Reflections of Another Semester

It's been a long time. I don't really know where to begin, so here are some highlights from first semester.

1. Having 37 students in one class. A class full of 34 students (the union limit) is insanity, but 37?!! Now mix in the fact that they are all on completely different levels of math ability and you can start to appreciate my life a little.

2. Hoping it will be easier in year 2, only to find I am wrong. It's still an adventure, even halfway through the second year. It's like a little puzzle (actually a huge puzzle) that you have to learn to maneuver every year. Each kid works differently with every other kid. Some kids can multiply, most can't. Many got passed up each year for whatever reason; I'm tempted to believe that rather than social promotion, it's actually school politics. Principals don't want the school to look bad. Teachers don't want to get fired. Students move up whether they're ready or not. No child left behind indeed. We might want to implement the spirit of that law.

3. Smartboards. As promised (several years ago from what I hear) we got SmartBoards in the math department. SmartBoard is an interactive whiteboard. It's actually quite a good way to teach. There is special software with which we plan our lessons and we are able to bring more information into the classroom. It's basically like a huge computer monitor and whatever you can do on a computer, can be done on the SmartBoard for the class to see. It gets even better, because you can upload your lessons to a webpage so your students can access them from home. We're changing the way we teach.

4. Discovering the beauty of parent phone calls. Wow, why didn't I realize before that kids are more scared of a phone call than they are of me? They HATE to see me making little notes, because it means that they're losing some points and if they keep it up then I'll call their houses. (The key is to make eye contact with them and then write something down. Even when they pretend not to care or even tell you they don't care, most of them do and some even stay after class to plead with you a little.) Then I can leave the behavior problems with their parents. It's beautiful.

5. Dodging the middle school bullet. Wadleigh is a 6-12 school, meaning we are a middle and a high school separated only by a floor. Our AP is in charge of both math departments. About January he started asking the high school teachers if they would be willing to teach in the after school program to help middle schoolers get ready for the high stakes testing. Initially I agreed, not because of a lapse in judgement, but because my AP promised small classes with students who wanted to learn. Let me describe for you the horrible scene that lay before me on that first afternoon. I went down to the third floor, where they keep the little monsters, and was assigned to a sixth grade classroom. As I went to the room I realized that someone was standing outside it keeping it closed. I looked around and noticed that was the case for all the other rooms down the hall. School aides were actually locking the students in the classrooms. Most were angry, some were defeated, some were crying (the most effective method for getting out) and all would have revolted had they been a few feet taller. It was maddness!! They pushed me in with a test prep book and the pages we should work on. Needless to say, not much math took place that day. I stood in front of the door and batted them away like flies (not literally of course, what kind of person do you think I am?) Life was better when they brought treats, but I only went back once after that. Now I won't even do coveraged for the middle school.

6. Saying good-bye to my second ipod. Welcome ipod number 3. Kids do the darndest things, like getting into my bag and taking my expensive electronics. My kindhearted brother bought number 3 for me which spends the school day in my locked closet.

8. Finally the most memorable event of the year. A few days into the year I got a new student. He was a little kid, but you don't question thing like that because it's not nice. A few days into the year I noticed that he was falling behind a little bit, so I asked him to stay after for some extra help. When he did I review some of the topics with him and realized that he was even farther behind than I had realized. He didn't know how to multiply and divide. I started asking him about his previous education. He had only been in New York for a few months and before that he was in Detroit for a year. He was from Yemen and I began wondering if maybe they don't teach basic math in Yemen and that's why he didn't know it. Then I thought to ask him how old he was. He told me 13. That's too young for the 9th grade, so I started thinking about what we'd have to do to get him into the eighth grade. Then he told me that his passport said that he was 13 but really he was only 10!!!! I was the first person that he had told. The poor kid was probably so frustrated in all of his classes that he'd do anything to understand again. His father had falsified his records for some reason and out of fear for his father (who was back in Yemen at this point, Abdul's 21 year old brother was his guardian.) he swore me to secrecy until he could convince his father to let him go to a lower grade. I agreed and vaguely asked the guidance counselor questions about what we could do. Abdul had learned all of his english on the streets and no one in his family spoke english. The problems kept piling up. Not only did he not belong in high school, he wasn't old enough to be in middle school.

He finally talked to his father, his brother came in and they re registered him for the sixth grade. He probably should be in the fifth grade, but because of the possible issues with the law and falsified documents, he couldn't change schools. Luckily ours has a 6th grade or he would have been stuck. I see him every once in awhile. He's a terror now. But we still have that little connection from when I taught an 10yr old 9th grader.

Those are the highlights. I'll try not to let 8 months go by again without venting!!!