Back again!

It's been ages since I wrote here. No wonder I only have 2 followers. I will try to be more consistent for a while.

I was a bit depressed about all this teaching thing I've gotten myself into. The school where I was teaching last year had to close because there weren't enough students - but those 100 students we had really needed our school, because they just couldn't manage the impersonal environment of 40 kids in a classroom and thousands of kids in the school yard during break. My facilities were terrible, but I loved finding materials to be able to do science in a combined music room/girl's gym (shared with another teacher.) The occasional fingers finding keys on the piano was the worst disturbance. Not being able to lock doors and keep my materials there was an inconvenience. Watching kids enjoying science made it all worth while.

Then another summer went by where I was reading up on all my subjects, and picking up a new one, Earth Science, but no jobs. Finally a charter that had turned me down this summer, because I didn't have Earth Science, called me and needed me, because the young man they'd hired skipped out after 3 weeks. But they expected me to teach all 4 of my sciences with 5 preps for 7 classes, 4 of which were 8th and 9th graders, which I found more than I'd bargained for. I bought 5 cardtables and 20 chairs for the classroom, so they would be able to work in groups on a flat surface. When I arrived the classroom was equipped with desk-chairs all in rows. How can you learn science that way? I managed for 3 weeks - until we were to leave on an already planned trip to India and I knew they had a good sub ready for them - and quit.

I went into teaching because I know a lot and have lots of ideas and love it when students love it, too. I can put up with kids who can't sit still, or are a little disruptive, because I've figured out that putting them in small groups with good learning and discovery activities keeps them busy and learning. At the last school the kids destroyed things. (One threw an egg we were using for osmosis experiment at the periodic table and enjoyed watching it drip down. I was outside dosing out vinegar I didn't want to smell up the classroom, because there was no ventilation.) The school's response was detention or expulsion, so I was always missing 2-3 expelled kids in my classes, who then couldn't make up the activity learning we were doing in class, and got more disruptive. I can't help but believe that kids respond to the confrontational punishment with more disruption. They came to accept it, and didn't realize that I don't want confrontations, I want learning.

I've been taking more courses, and reading more books. I will try to write more about them here in the future. Happy holidays!

Where I need to be

The image on the right was one I found on FaceBook. I think it tells a good bit about my life. Problem is, each time I find "where I needed to be" something happens and I have to move on.

To catch up a little since my last blog post back in October, I was actually glad that I didn't have a job all fall, because there were a lot of family things going on (my husband was very sick, so we moved to a new house without stairs in a neighboring town, and there was a birth and a death that moved us all.)

But in January, I was asked to return to the tiny charter school in Hesperia, where I completed my credential. It was like coming home. I knew all the colleagues except the new Dean of Students, who has been invaluable, and I knew about half my students and they knew me, so we didn't have to start at square one.

I am also teaching the same subjects, Biology and Integrated Science, although different parts of them, since the teacher they had in the fall had taken a different part of the curriculum than last year's teachers. But the most important aspect was that I have learned a lot about Guided Inquiry and Reasoning and Sense Making since then, which turned out to be the right way to address the needs of pretty much all of my students.

Most of our students have come to us because they just couldn't make it in the regular public high school. Some had tried a variety of other charters, home schooling, etc. Many have a great difficulty concentrating, and get easily distracted. If I had been trying to do whole-class teaching, I think I would have lost most of them. But I put them in 6 groups of about 3 students, and provided lots of hand-on labs to introduce topics. I also made many worksheets, often finding illustrations and text on line, and then guiding them with questions to the illustrations and concepts. It took a while for the kids to understand that they were to work TOGETHER in their groups, and that I wasn't going to be standing up front with a PowerPoint, but coming around to each individual group to ask them questions, and guide them on their way (I like the word, facilitate!)

I am more than half-way through the "University Induction Program" at UCLA Ext, to clear my credential, with interesting courses and "Inquiries" into my teaching about what sort of strategies will help my ESL students, and now my students with IEPs. I've also just completed a fun course at CGU in ways to teach Physics hands-on, which gave me a lot of tools and ideas for the Physics part of Integrated Science, and an online course in working with students with ADHD, which is much needed to learn to reach our many "wanderers" and "blurters." And I've also earned a certificate as "Green School Professional." (I've been taking more classes than my students, to learn to teach them better!)

But the tragedy I alluded to in the beginning is that our little school is too little. We need about 20 more students to release some important funds and make us viable. So the charter has been pulled, prospective students are being turned away, and our students are trying to figure out where to look again to continue their education. Some of the students are looking forward to going to a "real" high school, with all the amenities we can't offer, although we do offer gym, a couple of sports, classes in art, music, sign language and astronomy. But many are going to try the individual learning of home schooling or computer-based learning, away from any social aspects of school. Some of my students are sure to get lost, students I was just getting through to. How sad! My younger colleagues (one just got married) need jobs to support their families, older ones aren't ready to retire yet. Our special ed teacher, who isn't much younger than I am) is working on her EdJoin application for the first time ever. She was the life-blood of the school for most of its existence, but is left in the cold like the rest of us.

So far the only jobs I can see for me are even further away than my trip through the Cajon pass to Hesperia. I can manage without a job, but I hate inactivity, and I have discovered that I have much to give my students. So I'll just have to see where life will take me next, and know that that's where I'm supposed to be for a while again.

On Saturday, I will be walking in the graduation ceremony at Claremont Graduate School, with cap and hood and all. I'll post a picture to prove it after it's happened!

High School Science and Math Teacher

I seem to have a new title now. I am no longer "just" a math teacher. On Monday I will be teaching Biology, Integrated Math, with some few students trying to do Chemistry, Algebra I and CAHSEE prep for students who haven't passed the state graduation requirement in math.

My new school is a tiny charter school, so my classes have fewer than 20 kids per class, and some closer to 10. It is also in an unusual setting, the former kitchen of a defunct Italian restaurant up in the high desert in Hesperia (which people from Los Angeles got by on their way to Las Vegas.) The school has been around for more than 10 years, although the high school is relatively new.

That means that the room isn't really set up well for fancy chemical experiments, so we will be using things like lemon juice, vinegar and baking soda. I think most of the books are gifts from other schools who have gone on to a new textbook. I will have to pick and choose between lessons and materials.

We are also in a rush, because unfortunate circumstances mean that the time up to now has not been used as efficiently as I would have hoped. I will try to introduce the students to as much of the curriculum as possible, but I would rather go into depth than "cover" everything superficially. I hope they will learn those things well.

Many of our students have learning disabilities and have not done well in the large impersonal classes of public school. I know that many of them are actually quite smart, and maybe have been lazy because they have been bored. I just finished reading a book called "Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom," which has inspired me with some great strategies. I will be trying several, and report back here how they go.

That didn't last long

My Christmas present from that school was an At Will Employment dismissal. "You don't fit in here," they said.
I think what really happened was that the son of a benefactor was one of the students who did poorly on the tests I gave in the 3 weeks I had before semester grades went in.
My faculty adviser (the principal) only came in to observe one day - the day he had filled my classroom with an absent teacher's students, where the combination of 2 classes was like adding lemon juice to baking soda.
My grad school adviser thought things were going as well as could be expected under the very difficult circumstances, and that I fit in well at the school.
My colleagues were amazed, and the department head wrote me a recommendation.

So, what did I learn?

• Be very careful about working in charter schools.
• Insist on getting the book immediately, as well as information from the previous teacher about where they've gotten to, and what her plans were (I left that information for the next teacher at this school.)
• Since I evidently teach differently than many other teachers - I believe that students have to create their own learning (sense-making,) rather than my presenting them with steps to solve a particular problem - I have to prepare the students for working together to figure things out, and not expect me to give them the answer immediately. 
• I'll have to work out some initial lesson plans that teach collaborative learning
• Talk with colleagues about methods, ideas, resources (I discovered the last week that there were carts with computers. Unfortunately, we did not have a staff room, my lunch was different from the other math teachers, and we math teachers had no prep period.)
• As a new teacher, don't take the job if there is no preparation time, mentoring, etc. You're only setting yourself up for failure.

And what am I doing now - besides looking for another job?

I am reading lots of books about how to teach geometry. I discovered that the students were very reluctant to work with proofs, and I didn't know well enough how to engage them in that. I've found fantastic online resources and books, particularly through the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. I hope I get to teach geometry now! All new teachers discover that just because they can solve problems, do proofs, pass the qualifying exam, doesn't mean that the students will be as engaged in the subject as much as they are.