Reality Check

Two interactions over the last two days caused me to take a step back from my middle-class world, and appreciate everything I have that I take for granted.

In drama class, we were reading an abridged version of MacBeth. While trying unsuccessfully to help a student understand the idea of “theme” I was caught off guard when he asked me what I knew about welfare. I told him not much, and asked why. He said, “Well, I want to see if they can set me up with an apartment, so that I can keep coming to school.” Then the whole story came out – he is 17, has been kicked out of his house for months and is currently staying with a cousin, but is feeling like a burden, and not wanting to outstay his welcome. He is still in grade 10, with no high school credits, but has a desire to complete school. The significance of theme vanished immediately, and I took him to our Student Services teacher, who referred him to an Elder we have on staff to work it out. He came back to class later that morning, and seemed in better spirits, assuring me that he had a plan. Oh, and he suggested that a possible theme for the play would be that power corrupts.

The other interaction occurred yesterday, when a student tracked me down in the hallway and apologized for missing my class that morning. He explained that he had an appointment with Social Services to see if he would qualify for Social Assistance. He told them that he wants to quit his full-time job, so he can focus on getting through school. However, when he was there, he didn’t have all of the identification required, and so he had to walk back to his house (a 45 minute walk in -30 degree Celsius temperatures) and get it. He stopped in at the school for a minute en route back to the office to tell me why he was absent, and why he had to leave again right away, and would miss the rest of his classes for the day.

Moments like these remind me that teachers at my school are fighting an uphill battle against poverty and its myriad of side effects. So much affects our students that is beyond both our, and their control. I am also reminded of the privilege afforded me through no doing of my own – my white skin color, my middle-class upbringing, my literate family, my supportive parents – I could go on, but you get the point.

People don’t know how to search on the internet

One of the features of wordpress is that it shows you what search engine terms were used to reach your blog. Perusing these has proved quite humorous and baffling – baffling first off, because people search for ridiculous things, and secondly because somehow these odd searches reach my blog.

Here are some choice searches as of late:

“drama for teaching energy”  — and what are you trying to teach this energy? How to do drama? Or are you using drama to teach it? And, more importantly, could we harness the energy, once taught, and use it to reduce our reliance on coal generated power?

“learn from this project” — and which project are you speaking of?

“furnace blasted 60 degrees” –fahrenheit or celsius? That makes a big difference. What were you hoping to find with this search? People with a common affliction for tropical temperatures indoors in the winter?

“classroom activity teaching students” — if this is your starting point for teaching students, I fear for the state of education.

“will chris ever take me home today?” — are you using Google as your own personal magic eight ball? And, if you are, is it reliable? What did it say? Will he? (It should be noted that my page is the FIRST to come up when you search this phrase, narrowly beating out a tabloid article on Paris Hilton. Take that, Paris.”

Oh my.

Week #2 – half way through…

Well, it’s Wednesday, and we have had to change some things up with the project. As our students move through the coursework/activities/assignments/labs/whatever at different speeds, we’re finding that providing them with 3 class options in each time slot isn’t working, and there are times when one class has 40 students and the other two have less than15. To combat this, we’ve moved to 4 offerings in every time slot. With 5 teachers dedicated full time to the project, and one teacher required to be in “The Pit” at all times, we’re a bit swamped. Our admin has been supportive, and we have a teacher who makes phone calls for us first thing in the morning, as well as another that is available for two hours in the middle of the day three days a week, and a third who is with us in the afternoon. Luckily, we also have three volunteers from the Faculty of Education at the University, who between them will be out an average of three days a week until Easter. These stop-gap measures will hopefully help us keep our sanity (and a few minutes of prep time) for the remaining eight and a half weeks.

On Monday, two of us presented the project to a group of pre-service teachers at the University. After presenting, my faculty advisor for my masters (who was there watching) came up, and told me that I needed to get an ethics proposal in right away, because I will probably want to use data from the project for my thesis. Luckily, Monday is a holiday, so we are meeting then to discuss what I need to do. Saturday I finish my Response Ability Training course, and luckily I have no reading for my grad class this week, because we have no class next week. However, I do have two big assignments which I should work on right away.

Next week, we present the project to the Vice-principals from the division. We’re excited to wow them with what we’ve come up with. Or at least make them think outside the timetable.

Oh my.

All that said, I’m very engaged with work, and really enjoying working with the students and my colleagues. What more can a guy ask for?

Project Week 1 – A retrospective

What a week! When I left at 4:15 this afternoon to get to a 5:00 inservice, the other project teachers were still hashing out the timetable for next week. This characterizes the week, I think – we were flying by the seat of our pants. However, we sure flew. We have 110 students enrolled, and we’ve had 100 of them come through the door (This is a ridiculously high rate for our school). We’ve had to photocopy more copies of everything, find more chairs, add shelving, and deal with way more students than we ever imagined. Now, the challenge will be to keep them coming.

So far students are engaged. In my drama class, we laugh a lot. Each class has a different composition. Since my class backs different classes in Commercial Cooking, Information Processing, English or Entrepreneurship every time, the students who come are never exactly the same. In spite of this, we’re building some rapport, and students are getting more comfortable with each other. We have a guest teacher (a local actor) coming in for 2 days next week, which I’m looking forward to.
Today students finished the week with a journal entry about their experiences thus far in the project. I read a few, and was very happy with what students are saying. There is one boy in particular who is easily distracted (and distracting) in class, and often gripes about being held accountable – however, in his journal, he said that he was enjoying school much more than last quarter. Another young woman wrote that she actually wanted to come to school now. These are the comments that make all the hard work worthwhile.

Next week should be calmer, because we’ve worked some things out. This week, we were spending an hour at the end of each day compiling 6 periods of attendance for 100 students. Starting Monday, we’ll be using a card with check-boxes for each class over the next 2 weeks that students will carry in their yellow duotang/hall pass, and get stamped at each class. This will make tracking individual attendance much easier, and result in less collating at the end of the day. Also, our admin has given us more staff — we have a teacher who spends the first hour of the day calling students who were absent the day before. To track this calling, the board office tech folks have created a secure online database that all staff can access, where he enters information. Click on a student’s name, and up pops all communication made with the family. Invaluable, and it will save us from what happened this morning – I called a young man who was absent, only to be informed that he was ill, and that I was the third person to call home within the hour. Also, we have another time teacher assigned to us every second day for 2 hours. This will allow for some team teaching, as well as enable us to take an hour of prep a day, which no one has had thus far. Our preps this week were spent in “The Pit” (our home base) tracking students, calling home, or dealing with an influx of late students.

There has been some stress on staff caused by the influx of students. We only have 2 classrooms in addition to The Pit, and, as such, are constantly needing to use the library and computer lab. So far, the Info Pro 20 class has moved to a classroom, and are using a cart of laptops, which frees up a room for a couple hours in the morning. However, any time you’re sharing space, it is stressful. The Pit is also much too small — we meet at the beginning and end of the day, and it is standing room only. Now, if only we had a new building with adequate space

We are tracking student perceptions of learning and school in this project, but I think that the project will have a profound effect  on staff as well. So far we are working our butts off – and really enjoying it. We are connected to each other, and having a great time in spite of the stress (we laugh a lot). Also, we are connected to students (and a lot of students!) and the project enables us to feel accomplishment. To Control Theory it, our power, belonging, freedom, and fun needs are through the roof! To Circle of Courage it, we’re experiencing Mastery, Belonging, Independence, and Generosity in spades.

At the Response Abilities Pathway Training I took tonight (and take tomorrow and next Saturday) I was reminded that we retain things in our mind that are emotionally significant — and this project is definitely emotionally significant for us. Now, the challenge will be to ensure it is for our students, as well.

Drama Class

Today we had our first real drama classes, and there is much to tell, but I’ll stick to one story:

Student A – we’ll call him Harold – is doing an exercise with me on Accepting, one of the fundamentals of improvisation. In the exercise, Harold is to enter with an offer, or an idea, and I am to respond with “Yes” accepting his offer and building on it. Perhaps you know the game. Here’s how it played out:

Harold <enters petting a fake cat> My cat is sick. Can you look at him?
Teachingchris: Yes, I am a vet. What’s the problem seem to be?
Harold: <motioning below the cat> Well, the shit. There’s shit everywhere.
Teachingchris : <motioning to Harold’s white sneaker> Even on your shoe. Gross.
Harold: So can you fix him or what?
Teachingchris: Well, I suppose. Leave him here and I’ll look at him.
Harold: How do I know I’ll get him back?
Teachingchris: Why would I want a cat covered in crap?

I am not sure that this translates well to the blog, but as I said before, that isn’t too important — what is important to me is documenting these quick interactions, for they are the stuff that teaching is made of. Moments of brilliance, moments of humor, moments that make you shake your head.  More moments to come…

Project Day 1 – A Retrospective

It is 6:01 and I am ready for bed. If only I didn’t have so much work left to do. Oh, and supper to eat. And clothes to iron.

But, enough whinging.

Today was a CRAZY BUSY day! We knew this coming in — we planned it this way. The goal was to engage the students right away – have them doing doing doing so that at the end of the day it didn’t even feel like a day has passed, and they had many positive memories from the day.

We began with a pancake breakfast, and an overview of the day. Students received their tracking duotang, and filled in the schedule for the day. Then, we went down to the gym and did two team building activities –gym mat surfing and “walk the line” (similar to what they do on Oprah I’m told.) We were pretty happy with the level of commitment — the students really engaged in the activities. Okay, not all of them, but the majority. I snapped some pics in the poorly lit gym which I will post in the classroom first thing tomorrow.

From here, we went back to the classroom for some reflection — we’re trying to pitch the project as a fresh start for the students: a chance to move on from past behaviours, patterns, and failures. So, they completed an activity where they wrote a “Toast for Change.” We had a 15 minute break, continued with the toasts, and then went back to the gym at 12:00 and students worked in groups through four different initiative tasks. Then, lunch came, and we had an hour to catch our breath. For the afternoon, students completed a pre-survey for us to gather some data to assess where students were at prior to the project in terms of commitment to and satisfaction with school, preconceptions about learning, etc. Then we were back in the gym for mini-activities from each of the classes, to help students decide where they want to focus their energy.  We finished back in the classroom, hoisting plastic wine glasses with sparkling apple juice, finishing the day with a “Toast for Change.”

Now, I know you’re thinking – but Chris, that doesn’t sound so bad. Why are you so tired?

Well, we have students who are used to working independently on modules — there is very little direct instruction in our school. This is because of inconsistent attendance, which results in students being in different places at different times. Thus the need for independent, self-directed work. When working solely on modules, taking a break is common, and teachers are pretty understanding. Since our classes are an hour and 45 minutes, it isn’t unreasonable for a student to go to the bathroom during class, or, well, just go for a walk. However, though they are well intentioned, the teachers have enabled many of our students to develop the undesirable habit of wandering. With the project, nothing is ever longer than an hour, and most things last less than 45 minutes. This is to address the boredom that often occurs in the longer classes.
But our students were edgy today. They felt confined (and this was our fault, too – we had over 50 kids crammed into our room, which, though it is larger, isn’t exactly huge.) Even though we had every minute planned, there was down time — students completed things at different times, and students arrived sporadically all throughout the morning. So, next time, we would run the orientation as a class that students must attend, and rotate them through it, just like the other classes they are taking.

Tomorrow will be a great day – already today I started to see some of the characters we have in our project. I don’t doubt that it will be frustrating at times and tiring most of the time, but I know it will be worth it. What an adventure!

T-minus 1 day

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 we will begin our Grade 10 Dinner Theatre Project with a pancake breakfast for the students. We have 103 enrolled so far, and the first day will provide an orientation to the project – showing them how the project will run, what each class will look like, what spaces we will be using,  and how classwork will be tracked. I have my drama lessons for the week planned – it will be quite the change going from Math 9 to Drama 10, and I’m looking forward to it. My goal for the first week is to get the students comfortable working with each other as well as in the auditorium (a foreign space to most of them.) I have many group building activities planned, and will be sure to make a fool of myself a lot, to make it easier on them as they move out of their comfort zones. Also, on Tuesday, the superintendent is out to watch me teach as part of the interview process for a semi-administrative position I applied for for next year. This will be an adventure, as he’s coming to watch me on the first full day of teaching drama. I’ll keep you posted on how things go!