The end…

Today was our last day with students, bringing to a close my 8th year of teaching. Sure, there is next week, which will be filled with cleaning, sorting, and planning for fall, but today was the last day with students around. And since they’re the reason I’m here, I count today as the last day. While summer is exciting for me as a teacher, it isn’t always for my students. For 180 days, they have known that the school is open for them if they choose to come. For 180 days, they have known that when they arrive, a teacher will greet them. For 180 days, they have known what to expect – when the bells will ring, where they will be, what they will do.

Then, all of a sudden, on a day in a month so chosen because 90 years ago it lined up best with the agricultural growing year, they know they can’t go to school. They know that the doors will be locked. For two months. For the students who the school represents the only stability in their lives this is devastating. This afternoon, I stopped to talk with a young man in grade 9 who was not in his afternoon class, but was sitting up on a window ledge looking glum. I asked him if he was excited for summer, and he responded immediately that he was. Then, after a few moments, he reconsidered, and admitted he wasn’t. I wished I could do something. I wished I could make his living arrangements more stable, his summer pass quickly and safely. But I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do. So, I told him I was teaching a lot of grade 10 next year, and wanted him in my English and Drama classes, and he smiled a bit. But in the end, I walk away to my summer of leisure and luxury, and he returns to his life of instability. In the USA right now there is a movement in favour of year-round schooling. While the movement heralds the increases in test scores that result, I think there may be some additional, more meaningful effects…

Photojournalism Project

Check out this article in today’s Leader Post — Photo project looks at life in North Central Regina

What the story fails to mention is all of the hard work of the staff at our school on this project! Our art teacher and one of our English teachers created an entire integrated project that taught the students about photography and journalism while meeting all of the outcomes for ELA A30 (Canadian Voices) and Visual Art 30. This is no small feat! So hats off to you, the unmentioned heroes of the project.

Why are you a teacher, anyway?

It is easy for teaching to get you down. On a daily basis I hear complaints in the staffroom like “The students just don’t care anymore” or “I wish the students would work harder” or “Jimmy skipped class again.” It can be tiring. It can be frustrating. But even with the exhaustion that comes at the end of May, after 9 months of teaching, and given the annoyance that mounts when students choose 7-11 over class when it’s +25 out, I think that teaching is the most satisfying job in the world. Knowing you made a difference, no matter how small, in a student’s life makes it all worth while.  My wife often says that teaching is like planting a seed. It may take a while to see the fruits of your labour — once a student has moved on from your class or school.

In order to illustrate, I will take you back… I was in my 3rd year of teaching, and had moved from teaching in a white middle-upper class bedroom community to one that was more rural. Many students came from farms, or at least lived in the small town 25 minutes from the city I lived in. Generally speaking, not many parents commuted to the city for work (though now this town has exploded and is a large bedroom community – I must be getting old.) I was teaching a grade 7/8 split, and it was the first year that the school had a grade 8 class — previously it was a K-6, then K-7. Among the 20 grade 7s and 8 grade 8s were two young men from a neaby reserve. It was the first year their reserve had bussed students to this school – some families didn’t feel that the school on reserve was meeting the needs of their kids. These two young men entered a white washed world. They were the only First Nations students in the class and two of only a handful of  in the whole school. They stuck out like sore thumbs. And they had not had positive experiences with schools. For an early creative writing assignment, one of them wrote about the horrible teacher they had the year before. Whenever mentioning their time in his class, they would utter words that would cause my blog to be censored if I repeated them and hearing the stories they told let me know he deserved every adjective they used. I did my best to engage these two boys, working with another teacher to seek out reading level appropriate engaging literature, and doing my best to differentiate my classroom. All of that, though, took the back seat to my personal efforts to engage them. When they first came, they wouldn’t even lift their heads from their desks – and through a focussed regime of teasing and probing questions to show I cared about them, I drew them out of their shells. Somewhat. I’m not going to say that they were totally new students by the end of the year – they still had their baggage from past schooling, and they still had most of the learning gaps they had aquired over the previous 6 years – but I think they saw me as a positive adult in their lives, and grade 7 as better than the previous year had been.

As teachers are wont to do when employed by a board and not a school, I moved the next year, 100 km northwest, to a position as a Vice-Principal. But I always wondered what happened to those two boys.

Since then, we moved overseas, came back, and I’ve taught for two years at an inner city school, populated by  predominently First Nations students. My first year, when I learned that one of my students was from the same reserve as these boys, I quizzed her about their whereabouts. According to her, one was in custody (read: youth jail) and the other was hanging around, not doing much. This saddened me, but I told her to say hi to them from me should they ever cross paths.

Fast forward to yesterday. I had been hearing the name of one of the boys in the office every once in a while – he was a student who was registered, but never showed up. Then, I saw this man (he’s 18 now!) come into the office to ask for a bandaid. It was the young man who had been told was in custody. It took him a second to remember me, but I got a smile out of him as I reminded him about the year he was in my classroom. Today I saw him from a distance, and he smiled and waved hello. He  is back doing an Adult 12 – a program where students who are 18 or over and have been out of school for two years can earn a grade 12 diploma in a shorter period of time.

As I was leaving work today, there was a young man sitting at the bus stop and he turned and yelled at me, “Hey are you ____________? (he used my last name, which is hard to spell and harder to pronounce — his pronounciation was perfect.) I couldn’t see who it was so I said, yeah, and approached him. “Do you remember me?” he challenged. This is the question that every teacher hates — so many students over the years to keep track of! However, this one was easy — It was the second young man from my grade 7 class. “I was in your class at _________ Elementary,” he said. 

“I know!” I replied, calling him by name, “I was thinking about you the other day. Did you know so-and-so from our class is going to school here now? What are you up to?”

He told me he works at a local convenience store, and that he dropped out of school part way through grade 10. He looked down as he told me this. “I should be graduating this year,” he said.

“Well, that’s okay,” I was quick to reply. “If ever want to graduate, you can do it in a year because you’ve been out of school for so long. If you decide you want to, come and see me and we’ll set you up.” He brightened a bit.

“Nice to see you, Mr. _____________.”

“You too.”

Now, I know that reading this, you’re thinking, geeze Teaching, this is a story about two of your students who have been failures. Both dropped out, one ended up in jail for a while, and the other has a job doing menial work.  You may be partially right — however, the reality is that these boys both remembered grade 7. And while I didn’t (and couldn’t) work miracles on them in grade 7, they both remember it as a positive experience. And by the sounds of it, they did not have many before or after with school. Maybe next year, they’ll re-enter my classroom, and we can pick up where we left off. A small victory? Well maybe. But significant nonetheless. Why else would you be a teacher?

Where have all the posts gone?

Blogging is kind of like exercise or flossing — the longer you go without doing it, the harder it is to start again. By the way, I haven’t exercised or flossed since N was born, either. However, if this snow ever melts, I will be biking to work again…

So, where to start?

Well, we’re in survival mode on the home front. N is a sweet, wonderful baby, but she gets bad gas, and this causes her not to sleep, and this causes her to cry, and this causes us not to sleep. Luckily, I have a fantastic partner who is so understanding and accommodating — we tag team N at night, making sure that at least one of us gets a decent(ish) sleep. For example, last night B stayed up holding N as she fussily slept from 9 to 1am, allowing me four hours of uninterrupted bed-sleep (to let you know how much sleep we’re getting, when I woke up at 1, my body thought it was done sleeping for the night and was wide awake!) I took over at 1, and stayed up with fussing N until 5:30 (B fed her around 3 maybe? It’s a bit fuzzy) when she calmed enough that I got another hour and a half with her on my chest sleeping until 7. However, we keep telling ourselves that every day it is getting better. And it will.

I am really looking forward to next weekend, when we have a dinner party, and the following weekend, when we have a wedding, because we will be leaving N with her Grandma Honey one night, and Grandma and Papa the other — we’ll get to spend hours together! B has been pumping like a mad-woman to save up enough frozen breast-milk to allow us this luxurious time. In addition, the 8th is the last class of my last grad class (if that makes sense.) Sure, I still have a thesis to propose and write, but that will be on my own time…I have three years left to finish it.

On the work front, next weekend will be great because the Hip Hop project I’m coordinating will have come to a close with two shows — one Thursday night at a local club, and Friday afternoon at the school. Especially exciting is that we have 160 students from a three suburban high schools coming to Friday’s show – it’ll be a great chance for our students to debunk some myths about their school and neighbourhood. Also, on Monday W-5 is coming to do a spot on the neighbourhood, and will interview me and the students about the project-based learning we’re doing at the school — nice exposure!

Alright, there’s a stab at a blog post — hope it gets me back on the horse. More later.

Holidays are coming…

We have five more days of school left, and then two weeks off. I am excited. Work has been consuming most of my mental energy lately, and I am looking forward to letting go of all things school for 16 days. We have a few final touches to complete around the house (re-installing the baseboards, installing closet doors in two bedrooms, filling some nail holes in the floor) but that can be done little by little over a few days.  As a teacher, my days are highly scheduled — moving from place to place at the bell’s beckon — and I am ready for some unstructured time. Sleep in? Sure! I’d love to. Coffee with friends for three hours? Why not! Perhaps I look forward to savouring this freedom because come the middle of January, we’ll have a new addition to our family, and our lives will change drastically.

Many schools are filled with students who are just as excited about the break and all it will bring to them – a new ipod, a PS3, a trip to a tropical destination. However, for some of my students, this holidays and the accompanying unstructured time can wreak havoc on them emotionally. Gone is the stability of the school day – structured time, warm hallways and classrooms, teachers who are familiar and predictable. This week they will be a bit off  in class – perhaps clingy, perhaps distant, perhaps acting out. I’ll try to depersonalize this behaviour, and use it as a reminder of how grateful I should be for all that I have. For those of us who are raised in homes with familiar routines, warmth, and safety, it’s hard not to take those things for granted.

What’s wrong with education?

Everyone has an answer to the question. Here are some I hear regularly, depending on who is answering:

“Teachers are lazy”

“Teachers don’t care”

“Adminstrators don’t understand the realities of the classroom”

“Administrators don’t provide support to struggling teachers”

“District Office Staff are out of touch – they have been out of the classroom too long”

“Educational reform is always top-down”

“Education is underfunded by the government”

Lately I’ve been thinking about this question, and the implications of the various answers. It is easy to blame – it is easy to complain. And I regularly do this. However, in an effort to be productive, I’m going to stop blaming other people, stop looking outward for the problems and solutions, and start looking inward. While sitting in a meeting yesterday, a colleague who is now an administrator (my former cooperating teacher during my internship, actually) commented that while the meeting we were at was all about bringing innovative structures to schools in order to increase student outcomes, the most positve change she feels she ever made as an educator was working in her classroom with her students. How true. How better to have a positive impact in young people’s lives? Be a good teacher. And the only person who can do that, the only person who can control that, is me. So, I’m letting go of the blaming, and doing my best to do my best in my class, everyday, with my students. Nothing could be more powerful and empowering.

You want a longer school year? For real?

There has been some vigorous debate at The Faculty Room about lengthening the school year in order to meet the ever rising standards demanded by standardized testing and universities. Some people are in favour of lengthening the year – others share a different point of view. Before I comment, here’s a little story I want to share:

When I was a young boy, the only thing I wanted to do was pitch in the major leagues. If I had been put into a classroom where I spent mornings learning about pitching technique, spent afternoons throwing a ball 1-on-1 with a coach, and did this every day, there is a chance that I would have become a major league baseball pitcher. However, I am only 5′10″ and on a good day hit 155lbs – not exactly the frame of a pitcher. So, most likely, regardless of how much I practiced (and I did practice a lot – though not to the extreme described enough) I wouldn’t have achieved my goal. If I spent all day, every day, most of the year, practicing baseball, I wouldn’t have acquired the skills that I did – I wouldn’t have been a farmer, working the land like my father and grandfather, I wouldn’t have discovered my love for improvisational theatre, helping found a local theatre company that continues on, 11 years later, I wouldn’t have become active in the labour movement, and I wouldn’t have known how much I love working with people – I wouldn’t have become a teacher.

If we lengthen the school year, there’s a chance our students will experience more success. But for our students who experience little success with traditional schooling, doing more of the same thing and expecting a different result is tantamount to torture. For everyone.

So, instead of asking if the school year should be longer, we should ask two questions: What are the standardized assessments really measuring? and Instead of doing more of what we’re doing and expecting a different result, why aren’t we doing something different?

Like project-based learning.

“Save the Drama”

One of my colleagues on the project bought me a pink shirt that proudly proclaims, in pink letters with a silver outline, “Save the Drama.” As Thursday was the day of the show, I decided it would be time to wear it – I had been threatening to all project, but never did. It should be noted that the shirt, designed for an adolescent girl, was a little bit small. Undaunted, I put a long-sleeved white shirt underneath, and stretched on the pink beauty. I got some pretty good chuckles from students when they read the shirt (though it took them a second, as the letters were a bit misshapen due to the tautness of the shirt.)

Later that morning, I was helping a student, Darren, track down the cables for the video camera, and we went into the principal’s office where AV equipment is stored. As I got to the door (which was open) I saw that the principal was talking to someone, so I slowed down. Darren did not. The next thing I knew, I was invited in by the principal and shaking hands with one of our board members. In my shirt. What a great first impression. I couldn’t help but think that so far the shirt hadn’t saved me any drama. A few minutes later, I was heading towards the auditorium and noticed a group of people standing just outside the doors. As I got closer, I recognized that it was the group of architects and consultants from the States who are working on the design on the new school; The same people I will be spending the week after next with, touring schools in Minnesota. I wanted to stop and turn around, but couldn’t – I needed to get into the auditorium to try to find the source of the horrid dress-rehearsal feedback from the day before. I hurried by them, averting my eyes, willing myself to look like a student. I did “Save the Drama” a few seconds after entering the auditorium, though. I took off the shirt.

The Media

This fall, in our city, a young man from the suburbs went to his girlfriend’s house and shot her. She didn’t die, but it was touch and go for a while. The media ran many stories about the event – they interviewed peers of the two students, who both attended an affluent school in the south end of the city. The newspaper outlined efforts the local school board was going to in order to ensure that grief counselors were available at the school, to help the students deal with the situation.

While explaining this story to my students, as we worked on our collective, I asked them how many of them lost a family member within the last year. More than half of the students put up their hands. I asked them how many times they or their friends were interviewed about the impact the deaths had on them. I asked them how many days grief counselors were at our school. The answers: never, and none. The news stories about deaths in the neighbourhood I teach in don’t involve interviews – they involve cold hard statistics and gruesome details. It is the expectation that bad things will happen in the inner city – because “bad” people live there. However, in the suburbs, something bad that happens is always an anomaly. It’s about time the media gave as much sympathy to the victims of violence in the inner city as they do to those middle class kids involved in “tragedies” in the suburbs.

A Play

I took 10 of my drama students to the local University on Tuesday to watch a production of The Importance of Being Ernest. It was brilliant, and my students really liked it. On the way in, we took the roundabout way, and I gave a brief verbal tour of the University, pointing at the buildings we passed. It went something like this:

Teachingchris: There’s the lab building. It’s where you’d do Science labs.

Awed silence from students.

Teachingchris: There’s the classroom building.

Shawn: (sarcastically) What’s in there? Classrooms?

Teachingchris: Yeah, kind of obvious, heh? There’s the library.

Shawn: Do they have books in there? Our school doesn’t get books – just magazines.

Jordan: No Shawn, we have books. You just don’t know how to read them.

Teachingchris: There’s the Language Institute.

Shawn: Too easy, Teachingchris, too easy.

I know that the banter doesn’t translate very well, but I was rolling by the end of it. Trust me. It was funny. Some days, I have the funniest job in the world.