This is Not the End

Dear Michaela,

You’ve been waiting for this year for a long time. This is the year where you finally get to try your hand at the profession that has been calling your name since you were a sophomore in high school. You’re pumped up. You’re excited. You’re optimistic.  

And all of that is great.

But please understand that student teaching will not be anything that you thought it would be.

There are so many things you do not know.  And that you cannot possibly know, until you gain experience.

Experience truly is the greatest teacher, and you need to respect that.

You’ve been hearing the same advice in classes for 2 years now, and because of that you think you know how to apply it.

Unfortunately, you do not.

You do not know how to maintain an appropriate teacher relationship with students.

You do not know how to be strict and firm but also caring and personable.

You do not know the power of think time. Or the simple yet magnificent power of a timer.

You do not know how much the students in your classroom are going through.

You do not know that sometimes you truly have to accept that there are some students who you are not going to be able to reach. 

Granted, these are all things you have heard millions of time before. But you won’t actually KNOW them, until…you do. 

It’s a pretty crazy phenomenon actually. One day you will wake up and it will seem like every other day, but then you will step into your classroom to realize that something has clicked.  And you actually GET IT.  You get what your professors were saying when they told you that you’re not allowed to bend on the rules. And you get what Dr. Cramer was trying to say when she told you that you need to work on your lesson delivery.

You’ll feel confident.

You’ll feel like the real deal.

You’ll feel like a teacher.

So my one piece of advice is this: be patient.

Give yourself grace and understand that you’re going to be bad at teaching in the beginning because the most important skills that make a good teacher cannot be taught (ironically). You have to feel them. You have to experience them. You have to inherit them.

So understand that this year is supposed to be painful. And uncomfortable.   And a little bit miserable.

Because that means you’re growing.

And if you’re not feeling a little bit lost and confused, then you probably aren’t doing it right.

You’re nervous and stressed and anxious because you care. And you’re pushing yourself. 

Eventually these feelings will go away. And you’ll start to formulate new fears and anxieties that make your student teaching worries seem laughable.

This is growth.

This is the whole point.

So quit being a baby and allow yourself to be humbled.

Allow yourself this time to learn and soak it all in.

This is only the beginning.

Not the end. 

Online Reflection #3: The Pains of Protecting Poor-Performers

USD 259 is in a hiring freeze.

There is no better way to say it - no possible way to rephrase these words in order to eliminate the frustration, confusion, and anger that almost all educators across Kansas are feeling.   

This hiring freeze stems from an approximate $30 million budget cut that Wichita Public Schools are being forced to face.

Now the budget cut in and of itself is causing a lot of anger. And this anger is mainly being directed at our fine governor who does not feel it necessary to create revenue for our state by taxing those who make absurd amounts of money (this may be oversimplifying the matter, but I have a feeling this is what it all boils down to). 

And I would like to go on the record by saying that I agree that our governor is dimwitted and deserving of all of the heated comments that come his way.

But he is not who I am concerned with. At least not right now.

I have another concern.

A concern that I believe is much more problematic on a grander scale than a lot of us want to realize.

This concern has to do with the teachers’ union, our teaching contract, and the reason that the hiring freeze is going to cripple both teachers and students.

An administrator at my school (who will remain nameless) once made the statement, “Your contracts are going to kill you.” At first I was taken aback by this statement. Wasn’t my contract supposed to be the thing that advocated for me and ensured I was being compensated fairly for my teaching performance? How could this sort of an advocacy be a bad thing?

I posed this question to my administrator and was then given an answer that made me furious.

***THE FOLLOWING IS A SIMPLIFICATION OF THE ANSWER MY ADMINISTRATOR GAVE ME. ALL ERRORS FOUND WITHIN THIS EXPLANATION SHOULD BE BLAMED ON ME NOT ON ADMNISTRATION.

Basically, what I’ve come to understand is this: Budget cuts are causing schools to cut personnel. This means that teachers will more than likely lose their job within certain schools. There is a specific order that teachers are cut when under contract. Those first to go are those that have been identified as needing special assistance (a.k.a underperforming, struggling teachers). After this, seniority takes over with new hires being let go first, then first years, so on and so forth.

So. With this information, one would think that all the teachers that have been identified as needing special assistance would be let go, and that we could move on with fixing our budget and not feel too sad.

UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS NOT THE CASE.

Instead of being able to simply let go of these underperforming teachers once and for all, they are instead simply taken from their position in their current school and moved to fill a vacancy within their content area at a different school. Thus, their bad talent is merely being transferred from one school to another while also stealing away a job from what could be an extremely gifted and impactful educator whose application is not even being considered due to the hiring freeze.

These transactions make me sick. And are largely in part due to the teachers’ union, the contracts they create, and their undying loyalty to defend all teachers, regardless of their effectiveness in the classroom.

There is a special term for this trading of poor-quality teachers and it is called “the Lemon Dance.” Because unions make it almost impossible for teachers to be fired from a district completely, schools will simply move them from school to school because they have no other way to get rid of them. This infuriates me for several different reasons:

1.       They are making the same amount of money as me for doing lower-quality work

2.       They are taking jobs away from people that are much more capable than them

And maybe most importantly…

3.       THEY ARE NOT PROVIDING CHILDREN WITH THE PROPER EDUCATION THAT THEY DESERVE.

How can our nation’s leaders (yes this is a national problem – please watch the documentary “Waiting for Superman” if you don’t believe me) sit and complain about how poorly the U.S. ranks in terms of education when compared to other countries, and then allow this monstrosity to continue?

I have always believed that quality of education stems from the top. We must have extremely high standards for our education colleges and professors, which will then trickle down into having high standards for teachers, which will finally trickle down into having high standards of students.  Unfortunately, this is not currently a reality, and I’m starting to personally feel the effects.

My close friends, the people who have gone through the arduous journey of receiving a teaching degree are not being hired because their jobs are being given away to those who are less deserving.  More importantly, I am seeing how far behind certain students of mine are due to their having a teacher who was less than adequate in previous years.

I know this post isn’t politically correct, and that it may even be offensive and extremely one-sided. I am aware that maybe someday the union will come and rescue me from a lawsuit I don’t deserve and that I will then be forced to eat my words.

But until that day comes, I believe I have the right to be angry. And to call out teachers’ unions for letting down both parties that they intended to protect: teachers and the students they serve. 

On-line Reflection 2: An In-Service to Remember

A miracle occurred on February 16, 2016.

I enjoyed an in-service.

And I don’t just mean that I survived with only minor complaining. I genuinely enjoyed myself, and left feeling revitalized and inspired with the want to improve my teaching practices.

The topic of the day was the Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model, with an emphasis on Elements 17-20.  Now I have to admit that when I first heard what we were going to be discussing, I instantly felt a little apprehensive.  While Marzano has been a buzz word that I have heard frequently throughout my two years in the College of Education, I had almost no pre-existing knowledge about what/who Marzano was and how it applied to me as a student teacher. Thus, I felt as if the day would consist of me listening to a lot of information that did not pertain to me and feeling as if I was one sentence away from falling asleep. 

However, I soon came to find out that the Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model is how the majority of new teachers are being evaluated, which definitely grabbed my attention.  And as I began to closely listen to the information being discussed, I started to buy into what this Marzano guy has to offer.

Dr. Robert Marzano has been researching effective teaching strategies for over 40 years, with the result being a compilation of his research in a book titled The Art and Science of Teaching.   This book provides instructional strategies that are linked to student achievement.  These strategies are split up into four domains:

1.       Classroom Strategies and Behaviors

2.       Planning and Preparing

3.       Reflecting on Teaching

4.       Collegiality and Professionalism

These domains contain elements which are further organized by Domain Questions (DQ).  The Domain Questions build upon one another so that DQ1 focuses on elements surrounding the basics of communicating learning goals and classroom procedures, while D93 is all about communicating high expectations for all students.  Teachers are then evaluated on how well they perform and implement different elements by their administrator during observation periods.

This organization and style of evaluation greatly appeals to me.  I like that I can pick one domain to focus on for improvement, and then utilize the specific elements within that domain to guide and hone my instruction within the classroom.  The main focus of the in-service last Tuesday was Domain 1, DQ3, Elements 17-20.  These elements have to do with helping students practice and deepen their knowledge, which is something that all teachers are hopefully striving to do.  As we discussed these elements we were told several mistakes that teachers make during observations that cause these elements to be unobservable (i.e. no wait time, lecturing, etc.).  However, we were then given helpful and realistic ways that we could incorporate these elements into our classroom (i.e. graphic organizers, interdisciplinary connections, and questioning techniques).    

Due to this information, I would like to make it a goal for myself to focus on Element 18 (Helping students examine their reasoning), 19 (Helping students practice skills, strategies, and procedures), and 20 (Helping students revise knowledge).  These elements appeal to me because they encompass literacies that are imperative within every content area, as well as in the real-world.  I plan on incorporating these elements by engaging in the following teaching practices:

1.       Planning out thought-provoking questions and asking them several times throughout a course of study

2.       Providing more wait/think time

3.       Organizing responses/information in a graphic organizer that will be used as a reference throughout the course of study

4.       Prompting students to reference and add to graphic organizer throughout the course of study

5.       Have students analyze how understandings/opinions have changed throughout the course of study via the graphic organizer

In summary, the overall goal is to make students more aware of their thinking process by helping them organize and capture their thoughts throughout a unit in a graphic organizer. While this may sound silly and boring, I believe that if implemented consistently and with rigor, it will be an effective strategy.

***If you are interested in more information about The Marzano Evaluation, their website (found at http://www.marzanoevaluation.com/) also provides an expansive number of resources that are free and easily accessible for teachers

Online Reflection 1 for Spring 2016 - Bad Things WILL Happen

Bad things are going to happen.

You’ll neglect to work out for the 14^th day in a row because you’re just too tired,

and you’ll decide to snack on Oreos and barbecue chips instead of carrots and hummus.

You’ll indulge and make the decision to stay up late and watch “New Girl”

and justify it with “you deserve it.”

You’ll be tired the next morning, so you’ll snooze your alarm, oversleep,

and then rush to school with greasy hair and wrinkled clothes.

Your students will notice your greasy hair and the dark circles

under your eyes, and they will not fail to point them out.

“Miss, you look tired today.”

Wow. Thank you. Just what I needed to hear.

You’ll think you have developed the perfect lesson,

and you’ll start to think nothing could  possibly go wrong.

But then,

everything,

and I mean everything,

will fall to pieces.

Students will yell across the room, leaning so far back on the legs of their chairs

that they are parallel to the ground.

They will ask you to repeat instructions that you have already repeated

that you have already repeated

that you have already repeated

three times,

and then they will go on to complete

absolutely

nothing.

You’ll feel defeated.

Like pursuing this profession was the worst decision you’ve ever made.

Like no matter what you do, it will never be enough.

You’ll continue to let these thoughts swarm your brain

until you feel like you’re just one misbehaved student away from giving up.

From quitting.

There’s a story of a man who encounters a girl on the beach,

throwing starfish into the ocean.

He asks why she is doing this, and she responds, “If I don’t throw them in, they will die.”

The man looks down the long stretch of sand covered in starfish and says “There are so many.”

“You cannot possibly make a difference.”

The girl looks up at the man, throws one more starfish into the ocean, and replies,

“It made a difference for that one.”

You’ll begin to realize that you’ve become the old man;

that you’ve neglected to realize how lucky you are to be in the position you’re in.

And with that, you’ll begin to rejuvenate yourself.

You’ll go back to the gym and remember how good it feels to run and sweat and work.

You’ll start to eat healthy, and begin to choose apples and carrots over cookies and chips.

You’ll start to appreciate all the individual quirks that your students have,

and learn how to accommodate them within in a classroom.  

And when you inevitably have a day where it feels like nothing went right

and no student learned a thing,

you’ll remember one positive student interaction you had and know

“It made a difference for that one.”