Miss Bennett in the Bay

For this first weekend of spring break, Scott and I spent a wonderful three days up in Napa valley. It is truly beautiful there, and it’s one of the best vacations I have ever had. I really needed it.

While having dinner before heading home tonight, I heard Eric Clapton’s “Change the World” on the radio for the first time since I joined TFA. When I made my commitment last April, there was some random Oprah episode on about changing things. Of course, Eric Clapton performed that song live. Of course, I got grand ideas into my head about moving to the Bay Area and affecting huge educational change. (I even went so far as to declare that song as my personal theme song for the next 2 years- something I obviously forgot about.)

Now, almost a year later, I hear that song again. It’s pretty obvious to me that I didn’t change the world. The educational world is still as corrupt as ever and my students are still staring down the barrel of the achievement gap. Even if I do make gains with them, what happens to them next year, and the year after that? And in high school? Unless the entire system is overhauled, the achievement gap will persist.

So, what I realized tonight is that I didn’t change the world. (At least not yet.) What has happened so far is that the world changed me.

This weekend was the first weekend that I spent away from all kinds of work since Christmas break. (I even managed to stop thinking about my students or things about my classroom, which is a huge step.) Coming back to Silicon Valley was like a slap in the face: the stress, the millions of people, the workload- this is not what I wanted my life to be like. Not that I regret my decision; I don’t. I do feel that I am making progress. But even if I wanted to, I would be unable to go back to the way my life was pre-TFA.

There is a TFA recruitment poster floating around somewhere that says, “In 2 years, you won’t recognize yourself.” Try in 6 months. I haven’t quite figured out exactly what is is yet, but some part of me has changed so fundamentally that I don’t know who I am anymore. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. I just wasn’t quite prepared for it. Part of it is just the simple fact that I’m an adult now, with everything that entails. But it’s so much more than that. I can’t articulate it in an elegant way. I’m sure I’m experiencing this transformation in a different way than any other corps member, so I can’t even give the ’08s any advice. The only thing I can say is this: prepare yourself for something bigger than yourself.

As you may well know by now, I am teaching in an Open Court district. This means that for whatever reason, somebody down the street at the district office decided that OCR is the solution to all of education’s problems. Forget the fact that 90% of our students are English Learners and OCR’s ELD program is practically nonexistent. Ignore the idea that OCR does not allow for reteach time at all. Turn a blind eye when you realize that quite a few things in the curriculum aren’t even standards based.

No, folks, OCR is clearly going to solve our problems. Even though, after a number of years being implemented in Alum Rock, it hasn’t. This is not due to the shortcomings of the curriculum (which I don’t even think is all bad- it just needs supplement.) No, the reason that Alum Rock is still a PI district is because the teachers aren’t implementing OCR faithfully.

So, to solve this terrible problem, about once a semester somebody from the district office comes in and tells us all the reasons why we suck at teaching OCR. (Never mind actually supporting us and helping us get better. Nope, we have to figure it out on our own and then listen to them berate us when we have failed in their minds.) Today was one of those days.

OCR time (which we lovingly refer to as “sacred time”) goes from 9:00-12:05. These days, I haven’t been starting until 9:15 because I’ve been doing a much more rigorous morning math meeting, which is actually quite effective and my kids really love. So, when the OCR police (whom I wasn’t expecting until after recess) walked in at 9:12 and I was just finishing up my math meeting I about had a heart attack on the spot. I knew what this could mean in terms of my career and also in terms of how much they will bother me later. So, I rushed my kids through the end of the math meeting and got ready for blending (a.k.a. sounding out words). I opened up my TE as fast as I could and started the procedure. The kids were well-behaved and engaged in the lesson, so that was good. But, about halfway through the lesson, I noticed the OCR police in the back of the room flipping confusedly through their own copy of a TE. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was until I glanced back at my own book- and realized that I had opened to the wrong page. I was using the blending words for next week’s lesson, not this week’s. Well, after the alarm bells going off in my head subsided, I figured I was already screwed enough as it was, and I would look like an even bigger idiot if I tried to go back to the right board at that point. The OCR police left the room with very disappointed looks on their faces.

After they left, I closed and locked my door and had a very honest conversation with my students about what we’re learning in second grade and what had just happened. I told them that I probably was going to get into trouble because I had made a mistake and opened to the wrong page in my teacher book.

Them: But everybody makes mistakes!
Me: I know, but they expect teachers to be perfect all the time.
Them: But that’s silly! We make mistakes on our homework and stuff and it’s still ok!
Me: I know, but I was teaching you the wrong words for this lesson.
Them: What’s the big deal? They’re only words.

Their logic is so simple. It pleases me. I only wish that the OCR police could see it from their point of view. I am bracing myself for the wrath tomorrow.

23 instructional days until the CST. I am not quite sure we are going to make it.

This week was one of the most difficult weeks I’ve had in a while. On Monday I got to school at 6:45 and worked right up until the bell rang and somehow I still was not fully prepared for my day. I don’t really know what happened. Maybe it was that last weekend we had the TFA Spring Conference and that shot my entire Saturday. Maybe it was that on Sunday I spent more time planning for workshop than I did for the actual week, thinking that I had already solidified my plans for the week. Maybe I’m just working too hard overall and have finally hit the wall.

In reflecting upon my week, I can’t figure out what made it so terrible. We did have a very crazy schedule this week. There was something odd about every single one of our days, which made the kids nuts. (A major lesson I have learned- don’t mess with kids’ routines unless you are willing to face their wrath. Seriously.) Over the weekend, I bought a bunch of stuff for my classroom that I had planned on putting away on Monday afternoon. However, I discovered that M, the one from the SST, decided to ditch intervention again. I spent the entire afternoon in the principal’s office attempting to contact the parents and find out why he wasn’t there. Turns out that they thought he was in intervention, and were quite upset when they found out he hadn’t gone. Needless to say, on Wednesday he was in intervention.

This did, however, kill all plans of organization in my classroom. I literally did not have a single moment to myself to organize all that stuff until yesterday after school. So, I spent 3 hours cleaning and organizing random papers. (I admit I had let my room get out of hand- I didn’t know where anything was anymore.) Then, Jess and I wanted to make our homework packets for next week, since that’s just impossible to do on Monday morning. Well, the copy machine had not yet been fixed from earlier in the week, despite the office’s assertions that it had been. It does this really ridiculous thing where it will pull 5 pieces of paper through at a time, making double-sided copying impossible. We don’t have enough paper to make single-sided copies an option. After fiddling with the stupid machine for about 40 minutes, we finally gave up. We will be spending a lot of money at Kinko’s this weekend. You might want to consider buying stock there, because it will be going up because of us.

After such a week, I would love to take a weekend off and just do nothing. But that is not an option for us this weekend. We have to write our second TPA so we can get our credential in May. These things take forever. We also have to spend several hours at Kinko’s (as mentioned above.) There are a multitude of other things that need to get figured out before Monday. Realistically, I’ll be able to take about 4 hours this weekend off.

On the bright side, we have 9 more teaching days until spring break and 32 more teaching days until the CST. We are definitely in the home stretch.

After much sweat, blood, and tears on my part, we were finally successful in having the SST for M, one of my students who can’t read (the other one who can’t read has leukemia and is never at school.) As you may recall, I submitted the paperwork for M’s SST in October. We had the meeting in February because of a series of unfortunate bureaucratic breakdowns. I went to the meeting prepared with weeks’ worth of spelling tests, math data, and DRA data showing that since August, M has made literally no progress. The only standard in math that M passed is telling time. The rest of them he completely bombed. When he takes spelling tests, they are incomprehensible. His DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) level did not change at all. He started on a early Kindergarten level, and to this day he remains at that same early Kindergarten level. Did I mention that this child is 9 years old? He’s been in school in the United States for 4 years. He should have picked up something by now.

So, in the SST meeting we sit and I explain all of my concerns and all of the interventions that I have tried. Despite sitting him in front next to a kid who can translate to him, changing assessments for him, and working with him individually several times a week, his situation has not improved. My advisors are convinced there is some kind of processing issue going on there. My principal, the ELD coach, and myself are going back and forth with the parents about everything that I have noticed in the classroom. First, the parents were concerned that M just doesn’t try. No, I tell them, he tries very hard, even when he is struggling greatly. When they heard that, they really didn’t seem to understand why his lack of progress was a problem. It seemed to me that as long as their son was trying, it didn’t matter if he was actually learning anything. I think they don’t comprehend that being illiterate at age 9 is not a common problem, and certainly not something we should accept. They assert that he is able to do all of his math homework by himself. Obviously, this isn’t true because he can’t do anything in the classroom by himself. Then, my principal asks if he had been in after-school intervention. I say that he was invited to the first session, but he only went to like 2 classes and then stopped coming. We didn’t invite him back to the second session because his attendance was poor (since there’s a waiting list for intervention, we can’t have kids just not showing up). This was translated to the parents, and then they asserted that they never remembered signing any forms about such an after-school program. I say that this was way before Christmas break. After a little prodding in Spanish by my principal, the father finally admits that yes, he did sign something. The mother then asserted that she asked in the office when the intervention was and they told her that it wasn’t happening. Well, myself, the principal, and the ELD coach finally realize that these parents are just being really irresponsible about this. I say that I would remind M that he had intervention, and he’d say, “I don’t go.” Since his ability to communicate is so limited, I just had to accept it. I couldn’t force him to go if his mom was already there to pick him up. So, upon hearing this, my principal gives the parents a very long lecture in Spanish about how M is a kid and he can’t be responsible for himself. They are the parents, they are the adults, and they are the ones who have to make sure that M goes where he’s supposed to go when he’s supposed to go there. It was quite remarkable, really.

I am still sure that M has some kind of processing issue. But, since he didn’t bother to attend intervention before, for whatever stupid reason we can’t test him right now. He has to attend a full series of intervention classes and show no progress before we can test him. So, he starts intervention on Monday. I am to remind him to go (just like I was already doing.) His parents are to make sure he actually does go. And I am to track his progress and we will reconvene in April to see what happened. The ELD coach is convinced that he qualifies for testing. Hopefully, this means that M won’t have to sit in a classroom being unsuccessful any longer. I will keep my fingers crossed for him.

On a much more positive note, I finally finished giving the DRA to all of my students and inputting the data into my tracker. On average, my class has grown 1.04 years in reading. Some of my students have grown individually a year and a half or more. It’s pretty incredible to see those kind of results. At this rate, they will more than reach their reading goals by the end of the year.