Teach, Teach!

Last week I “hosted” my first Early Release Day. In our district, we have 5 days a year when students are released 2 hours early so that schools may provide their staff with locally focused staff development. I am in charge of these sessions at my school (in theory, anyway). So here’s what I did:

• spruced up our meeting space with tableclothes in school colors
• loaded up each table with candy, cookies and chips
• provided sodas
• had hard copies of the presentation as well as all other necessary items to document their implementation of our SIP
• chopped the session in half–teachers had thirty minutes between dismissal time and the session start, and then the session lasted only 1 hour

According to all reports, teachers were pleased with the session. Many were kind enough to say so to my principal, and a few to me, personally. But here’s my question:

How do we define success in professional development? Is teacher satisfaction the measure? Having been a teacher for 18 years, I am pretty clear on what teachers want: speed, clarity and relevance (and yummy treats never hurt). However, isn’t the real measure based on what happens when these teachers return to the classroom? If they enjoy the session but choose not to implement the strategies, have I really succeeded?

Probably the most difficult aspect of my new job is that I am a department unto myself. There is only 1 person with my role in my entire school. Fortunately, one of my administrators was the last to hold my position and she has been a source of great support. But I have to say, she gave me some not so great advice this week.

Being in charge of professional learning is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s what interests me most about my job and the aspect that influenced me to make the switch. On the other hand, it’s the most difficult part, primarily because much of the faculty does not want to be “professionally developed.” And these people also happen to be the most vocal of the group, which basically means my sessions are often dominated by the “kids” who come in every day saying, “I hate this class. It’s so stupid.”

I had one such meeting this week and it was brutal. It began with a peppering of questions from one teacher that felt like machine gun fire, followed by another who unfavorably compared me to my predecessor and topped off by a third who characterized the implementation of our school improvement plan as “meaningless and trivial.” (By the way, does anyone else find it concerning that a teacher would think that developing and posting learning goals in the form of essential questions is meaningless and trivial?) Through it all, the chair of the department sat silently nodding her head in agreement with all that was being said.

So my predecessor, the new admin, recommended that I talk to my principal about the meeting. She felt that the teachers were very unprofessional and that he should know about it. In spite of “Danger, Will Robinson” pounding through my head, I followed her advice.

B. I. G. M. I. S. T. A. K. E.

What’s worse than being attacked by a group of teachers all at once? Having those same teachers come to your office one by one to defend (and reiterate) their previous attack under the guise of an apology.

So I’m keeping my big mouth shut in the future. And donning a bullet-proof vest for all training sessions.

Suppose our goals are to 1) effectively educate students and 2) support and retain good teachers.

A teaching position is unfilled for 3-4 weeks, with a variety of substitutes taking over. Understandably, the classes get more and more chaotic, develop a pack mentality and become a teacher’s worst nightmare.

Enter newly hired teacher: young, inexperienced, fresh out of college and idealistic. Place young teacher in single-wide trailer with 32 students, roughly 20 desks and several tables.

Any guesses as to the outcome?

So we return to the age-old dilemma: If our primary purpose is to effectively educate students, why do we give the most challenging classes to the most ill-equipped teachers? Yes, I know, we all walked through the fire and no one wants to go back there. But really, philosophically, isn’t it a bit like handing over your most important and difficult client to the junior-junior associate?

Today, it appears that the man who attacked my colleague was killed. He was seen beating another woman, whose car he stole after shoving her into the back. Then, he drove off and ended up crashing into a cement truck. His latest victim was killed in the wreck. Her attacker emerged waving his gun, only to be gunned down himself by a bystander who had witnessed the whole thing.

Is this justice? I’m not sure. Another innocent person, and all those who love her, was destroyed. But at least this evil &*^%$ is off the streets and no one else has to suffer at his hands ever again.

Yesterday was a very sad day. To be truthful, so far, this has been a pretty sad decade. But yesterday hit home.

One of our faculty was beaten and raped in her own home yesterday morning just before school. Her attacker claimed he was from Louisiana, that he had lost everything and therefore had nothing more to lose by hurting this sweet woman. He still hasn’t been apprehended.

I am overwhelmed with emotions. Foremost, incredible grief and empathy for this woman that I barely know. I ache for her–I know that I cannot truly imagine her pain.

But I also feel such grief for those whose worlds have been destroyed by Katrina. And I wonder if her attacker was truthful–I mean, why should he be? Could losing your family and home to a hurricane turn you into a murderous rapist? Or has this hideous human simply compounded his crime by falsely blaming it on other victims?

I worry that others will hear her story and turn away from opportunities to help these people, these victims of a natural disaster, or, even worse, fear and shun them. There is so much heartbreak around us now. How much more can we take?

Perhaps you’re curious as to why my blog is titled “Teach, Teach!” (or, perhaps you do not care…but indulge me.)

1. I wanted to title it “Teacher, Teacher” but that domain was already taken.
2. I like the play on the words, which involves a bit of grammar–observe:

• “Teach, Teach!”–Could be an imperative, emphatically directing someone to teach.
• “Teach, Teach!”–Could be a direct address and an imperative, with the directive of “teach” being given to someone whose nickname is “Teach.”
• “Teach Teach”–Could be a nickname for someone who teaches teachers.
• “Teach, Teach!”–Could be a play on the phrase “tech, tech” which is old and obscure and comes close to meaning “there, there,” a relatively weak expression of sympathy and pacification.
• “Teach, Teach!”–Could be a play on the phrase “tsk, tsk” which is also old and obscure and comes close to meaning “naughty, naughty” a relatively weak expression of remonstrance.

Who would have thought so many meanings could be evoked from the mere repetition of a single word?

Okay, so I’m done now. This theme is called Rubric, and once again, required some labor on my part. Of course, I now think the effort was worth it (I mean, how cool is it that I, a former English teacher, am sporting a skin called “Rubric,” with a red pen even?) The theme definitely took some tweaking though–first, WordPress couldn’t find the stylesheet, which I had to relocate (along with all the other files). And then I had this weird problem with the background not repeating correctly which I totally took a flying guess at (and it worked). Then I had to manipulate some code to get my sidebar in the order I wanted it–always a scary proposition. But now, I’m done with themes for a while, I think. At least until after Labor Day, anyway

This is really minor in the grand scheme of things, but it’s bugging me. I can’t find a theme I really love. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve found plenty of themes I like, but none seem to do exactly what I’m looking for. For instance, I think my current theme, Ocadia, is a lovely theme. It would work well for my personal blog, which is where it will probably end up. However, I’m wanting something a bit edgier here. Something techno, something pleasing (not too bright or distracting), and definitely something with a light background for posts. I just haven’t found anything that really fits the bill. Which may mean that I have to design my own–ooh, that’s scary.

ILTs (that’s the acronym for my job as Instructional Lead Teacher) have a code–they invoke the “pinky-swear” when they want to share something that we really shouldn’t share. So I’m invoking the code now, with you good people–pinky swear or you’ll get no good stuff here. Agreed?

Alrighty, then. So part of my job is to observe other teachers. My principal has made it clear that I’m expected to conduct teacher observations–lots of them. Honestly, it’s a bit uncomfortable for me still. I know the teachers feel as if they’re put on the spot. I know just having me in there makes all but the most confident tense. And I know they don’t really believe me when I say that I am there to observe and assist, never to evaluate (and that is REALLY true). What’s sad, though, is when I see a teacher choosing not to do a good job. Recently, when discussing an observation with such a teacher, I asked why she had chosen not to correct or redirect any of the off task behaviors that were taking place. Her response? She didn’t want to make a big deal of it with me in the room.

Okay, now if I had simply observed a kid chatting to his neighbor, I’d believe that. But I watched and listened as numerous students banged out beats on their desks and performed snake-like dance moves with arms outstretched, all while this teacher continued to lecture to the class. As Jerry Lee Lewis might say, “C’mon, baby.”

So I’m curious–to the teachers out there, how do you feel about being observed? And what impact, if any, does being observed have on your classroom management?

Just in case anyone else uses a Mac with Ecto and WordPress (yes, all three of you), here’s a tip–

Replace these 2 files in WordPress before you even TRY to use Ecto with it (trust me):

functions-post-1.php (in the wp-includes folder)

xmlrpc.php

Replacing these two files will enable you to actually publish your posts (a novel concept) and correctly place them in categories. Even though you may be told that the latest install of WordPress already includes these files, don’t be fooled. I just installed WordPress two days ago and I still had to replace these files. By the way, if you use Windows and w.bloggar, these files also fix the publishing post problem with that client.

Now, everything’s right with the world and I can once again use Ecto, WordPress and my Mac. I hear birds singing…