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Quarter 4... Week 5?

tarka — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 22:59:19 +0100

I have not posted anything since September. This year has been a whirlwind and there are a variety of reasons for not posting. The main cut off for me was that a couple weeks after my last post our corporate company fired our amazing middle school principal. As things had started to fall in to place the abrupt change caused an immediate hit to both the culture of the school as a whole and the staff culture. We were struggling; struggling for months and trying to establish the culture that we wanted in our school. We are still struggling to establish a high performing school and a culture of students who respect and care, but we have improved. There was a span of time in my first semester where the only person coming in to my classroom to observe (perhaps on a monthly basis even) was my advisor from Marian. Other than that I was chugging along. I received an email in January from the math department head saying that he was taking a position at another school and his leave was effective two days later. A month later the other middle school math teacher was put on a leave and there’s been a sub in her room since. Two weeks ago the other math teacher in the building went on leave and hasn’t been back. They got a new math teacher to replace the previous math department head in February. I am the only math teacher that has been at the school since the beginning. Currently we have two math teachers for the entire 7-12 building. We just got two permanent subs for the other two positions. I have been planning all of seventh and eighth grade math and extremely concerned for the 8th grade math scores. The high-stakes state testing begins in 5 school days. My seventh graders are in a decent place. We are hoping our students make growth even if they do not pass. Our goal this year is 60% passing in all subjects. I am not 100% sure we are on target for this and I feel extremely anxious. I know that at this point, I have one final week to review. I keep telling my students we are prepared but I am still worried! I hope to post more in the coming days and weeks. Overall, I have stayed pretty positive through this first year however I just couldn’t find the time to allow myself to blog. Here’s hoping that changes. It’s been challenging but I signed up for this challenge and I am convinced that my place is in the classroom.

Week 7

tarka — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 03:45:20 +0100

Craziness. Week 6 began with all of the middle school teachers moving their rooms from the first floor to the previously vacant third floor. My ~~boyfriend~~ AMAZING BOYFRIEND helped me move and decorate my room Saturday and Sunday of last week to ensure it was ready for my students, and it was. It helped a lot too, these students need continuity and structure, keeping the room beautiful and how they are used to helped a lot. We made it through week 6. Week 7 opened with schedule changes. COMPLETE schedule changes: teachers, students. Everyone in the middle school: new schedule. With this new schedule, the grades that we were frantically trying to enter last week for progress reports- did not transfer over. Neither did the attendance records in our teacher-system so the parents who are calling wondering why their student's grade is low- I can't view anything to see exactly why, all i can do is say generally what's the issue. But it's okay, it's going to be okay. This new schedule is structured so that the inclusion teachers can co-teach with us, so now we have an inclusion co-hort. A nice idea, but I do not have IEP's for any of my students. We are supposed to sign for them no later than Friday, but I know the list they have is not complete. It's frustrating but it is what it is. I am teaching all seventh grade with one 8th grade cohort. It's a new 8th grade cohort and in the system, a good percentage of them had defiance behavior marks. However, they've been angels for me. They're amazing and I am so excited to have them, to teach them. My seventh graders are still great, it's just frustrating because the abrupt changes and the breaches in consistency are clearly directly correlating to a lot of behavioral issues. Also, with this new schedule change, I have prep first period (previously seventh) and a 'support' period 2nd period. Today, 'support' meant that I was chasing down eighth graders and escorting them back to where they were supposed to be while the campus monitors and administration were all in a meeting together. One student I was unable to find out where she was supposed to be, the three classes she told me she was supposed to be in the teachers all declared "definitely not" so I ended up giving her a math packet and sitting with her. This was not without a lot of arguing and complaining on her part, but she listened to me and I had never had her as a student, so that's a plus. Culture is improving, I am still struggling with the TLAC 100% technique. It's taking my class 18 minutes to come up from lunch. Absurd. But, I refuse to move without the class silent and in a line, I refuse to be one of the teachers who lets their students run through the halls disrupting others. Today some disciplinarians (they're new- IDK their real names or their roles...) told me they could suspend any students who were disrespecting and being non-compliant. they pulled five students out- it only created chaos and three of the five were not suspended. It felt like it kind of undermined my authority even though I know they were trying to help. I have more to write but am exhausted. I just graded my 8th graders' pre-tests and one student who struggles to complete any work for most teachers, not only was on task in my class, but he only missed the vocab section of this pre-test. So excited. But now, it is time to sleep- night world, let the adventures continue.

What's in a Turnaround?

tarka — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 13:36:11 +0100

Week three is done and week four begins in less than 24 hours. We are a Turnaround school, we are improving, we are going to beat this negativity. The schedule keeps changing, in week 2, students received new schedules a few times and teachers received a new schedule on Thursday. In week 3, all of our schedules stayed the same, aside for a few students who submitted schedule changes. Week 4 is going to begin with a lot of schedule changes because they are adding honors courses. This time, the schedule changes are for a positive reason. I am not sure if this will affect the middle school or not but at this point, going with the flow is the way to keep your sanity. I have Joel Osteen on while I am writing this post this morning. His preaching helps keep me positive. I haven't had much time to read his book (okay, at all) but I get the updates on facebook and those two sentences a couple times a day are pretty uplifting. We HAVE to succeed. We WILL succeed. It's getting better. The most negative thing at school right now is the anger, violence, gangs, and drugs. We are all getting a handle on this though. There have been multiple fights this past week but the administration is making it clear we don't do that. The rosaries are still driving me crazy but the students are starting to realize we aren't going to tolerate anything. My biggest victory this week: I gave detention to seven students- since I handed it out, they had to come to my classroom after school. I had FOUR students show up. I know that's only a little over half, but this is huge. Four students, four that were disrespectful and disruptive, respected my authority enough to come to my room after school and serve their detention. These four students were more well behaved and respectful the following days than I had seen them. Hopefully this trend continues. Friday's detention didn't go as well, but I had awarded A LOT more. We started hall sweeps on Friday for Tardy students. If they are tardy, teachers lock their doors and they have to go to In School Suspension (ISS). A lot of students were tardy, and really angry with me for locking my door. But if I make exceptions now, they aren't going to follow the rules, ever. I even had students try to pull the door open as I was closing it but I still shut it. The perpetual tardies are disruptive and until they realize that I am serious, I am going to have to be a hard-core disciplinarian. Because we had a test Friday, if students were tardy, I put a note on my door for them to come after school to take their test. I am not giving up a day of instruction because my students were tardy. I had 4 students show up after school. They were all seventh graders and were all students I usually do not have any problems with but they were legitimately tardy after lunch. It's getting better. I signed up for this. See, signing up for Teach For America, I fully expected to be in a school like the one I am in now. I expected students to curse me out frequently (as a ploy to get out of class but I just reward it with detention). I expected students to be grade levels behind. I think the biggest shock is hearing other people in region complain and wanting to scream at them that they have no idea. We aren't complaining at my school. It's NOT that bad. It's rough, it's a process, but we're improving. It will get better, it is getting better, it has to. We are strong and we are going to close the gap, we do not have a choice.

First Week in Region: Finished

tarka — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 03:03:14 +0100

Just finished the monumental first week in region. It was a challenging, exciting, yet exhilarating first week. Being a turnaround school, there was a lot of unexpected happening, not to mention schedules changing daily, if not within each period! Hopefully in the next week or two our schedules (and those of the students!) begin to get finalized. Overall, I'd say I had a great first week. I had a few really challenging moments, including having to call a campus monitor for one period (the first day I had them) because I had too many students- more students than desks (and about 5 of them really weren't in the class, they just simply said 'here' when I called role!) That was the most disheartening moment of the week and will continue to be the most challenging part of my day but I think I am making some head way with them (that or they behave when I have people observing me in which case I may be in luck!). The entire school staff has been great, we have a lot of people supporting us and all of us teachers have really come together. The constant change can be difficult but it certainly keeps it exciting. Events from the week/things I learned in my first week:

Made it through the first lock down of the year (everyone was safe)
students are not allowed to wear rosaries to school (apparently, it's a gang sign- who knew?)
even when students have a choice to go to the school, they will be resistant to uniforms
my birthday was Tuesday (the second day of school) and students kept asking me how old I was this week. I was honest, told them I was 23 and they are convinced that I was lying and am really at least 32 (one said i've been teaching too long to be 23... yeah, let's go with that!)
behavior narration: it works in middle school. who knew? haha
whole brain teaching- still working hard for that buy in, seventh graders are thus far more eager than my eight graders
ALL of my students (except my one period I needed assistance with) heard the speech from We are Marshall. Instead of "funerals end today" we say failure ends (yesterday!) and they are pretty in to the idea of creating history and a legacy for themselves.
sometimes, the kids who act out are the ones who need you on their side the most. Finding this out this quick helped this week move smoothly.
our school had its first (girl) fight today. we all survived.
Creating the culture we want has been our focus for the week and we're still chuggin' to make this a reality.
My principals are amazing.
so is the entire staff.

Brief post, it's been a long week, hopefully I'll get another one in soon! overall, this week: success.

Not Gonna Lie...

Eddie — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:17:29 +0100

I don't feel stressed. Actually, I feel exhausted, caffeinated, overworked, jealous, dirty, and underfed. But I don't feel stressed. Why am I breaking out like a pubescent teenager then? I am sure you heard things like this when you were growing up: "In Middle School, they make you write in pen and cursive. No pencils and no erasers." Or: "British Lit AP is seriously the hardest class you'll ever take." People with experience always seem to make mountains out of mole hills, so when I heard 2011 Corps Members say things like, "Institute will be one of the most difficult things you've ever done," I took it with a grain of salt. I was kind of saying to myself, "Really?! REALLY?!" Seriously though, this is real, folks. I feel like that "David After the Dentist" kid. "Is this real life? I can't feel anything." Imagine wanting to go into a professional career that takes years to develop the necessary skills, smashing the accumulation of knowledge of it into five weeks, and tacking on two aptitude tests. Stressful, right? Not gonna lie... it's been pretty trying, but I saw something today that completely changed me. Something that made me forget the tedious lesson planning and vision creations, the sleepless night before or the lack of quality exercise. I saw Caesar's face.* Not the, "E tu Brute?" Caesar, but another kind. I saw Kira, Evan, Amy, Tony, and Missy's face. I saw Julie's face. These 2nd graders in Avondale, AZ are real kids. They have real dreams and they have real struggles. Some of them have parents who have been "gone to Mexico" for months while others are struggling to read at a Pre-School reading level. Somehow they're excitement to meet me and their vivacity to live their tiny little lives make me forget about my personal struggles to keep up with an ever-growing work load. They inspire me to get through those lesson plans and make sure that everything is in perfect working order by the time I enter the classroom. My life has suddenly gone from a revolution around my success, to one around these student's success and furthermore, our country's success. No, not as in the "It takes a village" sort of way, but in a way that we are all stewards of our country's future. Did I mention that I forgot how it feels to be the coolest person in the room? These 2nd graders can either make you feel like everything you're saying is golden or that what you've just said makes them, "Want to rip their eyeballs out." (Yes, a young boy actually said that about a math objective) I love 'em and can't wait to teach music in the fall! *All the names have been changed for privacy.

Institute 2012- Past the half way point

tarka — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 22:55:11 +0100

Wednesday marked the half way point for Phoenix Institute and we're still chugging. It may be surprising that I have time to write a blog but institute just keeps getting... more manageable. Going in to institute I heard horror stories of what life at institute was like, but I also received the best advice possible, "Institute is what you make it". It's been hard, it's been challenging, stressful, and tiring. But it's also been fun, educational (hehe), and amazing. By completing all the prework prior to arriving at institute I felt pretty prepared for what I was going to be experiencing. It's a lot of work, there's no way around it. There's also a lot of deadlines that seemingly pop up but se la vie. being flexible is key. The hardest was the first week of teaching when I got food poisoning on top of having three lesson plans due, but i made it through and had a really great day in the classroom. There have also been some collab problems I've faced personally, I know not everyone's institute experience is the same but the easiest way for me to describe it is that having done all the pre-work, it's really challenging when you try to do something the 'TFA way' in accordance with the sessions you have been attending, the pre-work, and what your FA, CS, and CMA are telling you to do and you're met with constant challenging and intimidation (almost to the point of bullying). A lot of that occurred the first two weeks. It's gotten better especially when one is given the wake up call of actually being in the classroom but even now, it's still happening on occasion. Luckily, the CMA's at the school are even noticing more than I myself am. I have just kind of adopted the mindset of go with the flow and picking my battles. If it is something that I strongly disagree with, I have gone against what the collab has decided and implemented my own thing during my hour of teaching. This, though it goes against the group think, has actually worked for the better in my class. I am enjoying teaching, I'm enjoying my students, and as nerdy as it is, I am enjoying all of the cessions. Personally, it's this mindset that has really gotten me through institute thus far. If you just open yourself to the abundance of information that is being given to you, it really makes everything SO much easier. For those wondering, if you can't already tell, I am drinking the koolaid. I am all about TFA, the methods, the backwards planning, the BMC (seriously the B.E.S.T. thing ever). Also, very very very fortunate for my CMA. Just left a session with her, went over how to visually track students in a way that would work best for the students to be able to see our successes as a class and she was very helpful! Made it really clear and I'm excited to put up my tracker tomorrow. So, institute is hard, but it's totally worth it. I am loving every stressful minute of it. As my mom said today on the phone, "it's great you're getting this training and support now before you even get to region". I couldn't imagine diving in right away, the first few days an hour was hard, but now it's getting easier and I feel pretty confident that a whole day won't seem so bad once I'm in Indy. Now, back to lesson planning.

Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed

Eddie — Tue, 22 May 2012 03:31:29 +0100

I live in the Mojave Desert of Southern California. Among the beautiful sunsets, exotic desert landscapes, and sun-filled environments, live a whole lot of Jackrabbits. Jackrabbits are peculiar animals. Most nights, it isn't uncommon to see at least three or four of them scurry into your headlights before realizing they've made a grave mistake. They quickly turn around and jump back into the desert landscape of Joshua trees and mustard weeds. But there are those few brave rabbits that instigate a game of "Chicken." The ones that see the headlights and stare, much like a deer except much smaller and whole lot cuter. You silently think, "Oh no bunny! Run away! Stop looking at me and run! I might hit you," but they don't flinch a single muscle. "No, no stupid human. You're going to move for me." Ultimately, I cave and swerve away from the rabbit as I watch its ears hop along the horizon of the bushes. "You win again, Jack. You always do." It is at this crucial point in my life that I feel very much like those brave little Jackrabbits. I am staring a huge obstacle in its face and telling it, "No, no. You'll move if I tell you to move." Being a classical clarinetist for a majority of my life, I've learned to never back down from a challenge, even if it means humiliating myself. There are those rabbits who see the dangers of failure, the headlights, the mechanical girth and inner workings of the car, and refuse to budge. Ok, so I'm not necessarily putting my life on the line to join Teach For America, but about 460 children are putting their education in my hands. Seems just as significant. Let's just hope I don't get ran over.

Preparing the move

sjcarney — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:49:15 +0100

Well this is a weird feeling. It started with my own TFA email. Then my own apartment. And now my own blog? Real life is getting closer and closer each day. I'm finishing up my final thoughts and reflections on the pre-institute work before packing for induction and institute that seemed so far away. Where did all of the time go? This is the last week of "freedom" for quite a while. Next week begins my life as a TFA corps member with induction in Indianapolis, and in two weeks I will be in Phoenix preparing for my time as a teacher in an Indianapolis classroom. After institute I have one week to move to Indianapolis, and in-service begins for Arlington High School teachers! I will be challenged more than I ever have in the upcoming weeks, and I don't know if I am ready for the challenge. I know that it will be very helpful, but am I ready for the hardest task of my life? Preparing my heart and mind is the first step in overcoming the difficult challenges at institute, and that is just what I will do. I must remember one thing: I can do all things through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

The beginning of Ms. Tarka's '0hana

tarka — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 23:51:35 +0100

When I was 12 (almost 13!) a Disney movie came out in theaters that my family would embrace as our own- Lilo and Stitch. I'm not sure if it is as big of a movie as we make it out to be, but it's huge for us. The underlying theme that is repeated throughout the movie is, " 'Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind... or forgotten". My family has moved a lot throughout my life, I went to three different middle schools and three separate high schools. My older and younger sisters each experienced this, respectively (my younger brother, he's the baby, went to five different elementary schools and two middle schools; he started a new high school in a city across the country as a freshman and he is currently in the same high school as a Junior- soon to be senior) . Luckily for me though, my younger sister skipped a grade so two of the high schools I attended with her. When you move a lot, family is what keeps you strong. Now that I am embarking on this grand journey to teach middle school, an age group that has- until recently- terrified me, it makes me think back to my middle school days. It seems appropriate then, that I should incorporate 'Ohana in to my classroom. I will let my students know that no one is going to get left behind, but as a family I will expect a lot out of them, and they should expect a lot from me. I started the pre-institute work the week before Spring Break, but have yet to put a considerable dent in to it. I have read many of the articles (some even overlapped with my Race, Culture, and Development psychology class this semester). Over Spring Break I read Teaching as Leadership, completely engulfed and fascinated while finding myself nodding along in agreement. I have wanted to join Teach For America for the past year, was fortunate enough to be accepted at the first deadline, and now with less than 25 days (not counting...) until graduation, I am so close to seeing a classroom of MY students. Sure, there is some (okay, a great deal of) anxiety but I think that if I can get through working, going to school full time, and swimming double practices daily with at least one, sometimes two, meets on weekends, just thinking about teaching and working with Teach for America makes me really excited. And when I say excited, I mean it's an adrenaline rush. I know it's going to be hard, but I love a good challenge. The more that people tell me 'good luck' with a smirk and a chuckle, the more enthused I become. I have worked at the Boys & Girls Club of San Francisco and the Boys & Girls Club of Huntington which made me realize the impact of the achievement gap plaguing the nation. The hiring fair is this weekend in Indianapolis and I have already looked up different IPS schools and charter schools in the placement region. I am a planner, it's bound to come out, that it calms me to have a plan, to research, to have an idea of what is to come. I think it comes from moving so much, it was nice to know what to expect, though reality was rarely completely intuned with what I had imagined. Spontaneity can be grand too, but I would really enjoy knowing EXACTLY where (and what...) I'll be teaching in the next year. I'm not going to make any promises on how frequently I will be posting. In the next couple weeks, between final papers and institute pre-work, I do not plan to post much; however, I do like the release that writing gives so I will probably post more once induction and institute begin. Back to the pre-work I go... -L

My first blog!

goldenapple — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:25:44 +0100

To some of you, I may seem overly excited about beginning my first blog. Truth be told, this is one of the highlights of my day. The past couple of days have been pretty rough, but today when I saw the kiddos at my placement, those problems seemed non-existent. I can always count on them to give me a good laugh. I have a long way to go to becoming the teacher I aspire to be, but as each day passes I'm one day closer to that dream. Two more weeks left of this semester before student teaching in the spring. Whoop whoop!