Teach For America teacher blogs are on Teach For Us

Attached

goldsteinog — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:56:35 +0100

Where have I been? Nowhere new. I have so many mini stories, heartbreaking stories, funny stories about the things kids say and the way they think and I honestly wish I had been keeping up with this blog so I could share them with all of you, instead of just my parents..though sometimes I'm pretty sure it's just my parents reading this. The kids are good, most of the time. And not in a behavior sense, but more in a social-emotional way. I've stopped thinking of kids as bad and good. All of my kids are good, sometimes they make poor decisions (the same way a drunk person might, because children are really just small drunk people), but they aren't bad kids. I can't say that the good morning hugs are getting old, because every single morning I've come in to school, there has been someone who wants to hug me. My dog doesn't even love me that much. Despite the love and the funny stories, I've been a wreck of a person recently. My administration and I are once again not functioning at a cooperative level and it's causing me a lot of anxiety and stress. We're back to that "don't talk to her unless she does something wrong, and then criticize her to hell and back" phase. LOVE IT. So I have a student with an IEP, he's autistic, and when he first showed up in my class I was dumbfounded. What do I do with him? How do I teach him? He couldn't write, he couldn't form words, just babble, he had no social skills, he was so far behind all my other kids and I had no training in special ed, not to mention working specifically with kids with autism. I was clueless. After I started realizing he was probably more scared of me than I was of him, I started realizing that this kid was actually way more advanced than all my other students. He knew all his letters, his numbers, he could sound and spell out words, he could read. Ok, so how do I teach him? I reached out to TFA, Easter Seals, Head Start, my supervisor, my university mentor, my professors...No one really had a lot to say. I was amazed that this kid had an IEP but wasn't receiving services of any kind and it didn't really seem to matter that no one was being trained on how to differentiate lessons to meet his needs. If no one else was going to do it, it was going to be me. This wasn't his first year in a Head Start classroom and they clearly hadn't addressed his needs the previous year, so I didn't see it happening this year. I know I'm definitely not the most effective teacher for his needs but I'm all he had. I researched autism, and I talked to a paraprofessional and I relearned a lot of sign language and I did everything with this kid. I figured out what he liked (letters and numbers), what he didn't (broccoli and green beans), and what motivated him (hugs) and that's basically what my curriculum has been based on all year. Now he's verbal, he knows all his letters and numbers in ASL, he can write letters and numbers and words (though I'm unsure if they hold meaning to him) and he's my baby. I don't mean that in a demeaning way. He's in no way infantile, or dependent on me, but by God does that kid love me, and the feeling is super mutual. I love all my kids, and I hug them all, and play with them all, and pick them up, and carry them around and tickle them. But for whatever reason, maybe it's the autism, or his family dynamic, or whatever, this kid has become particularly attached to me. Like, has started crying when I leave for the day, for 30 minutes-1 hour, attached. My supervisor has had enough of this attachment. She made it clear that I need to stop whatever I'm doing that makes him so attached to me because "we can't have him crying when you leave, he doesn't even do that for his mom". BAM. Just like that. Break it off. They finally had someone come in and evaluate the inclusion services being offered to him in the classroom. Let me reiterate that he is receiving no services. So how surprised were these people to come into my classroom and find out I'm "doing nothing" for him? And how surprised was I to find out that, despite all the efforts I'd been making since the beginning of the year, this was still my fault? And on top of that, someone questioned my ability to control my class. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET OUT OF MY CLASS, GET AWAY FROM MY STUDENTS, STOP EVALUATING ME AND DONT GIVE ME ONE MORE PIECE OF PAPER TO FILL OUT. I QUIT. But I didn't quit, because they're my kids, and they need me and I need them. And so I went into that meeting and finally stopped letting people trample me. I'm under no illusion that my students are quiet, obedient, angels but when you come into my classroom and have me bending over backwards to find you paperwork that the administrative assistant could have done, that means I'm not teaching. If I'm not teaching, then my kids are off schedule and acting up. They're 4 year olds this is not rocket science. So keep me out of your red tape and let my kids be. Someone in the meeting asked me why I didn't just tell Head Start "No, I can't fetch paperwork right now because my students are more important". Is that a trick question? With gritted teeth I replied, " I didn't think I needed to tell people whose job it is to advocate for underprivileged kids, that my students were more important than their precious paperwork". Everyone in that room outranked me, I didn't feel like I was really in a position to say no. I sat there for a few minutes, fuming, staring at all these people that were supposed to be doing so much good for my kids and their families and I've never been so disappointed. Maybe it's not my kids who are too attached, maybe it's me. But is that the worst thing?

Ring of Hope

amakstein — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:16:31 +0100

This week had been one of those weeks. Amidst the Chicago Public Schools strike, hearing about thousands of teachers fighting for their rights, it was business as usual at my charter school. I found myself waking up at the crack of dawn, dreading what was to come. The weather dropped arguably 20 degrees overnight, it was getting darker and darker when I woke up, and I couldn’t get my chatty 6^th graders to shut up for more than one second. To top it off, one of my boys wrote an obscenely vulgar facebook message to a girl in my class, which was then sent to everyone in the entire grade. It was three days into the week, but it felt like it had been an eternity. When I walked into my bathroom, I saw the ring that I got in Israel and hadn’t worn in weeks. In order to understand why that mattered, you need to understand the ring. You see, I never buy jewelry without having a specific meaning behind it. I play with my jewelry a lot, so each piece of jewelry I get comes with something I want to remind myself every time I touch it. I guess you could blame my therapist parents for that habit. I got the ring the last day in Israel to replace the thread we got to remind us of a vow we made the final night in Israel. My thread fell off within seconds, and I was determined to find a more permanent replacement to remind me of my own vow. I doubt that the Reality thread is like a birthday wish that won’t come true if you share it, so my vow was to never lose faith in what I was doing. So all day on the last day, I searched frantically for the perfect ring to remind me of that vow. I walked through the Arab market, rejecting ring after ring for not being the right one. Finally, I found a perfectly sparkly ring that looked like a flower growing. Of course, it happened to be the most expensive one. I tried to bargain him down, and I did some, but still paid more than I would have liked to because he assured me it was “pure silver” and “the best quality.” I took it back to the U.S. with me, and of course by day two, it had turned my finger completely green. Now every time I played with my ring, it just reminded me of the conniving jeweler that ripped me off. So I took it off and set it on my sink. But this morning I woke up and the ring caught my eye. I thought about why I got it- to remind myself I couldn’t lose faith in what I was doing and in myself. It was easy to make that vow on a carefree night in Israel, but it is these weeks that it’s the most necessary- the weeks where nothing seems to be going your way, and you’re overwhelmed and frustrated. These are the weeks that separate truly successful leaders from everybody else. So even though it was cheap, I put the ring on this morning. No, my day wasn’t magically better as in some fairy tale, but guess what? It didn’t turn my finger green, so things are looking up.

Thank you

goldsteinog — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 04:26:50 +0100

I'm from a small county in Virginia and that's where I went for the holidays this year. Despite it's size, it's one of the wealthiest counties for it's size in the nation and the public schools are amazing. I think I've mentioned before how lucky I am to have lived where I lived, and attended school there. I'm privileged, I'm white, and I probably can't relate to my students........or that was how TFA made it sound when I showed up for institute. I was going to have to put in double the work to relate to my students' families and understand the culture they come from. For the most part that's true. I have kids who don't have stable home lives, family dynamics I never had, and when the option is to talk to another teacher who can relate, or talk to, white, upper-middle class, me...take a guess as to who parents will reach out to. I had something to prove. This is something I've been struggling with for the first 4 months of school. It's hard to feel at home in a place that's so different from home. So when my holiday break began I rushed to my apartment to get packed and get on a plane home that night. As the plane touched down on December 21st at 10:30pm ET, I sat in the middle seat of my row, sicker than I'd been all school year, and I cried. I don't really know why I was crying. I guess I was just relieved, so relieved to be back with my family, back somewhere familiar, back home. Of course, being home meant all I did was talk about being in Chicago. I'd talk about my students, show pictures of my students, tell stories about my students, and I started to realize that maybe Chicago was more my home, and these kids (and their families) were more my family than I had originally thought and they still needed help, and I still had something to prove. So, I put a note out on the listservs for my neighborhood and some nearby ones as well, asking if anyone had anything appropriate for preschoolers that they might be willing to part with so I could use it in my classroom. When I put the note out I was hoping for books, my school is really lacking books and they're the most expensive things to buy. I got 16 responses in less than 24 hours, on Christmas Eve. It was amazing how many people reached out asking what they could do, what was appropriate to donate, and when they could come by to drop off stuff. I picked up box after box of toys, books, games and art supplies from people over my break and every time I said thank you and expressed how amazed I was by everyone's generosity. My parents have continued to pick up donations to ship to me since I've returned to Chicago and my mom keeps sending me updates about all the things they've received as donations. When she called me earlier, I was in the Target (I should move in to the Target) grocery shopping. She said she had been at a neighbor's house picking up donations put together by the 8 year old boy in the family. When my mom walked in, she said he was waiting for her to walk her through all the stuff he'd picked out to donate. After she had loaded things into the car he came up to her and gave her a $20 bill folded really small. He'd gotten some money for Christmas and said he wanted "to make a cash donation" to my kids. As I sit here, typing this, I'm crying, so you can't imagine what a wreck I was in the Target, 3 hours ago when my mom originally called and told me. I'm white, and I'm upper-middle class, and I had an excellent education and at some point I began to think of myself as being less qualified for my job because of those things. Like I didn't belong because I couldn't relate. I love my kids, and I love their families. I know that I didn't grow up in their neighborhoods, or attending their schools, I'll probably never face some of the challenges that they'll face living in Chicago. But I love my kids, and I love their families, and that's all I have to prove. I've never been so proud of where I'm from as I was today in the cereal aisle at Target. My parents support me, my friends support me, the community I grew up in supports me and with all that support I receive, I pass it on to my students. Because they might not be upper-middle class and they might not attend amazing schools, but I'll be damned if they don't grow up feeling supported by as many people in their lives as possible. So to everyone who donated and supported my classroom, myself, and ultimately, my kids, thank you. Thank you so much.

Look me in the eye

goldsteinog — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 02:04:19 +0100

I've been ignoring this blog for awhile, for no other reason than I've been up to my eyeballs in red tape and assessments and long-term plans, short term plans, visions, and observations. Is that a good enough excuse? Anyways, I'm not doing well, in fact I'm doing pretty shitty. I'm sure sometimes everyone feels like this right? I've just gotten tons and tons of criticisms recently and not a lot of pats on the back. I never thought I was the type of person who needed pats on the back to keep going, but I guess I am. I don't need one everyday, but it's nice to hear every once in awhile that you're not a complete fuck-up at your job. So today, after I got one more criticism added to my growing pile of straws that are getting ready to break my camel's back, one of my kids walked up to me and stared at me. She offered me some "tea" (empty red cup) and "cake" (plastic bagel) from her "cart" (a plastic ironing board she was dragging around the classroom) because "I know it's your favorite Ms. Olivia" and then kissed me on the cheek and said " I love you teacher" and walked away. I literally almost lost it right there in the middle of the art center of my classroom and started bawling. How can this child, who is 3, who can't for her life remember the difference between pink and green, who can only count to 8 (4 on her fingers), and thinks there are 4 "K"s in her name (there aren't), be so empathetic, a skill that it seems some adults in my life can't even master? Another one of my students, "my shadow" as some people call him, because he literally follows me everywhere, was sitting in my lap at the time and he started giggling hysterically. He's autistic and doesn't usually interact much with other students, but he grabbed her hand and mine and held them both for a minute and then gave me a toothy grin before getting up and wandering away to find some alphabet letters to play with. I'm new, and I'm not going to lie, sometimes I have no idea what I'm doing, sometimes I need more help than I'm willing to admit, and sometimes I'm just plain wrong. But sometimes I like to believe I'm doing something right, and in the darkness that's been my last couple days at work, the only thing I'm convinced I'm doing right is loving these kids. God (if he or she exists, Spirits, Earth Mother, whatever) as my witness I love the crap out of these kids. I just hope someone else can see that, and thinks it's worth something too.

Room to Think

amakstein — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:08:07 +0100

My corps experience pretty much goes like this: work around the clock while eating, sleeping, and breathing teaching, then have a break and recollect my thoughts. Right now I’m on fall break so my thoughts seem clear and I finally have a chance to think. In doing so I have been thinking about my opinions on what a child’s education should look like. I am constantly reminded of all of the things wrong with the current education system, but I don’t often think about what I would consider a successful education. With such a broad question, it helps me to think about the ultimate goal. (TFA lingo would call this “backward-planning.”) There are so many things that make me mad about the current state of the world, so I ask myself, what type of people does the world need in order to be a place that I’m proud of in the future? Our future needs people that are open-minded, people that think outside the box and come up with ideas to keep up with the ever-changing world that will advance human society. If this is the type of people that we need in the future, then why does my school and so many others revolve around straight lines, test-taking skills, and procedures. I have begun to really see the effect of such an education this year. As 6^th graders, I had hoped that my students could simply have a conversation about their opinions and think for themselves. But as I tried to do that, I quickly realized that my students didn’t know how to think on their own. They are so used to being told where to go and what to wear and how to stand in line and what symbol to use if you need to sharpen your pencil, that they are trained to simply do what they are told. In my mind, that is not an education. With the growing emphasis on test scores, strict classroom management and questions with only one “right” answer have defined my school and many others that I’ve seen. How can we expect kids to think for themselves and develop their own ideas if we are constantly telling them what to do? And how can we expect a more fruitful future if we don’t have any future leaders who can think for themselves?

My Way or The Highway

amakstein — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:06:57 +0100

When I was young, I spent most of my childhood playing school. I would make up worksheets, have fake parent-teacher conferences, grade fake papers. I went above and beyond as a ten year old, literally completing a test for each imaginary kid. But that’s how I’ve always been: I didn’t do things the way people said I should; I won’t do anything someone tells me to do; I refuse to even follow a cooking recipe. I lost that for a while the first half of the school year, when I pretty much lost myself. I got so caught up in the pressure: the pressure to be one of the ones who make a “profound impact;” to be the ones we hear about at institute with 2 years of growth; to be a teacher with a perfectly managed classroom. I forgot that in order to make a difference, I need to bring myself into it. I need to use who I am to make my own difference. I know that I have what it takes because I don’t fail; it’s just not something that I do. It’s not that I don’t struggle; things are hard but I always find a way. What I have to remember is that if I’m going to be the pilot in this classroom, I have to do things my way. Which means that there won’t always be perfect order. Lines won’t always be straight. There won’t always be one answer. Because that’s not who I am at all. I was raised by two therapists; I did my own hair in kindergarten; I have never drawn inside the lines. So I am not just another Teach for America teacher mixed into the statistics. I am me, and I will run my classroom the way that I am. It might be crazy and wild and unconventional, but at the end of the day I want these kids to know that they can succeed. And that they will. Even though they may wake up each morning with the world against them, with the sinking feeling that they are going to fail today, wanting to succeed and not knowing how. Because that’s how I wake up each morning, and they’ll see that I am going to succeed too.

August 21st-October 3rd

vivalamaestra — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 01:36:54 +0100

Wow. I can hardly catch my breath. How does any human accomplish all of the things that I'm expected to accomplish right now? I have officially left the "honeymoon" phase; the kids are showing some dark sides, and mine is starting to come out. I don't know how many times I told myself before the school year started that I wouldn't become the teacher who could not control her kids. I'm getting my ass handed to me. I almost wish I could start the year over, but that would mean I lose my only bit of accomplishment from these past 7 weeks--the fact that I am barely surviving. I try keep reminding myself of the reasons why I joined. I want to be an educator, I want to enrich lives...but do I want to do these things for an ultimately selfish reason? I couldn't stand working at a dead end job that had no... "nobility"... to it. So I went for the extreme opposite. I went for a job that gives any courageous individual the opportunity to touch and change lives. But I'm not so sure I was ready for every single thing that comes with that. Teaching is hard. So very hard. At least for me it is. You have to be passionate. Otherwise, there is no way you can last. My passion is starting to wane, only because I cannot carry on the way I have been for the past 7 weeks. I cannot find a work-life balance. I literally do not have a minute to myself. I'm at school for 10 hours. And when I get home, I am planning for 2 more hours. Even my dreams are filled with my kids, my inadequacies, my mind's recreations of tumultuous moments from the day. My mind will not let me escape it. This probably stems from my 'highly ambitious' and 'relentless' spirit. But is that healthy? At the moment, I feel that I have lost my mental health. My only saviors are my cats and my boyfriend; thankfully they are with me. I could never do this alone. And thankfully, I have wonderful friends and family who are always there for me over the phone. But when it comes down to it, it's just me. I'm solely responsible for accomplishing what I have set out to do...and it's not looking so good right now. Some of them are so behind, so unmotivated, so uninvested, and so on the edge of breaking off like an eroded piece of land. Then others are so passionate, so invested, so motivated, and so ahead. I can't meet the needs of any of them...I'm doing both extremes a disservice because I am barely able to handle the workload. This leads to guilt, and then to anxiety...and then what? I can only hope that I don't break down in front of my classes. But today has been such a taxing week...they're testing me over and over and over again. Nearly 50 percent of new teachers in urban districts leave teaching during the first three years. I'm not making any rash decisions, but I can definitely understand that statistic. Like I said, this is difficult (<--and that is an understatement). I remember myself at this exact point last year. I desperately wanted to be part of the movement. I cried at the thought of not being accepted. I scoured the internet for advice on blogs. I still can't believe I'm in. So if you somehow come across this in urgent hope for some answers, I have a few pieces of advice: Do not use this as a replacement for anything else. If there is something else you'd rather do, and you just need to bide your time until you can go for that other thing, don't apply. Don't pretend you care. No one will win if you end up seeing it through. On a similar note, do not do this just because you do not know what else you will do. This is not a way to soul search. Realize that this is really difficult. Surely, I am not someone who has had much challenge in life. It is probably difficult for that very reason. Still, just understand that it is the extreme opposite of a walk in the park. It's Tartarus. But I will fight on. One period at a time.

Motivation

goldsteinog — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 01:50:43 +0100

I'm having trouble motivating my kids. I'm getting so exhausted repeating myself all the time. Repeating instructions, repeating rules, repeating expectations and constantly expecting a different result...isn't that the definition of insanity? I guess it's only the 2nd week...

STRIKE

wagonwheel — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 18:06:24 +0100

A scrambled and somewhat incomplete recap of observations and thoughts coming from a first-year CM/CPS teacher on the first (last?) day of the CTU strike in Chicago.

My school is very pro-Union. During my first union meeting this summer, before a strike date had even been set, teachers were talking angrily in the meetings and seemed ready to strike already. After the meeting, I heard some other opinions with more mixed feelings, but I never heard any feelings completely against the strike.
Once, during a union meeting in late August, this happened: Our union representative was telling us about CPS's early contingency plan, which consisted of keeping schools open, having the kids come in, and sending in scabs to essentially babysit the students while we picketed outside. Describing the babysitters, he said, "CPS is going to send in scabs and TFA and subs to run the classrooms..." Two or three teachers in the room knew I was in TFA, so my immediate reaction was paralysis and shame, but everyone voiced their frustrations without sending me any obvious dirty looks, so I relaxed. Then, I realized that TFA Chicago probably doesn't have any extra CMs to just throw around in the possible case of a strike, leading me to realize the overreaction of CTU's fear of these babysitters. I didn't say anything, and no one mentioned TFA again.
One of the classes next door to mine had 37 kids on the roster at one time. Many teachers constantly talk about when this "leveling" is going to happen by the administration, where class numbers are evened out. For example, I had 35 students on a roster for one class, and 18 on the roster for a different one. It's this kind of unevenness is frustrating in the classroom. CTU is fighting over class-size limits.
Our school year started mid-August, in the middle of the hottest month in Chicago. My classroom does not have air conditioning. My students walk into the room and refuse to do work for the first two minutes because they're steaming from walking up the stairs, and then they tell me that "It's TOO HOT!" to which I reply, "Tell me about it, I've been in here all day!" Let's imagine 30 of these students in your classroom, sweat dripping, tensions high, fans on blast, and cramped quarters. Pretty picture?
TFA Chicago has told us we should do whatever we feel is necessary in the event of a strike. We can picket, we can stay at home, we can volunteer at another school (haven't heard much about this, though), we can do whatever.
There has been open dislike of Rahm Emanuel at our school. One of my coworkers has called him "a big bully."
Apparently, an official at charter network UNO told the press earlier today that CTU's language toward charter schools "does nothing but flame tensions." Chicago is a huge charter-school town. I don't know the statistics, but TFA places a large number of CMs in charter schools. (Sidenote: When I was getting staffed at CPS's downtown office, I heard a former charter school teacher talking about UNO, saying that the reason TFA places at charters so much is because TFA money partially funds the schools. (Not sure if that's true... but I wouldn't doubt it.) Those CPS teachers were not exactly thrilled about this.)
An issue where CTU and TFA differs widely is the evaluation system. CTU does not want a teacher evaluation system based on test scores or student performance. This, however, is an important part of TFA's foundation, because TFA believes that any powerful leader in the classroom can make significant gains, no matter the conditions outside the school. I agree that poor teachers are horrible and give us all a bad name, and that each educator needs to push their students and themselves to reach for the stars. But not every worker in CPS has pledged with the same passion and commitment to close the achievement gap in two years, and they weren't required to do so; some of them want to be teachers for reasons other than test scores. Not all of them have the support of CMs. They don't have a CMA helping them out and pushing them further, or a community of CMs across the city to continue to motivate them through the tough times.
ETA: Oh yes! Today, as our picketing was ending in our neighborhood, our union leader told us that we needed to call up our coworkers who weren't there and tell them, "We'll gladly fight for your job, but you should be doing the same for us." We were all encouraged to go downtown this afternoon and be part of the big demonstration at CPS headquarters. Wheeeeeeee.

So, how do we balance being CPS teachers and CMs? The tension between being a part of Teach For America, the program that believes in doing whatever it takes for our students, and being part of a union-culture fighting for better benefits, perceived as selfishly wanting more for themselves than for the kids, is a lot to handle right now, and I honestly can't pick one side. Do I have to? I don't know. We'll see what happens.

First, second day

goldsteinog — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 02:14:01 +0100

So I got a job, finally. And it's a job that isn't affected by the teacher's strike which will start on Monday. I'm teaching 10 (though I have yet to have all 10 show up for school) 3-5 year olds in a community based organization (CBO) for half day pre-k. They're pretty adorable kids and I wish I could put up pictures of them, but for obvious privacy reasons, I won't. Ava and I spent three days here setting up the classroom before Labor Day weekend, and I still have tons of work to do. My room is pretty small, which is fine because I don't have many kids, but I need more room for tables and chairs where the kids can spread out to do activities. Right now a ton of Creative Curriculum stuff is taking up space on one of my tables while I sort through it and figure out what I want to use. Ava made my bulletin boards really pretty with borders and backgrounds but there's nothing really posted on them as of yet. There's a place nearby that offers tons of free resources and services to ECE teachers, one of which is free laminating, which I want to go take advantage of some evening. When you teach Pre-K, I've learned, you really need to laminate everything or it will get ripped, colored on, or torn down within minutes. I also have bee hives (for the busy bee class) that I want to laminate and use as signs for the centers, although, my kids only like to play with blocks and dramatic play. The first day I think was really only nerve-wracking for me. Most of my kids have a. been attending this school for a year, and b. were attending summer camp at this school the previous week. So I don't think many of them understood why I kept making a big deal about the 1st day of school. Anways, we sat on the carpet and they watched me act like a nervous wreck while everything I had planned for that morning flew out of my head. Then they went to centers, went outside, went to lunch and went home. And that was it. I realized all of a sudden how short a half day pre-k class was going to be and I started to change my plans for the next day. So the second day I managed to get slightly more learning in to the mix. We read a book ("Wemberly Worred") and then drew pictures of things that scared us or made us worried. Things were going well until one of my students, who I think is new to the concept of school, started throwing a fit because he didn't understand why we couldn't play all the time. I feel like we'll be dealing with this issue for awhile. I'll keep you updated!