who hope to escape their local failing schools for the chance to attend successful charter schools.  In many of the local failing schools, some term as "drop out factories," students are 4-5 grade levels behind, and less that 20% can read at grade level.  The statistics are shocking and infuriating.

-Prisons and jails are built based on the rate of student failure in 4th and 5th grades.  Additionally, we invest about twice as many tax payer dollars into incarcerating young people as on educating them.
-Teachers are so difficult to fire that teachers who are suspended from the classroom for misconduct sit in "rubber rooms" for years collecting their full salary while they await hearings that last about twice as long as they typical criminal hearing.  These "rubber rooms" cost New York state approximately $1 million dollars a year.
-If we could cut the bottom 10% of worst performing teachers and replace them with "average" performing teachers, the United States would skyrocket back to the top of world rankings for industrialized nations (instead of sitting 25th out of 38 nations).

These kinds of atrocities are unforgivable especially since we know that the largest determining factor of student success is not socioeconomics, race, or family support, but rather quality teachers.  We know what needs to be done to reform the education system and we know what works: longer school hours,  rigorous academics, and higher standards for teacher performance.  Charter schools such as Harlem Success Academy work with children in some of the most challenging situations and are able to get 100% of their children to learn and perform at or above standard!

So why are people irrationally wed to an educational system that has proven time and again to fail children.  Both "The Lottery" and "Waiting for Superman" point back to teachers unions.  The teachers unions were developed initially because the majority of female educators were not paid fair wages and were taken advantage of because of gender inequality.  However, the unions today have turned into a collective that protects underperforming teachers.  The reality is that unions are standing in the way of education reform.  In colleges, professors earn tenure after years of teaching and review and some professors never earn tenure.  In public schools, teachers earn tenure in a few short years for surviving and breathing.  Then they can literally sit back, relax with a copy of the Times, and get paid regardless of whether or not their students learn.

It is devastating to watch children and families cross their fingers and say prayers as lotto balls roll out of the cage, or names written on index cards are pulled out of a hat.  Quality education for all children is a right and should not be determined by chance.  In order for this to be the case, we have to be willing to make large changes to a large system.  Personally, I refuse to protect the interests of teachers who are not doing their jobs over the interest of children who want to go to college instead of prison.

Welcome!

Welcome to Learning Space, my new blog about educational reform, learning theory, and classroom practices.  If you are a teacher, parent, concerned mentor, or citizen, you have probably woken up in the middle of the night perseverating over a young person who is falling behind, dropping out, or advancing to adulthood without the support and skills necessary for stability and success.  On the other hand, you may have woken up in the with an exciting, electric idea for a lesson plan, strategy to engage a challenging learner, or insight that helps make sense of the beauty and mess we call "school."  This is my space for cataloging these kind of thoughts that are scribbled on napkins, come to me while driving or taking a shower, and are otherwise lost or silently incorporated into my invisible teacher toolkit.  I hope this space provides food for thought, opportunity for dialogue, and inspires bridge building.
Enjoy!