Early adolescence has many challenges. If you wonder why your child’s teacher or dean always seems to be working, part of the answer can be found in the little events that suck time, minute by minute by minute. Here’s the text of an incident report. Incident location: lunchroom.

“They are taking pictures of me without asking me this is happening during lunch time every single day.” The girl then gave three names of photographers. She reported this to a teacher who had to deal with the issue, an issue that had to be passed on to a dean, who had to investigate the possible bullying.

Where does teasing end and bullying begin? The answer to that question’s not simple, and that answer varies depending on the kid. If the girl making the report had just made a few funny faces, the problem might have vanished. As soon as she looked upset, though, she set the train in motion. We take possible bullying seriously. That results in a lot of discussions with teen-age girls and boys who can’t tell where teasing ends and harassment begins.

A few weeks back, I had students interview their parents about school. This is for any parents out there: If your kid comes home with a similar assignment, the correct answer to the question about your favorite subject should be something like math, science, English or social studies. The correct answer is not soccer. I am having enough trouble motivating your kid as it is.

Despite my entreaties to please, please, put your name on your paper, I regularly receive mystery papers. I have one here that just made me sigh. It has a name alright. It has MY name in two places. One says my name with the words “the best” below it. A smiley face has been drawn near my name. I’m happy for the positive feedback, but I have no idea where to put these points in the gradebook.

The following is offered as an example of the push to raise mathematical standards and improve American math performance.

From http://www.math.umt.edu/tmme/vol1no1/tmmev1n1a1.pdf, “Teaching Symmetry In the Elementary Curriculum,” by Christy Knuchel: According to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics grades 3-5 should be able to apply transformations and use symmetry to analyze mathematical situations. This includes predicting and describing the results of sliding, flipping, and turning two-dimensional shapes. They should also be able to describe a motion or a series of motions that will show that two shapes are congruent, and identify and describe line and rotational symmetry in 2 and 3-dimensional shapes and designs. The Montana State Standards for Mathematics are in line with NCTM’s standards indicating that by the end of grade 4 students will be able to identify lines of symmetry, congruent and similar shapes, and positional relationships.

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Did they leave of their own accord? Were they pushed? Most likely, we are looking at a combination of both. We are a small school, too. The tiny pool of people willing to sub in our school has become fully occupied replacing the fallen and filling in for special education teachers with IEP (Individualized Instruction Plan) meetings.

Sidenotes:
1) Even when regular classrooms cannot find subs due to the disorder — and even chaos — that can break out in impoverished and urban classrooms, subs will usually work special education classrooms due to the smaller number of students. Six to twelve students are manageable. They had better be manageable, or it’s time to give up subbing or teaching altogether.

2) Many teachers who depart are well-liked by students. That guarantees a rough transition for almost all newcomers who take over their classrooms. A few years back, an angry principal moved a special education teacher who taught students with emotional and behavioral disorders, letting her know about her reassignment to another school on a Friday and ensuring she was gone by Monday. (The staff thought the teacher was doing an impressive job.) On Monday, students broke out the glass in the classroom door, and otherwise vandalized their classroom. Students tend to roll with maternity leaves, especially when they expect their teacher to return, but almost all other staffing transitions during the school year create trouble. We are a school of transitions, filled with students who have seen too many moves and changes. I try to call disconnected numbers regularly. Some of our students are sick at heart from the turbulence in their daily lives, wearied by too-many moves, too-many step-dads or -moms, and too many transitions in general. Classroom teachers often serve as anchors for these drifting students.

Eduhonesty: Admin has driven away almost all of our subs with performance demands that resulted in these teachers choosing jobs in other districts. When regular staff starts walking out the doors as well, perhaps admin should take a look at the plethora of small demands they are adding to the school day. I have a resignation letter waiting in my backpack for the day when I say, “That’s all folks!”, and I am pretty sure they will never find a sub with my unusual credentials to fill out the rest of this school year. I plan to stick out the year for my kids, but even my love and dedication come with limits.

“First do no harm,” the motto says. At the point where I feel the demands of my job are harming me, or the demands I must make of my students are harming them, I may join the exodus. Other teachers are talking about quitting around me, or counting the days until they can retire. A few of these teachers probably should go. Unfortunately, others are hard-working, talented professionals who know their job and their students.

‘Nuff said.

Tracking has been out of fashion for years. Districts spurn tracking because of its reputation for holding students back, especially minority students and students from difficult family backgrounds. Tracking was part of that era where self-contained, special education classrooms were the norm, where some students might be channeled into vocational or technical education, an era that has fallen into disrepute even if its students performed significantly better on standardized tests than today’s students do.

I live in a district that has some of the best schools in the nation. The high school where I live does track students, in the sense that the district looks at past performance to pick future classes. Strong mathematicians receive a chance to go beyond calculus in high school. The district where I work has far less money. That district also doesn’t have the tiers of strong students that might populate true, upper-level classes. Indiscriminate inclusion thus becomes the norm, with sporadic attempts made to funnel stronger students into classes together where possible. Districts with less money and fewer teachers can’t afford to create separate classes in which students of similar academic levels are placed together.

The district where I work has been lumped in the bottom few percent of the state of Illinois, based on standardized-test scores, for years now. As a result, we have been obliged to bring in experts to help solve our test-score problems. These consultants are responsible for creating the current system. All teachers in a grade are required to present the same material at the same time, using the same tests to check for understanding. This is true for regular classes and for special education classes. Very minor tweaking is allowed, but no one’s quite sure how much tweaking. The left hand of administration cannot be trusted to agree with the right hand.

I expect this system to work. Why? Because we have created the correct track. We are demanding that all students master the material on the Common Core test for their grade. Students in special education are hopelessly baffled by much of this material. Bilingual students often can’t read the material. But those students near the top of the curve are receiving challenges. These are the students who can master part or all of the material presented in those common tests. These are also the students best equipped to deliver real score increases. I expect us to win this game.

Eduhonesty: I’m glad for the kids at the top. They have deserved this break for awhile. I wish I could be equally happy for the children on the bottom, the thirteen-year-old students who are testing at an early elementary level and who are confronting test after incomprehensible test that they cannot pass or can only pass with multiple repetitions that do not necessarily indicated understanding. By the third time students take the same test, some of them probably have memorized that number seven is “C,” for example. Teachers are supposed to differentiate to make this all work, taking special time with groups of lower students. But when a student does not know the value of 3(4 + 2), no differentiation exists that can make 4x + [–1(–2x – 1)]2 intelligible, not without more small group and tutoring time than exists under the current system.

One track to rule them all, that’s what we have created, with administrators aggressively advocating that we group students based on their level of understanding so they can somehow be pushed up onto the track, even if that track stands five years above these students’ overall academic level. Good intentions abound in this scheme. I suspect more cynical administrators have climbed on board the train as well, knowing that score improvement is likely even if lower groups will be unable to fully participate when they can participate at all.

The problem I see here is that no one at the top seems to be considering the cost to the kids at the bottom. What is the cost of failure after failure after failure? What is the cost of losing all your fun activities to do bell-to-bell instruction from books you can’t read? The cost of always being the kid in the group who doesn’t get what is going on?

When you can only differentiate instruction, but can’t choose the actual materials presented, you are hardly differentiating at all. The cost of that lack of differentiation will be paid by this latest generation of No-Child-Left-Behind kids, the lost kids who don’t fit on the One Track. These kids deserve better. These kids deserve a comprehensible education.

And I’ll flee to Scotland before you.
Cause me and my math class will never meet again
On the bonny, bonny shores of lucidity.

Hmmm… I can probably find a better closing word, but I captured the idea.

We’re all on the high road. We’re all teaching the material expected to be on the seventh grade test. The scariest administrators in the world will most likely serve us our entrails on a platter if we don’t. But I have a class where every single student except one tests at a middle elementary school level. One student tests toward the end of elementary school. I don’t know what went wrong in elementary school.

I know what’s going wrong now. Today I will continue presenting material required by the one-size-fits-all-but-of-course-you-are-expected-to-differentiate lesson plan. I found some nifty word problems online that I can use for the story problem section of my lesson plan. According to this website, these problems are actually for eighth graders, but they are exactly what I am expected to be doing. So that’s what we will do.

Confusion will be extremely high, of course. The high road is proving a daunting climb for my class, but I am not allowed to offer any reasonable alternatives. I’ve reached the point where I’m afraid to speak, in fact. If admin told me to teach my poor minions calculus, I’d probably just buy a Calculus for Dummies book and start trying to figure out how to make some of the material manageable. Any attempts to slow this train down just swing the spotlight in my direction. I’m avoiding the spotlight at all costs. Let the scary people run things the way they want. They’ve tried to intimidate me. They’ve succeeded.

Eduhonesty: Weirdly enough, I expect what is occurring to produce at least some of the results admin wants. I’ll explain why in my next post.

From a disciplinary referral:

“Told student to put phone away… Student replied ‘I am on my phone 24-7.'”

Eduhonesty: He was trying to be on that phone 24-7 anyway. The student in question was failing all his classes. You can’t keep track of academics and have a full-time phone life. While I understand the desire to be able to reach kids at all times, I believe more parents should take these phones away. Why pay for a device that’s contributing to your child’s academic failure? We need to stop handing our children distractions. Kids seldom need those phones. I have a phone in the classroom. I have another phone in the small, taupe bag I carry over my shoulder. Students’ friends are carrying phones. In an emergency, no one needs to fear a sudden phone shortage.

Demanding a “B” average or higher to earn phone privileges makes perfect sense. Let’s seize those small metal boxes. Texting clobbers a small minority of students. These students need adults to parent them. Your son or daughter will be mad at you? I guarantee they will. They’ll be outraged. They’ll be so whiny you’ll be going nuts for awhile. If they know better grades are the price of phone privileges, though, they will start trying to earn those “B” grades when they realize that whining won’t work.

To all aspiring teachers: You get a great vacation schedule for this job, but don’t let anyone tell you it is a five day week. You will work nights. You will work weekends. Depending on what you teach, you may work almost all weekends and nights during the school year. Elementary school is easier. Core subjects such as math, English, social studies and science at the middle school and high school math can be rough. You must give regular homework. If you want the kids to do that homework, you need to grade and return the work reasonably quickly. (One complaint I have with the current heavily scripted regime at my school: I hardly ever have time to go over the homework. It’s not built into the obligatory lesson plan.) You have to prepare for the week’s classes, a process that may involve trips to Michael’s, The Learning Store or a local grocery store.

I suggest teaching gym classes to anyone who likes physical education, with the caveat that there are not many jobs for graduates in this area. You have to be willing to move. I envy those gym teachers sometimes, though. They give almost no homework, have to grade a rare badminton test or two, and often make more money than regular teachers because of coaching opportunities.

Eduhonesty: I don’t want to make teaching sound bad. Really, grading’s not that hard. I make my tea and toast, put on Law and Order or some other relatively mindless TV, and relax in my jammies while working through the papers. I enjoy Michael’s and the Learning Store. I am looking forward to this quiet Sunday of printing lesson plans and checking data.

Certain shows are perfect for grading. Cops works well. I look up every so often to take in the spectacle, but I never have to worry about what I missed. New Orleans PD doesn’t care if I am riveted to their bold attempts to control Mardi Gras, while snapshots of drunken people who pee in the street provide a little entertainment to break up my routine. Bar Rescue’s a win too. I don’t have to watch every dishonest bartender, but I like to tune in for the final salvation of Moe’s Honey Trap and Biker Bar.

Just making it real here for anyone who is thinking of entering this profession.

One of my administrators recently formally criticized me for doing activities not specifically in the whole-group lesson plan. The whole-group lesson plan refers to the plans for the week, supposedly the same for all classes whether they are regular, special education or bilingual classes. We are all supposed to be doing the same thing at the same time. This latest criticism is a perfect example of finding myself yet again in the garbage compactor, watching the walls close in. I find myself defending myself for activities that I have been told were acceptable by other people.

In bilingual group meetings, I was informed that I have about 20 minutes per day for remedial instruction. I use those “extra minutes” to go over diverse skills not specifically found in the whole-group lesson plan, such as vocabulary practice, division, or graph interpretation, for example, depending on student needs and interests. I also rearrange parts of the whole-group plan because the time-allotment will not always work for my students. If I am given 31 minutes to teach a class how to add integers with different signs, using an activity that will take a minimum of 10 minutes, such as making a human number line, I may have to change the plan a bit because we are absolutely for sure going to fall behind schedule. Enough of these 31 minutes blocks and I end up triaging, asking what matters most, what I can slight, and what I can take out entirely so I can somehow catch up. Since my students need to learn almost everything in the plans, this triaging almost never results in my catching up. We can’t drop any topics. Instead, we move on before we are ready. I try to catch students up with tutoring. This works for some students who go to tutoring. Other students who go to tutoring are not catching up, but they are at least making mathematical progress. Students who resist tutoring or who can’t go for transportation reasons… well, they are the truly triaged, the ones we are letting go.

Eduhonesty: Can’t win. Can’t not play. Feeling sick. Being blasted by admin for deviating from the plan last week contributed to or even caused this illness, I think. On my way to tutoring anyway. I love my kids. I love to help them figure out what they are doing. So I will tutor while I am able.

I wish my life felt less out of control, though.