Philosophical Dilemmas

So I believe I failed to mention that after I'm in school all day, I then have to go to school.  So Monday through Thursday, I make the trek up to school for my evening classes.  The three classes I'm taking (one meets twice a week) are Intro to Teaching (creative title, I know), Math Learning Environments (really Math Pedagogy - not sure where they came up with that title), and Class, Race, and Gender in the History of US Education.  So there is some overlap in the classes, but not a lot.  However, since all three of my classes are supposed to be informing the way I teach, I still in my head and in my practice have to figure out how to combine all the wisdom from these classes (plus the classes I took this summer: Human Development and Learning and Education of the Exceptional Child).  Basically, my Math Learning Environments class is right up my alley.  There is lots of talk about how we need serious math education reform and how it's important to teach concepts instead of just procedures, etc, blah blah blah.  Basically, the class is every reason that I decided I wanted to become a teacher.  On the other hand, the other two classes are much more heady (philosophical) for me.  There is all this talk about changing the system and leading your class in a democratic manner and having this mutual student-teacher relationship instead of teacher-dominating because especially in an urban school, the students have been oppressed by the school system their whole lives, so it's important that we reform it, etc, blah blah blah.  While it's definitely captivating and definitely necessary if we're really going to try to change the way the institution perpetuates racism, I don't understand how it actually works in the classroom.  This is what we describe as the gap between theory and practice.

I am always thinking of new ways to teach material so that the students can better understand it, and I happen to think my ideas are really good.  However, only the student that wants to understand it better is going to listen to what I have to say.  So how do I actually motivate and inspire students who never do their work and never show up to class?  Since it's clear that yelling at them and being authoritarian and telling them what to do all the time doesn't really seem to work.  If I'm trying to set up a model classroom that runs at least somewhat democratically, how do I engage and connect with those students who do not really care what I have to say about math?  In my high school experience, having a respectful adult conversation would have motivated me.  But I am not the same as every student, and I am really struggling to see how I can be encouraging for these students.  Today and last Friday when my mentor was out of town, I had the classroom to myself, so it was quite a struggle for me to have my first attempt at implementing all the things I've learned in the past... well, two weeks.  I was as genuine as I could be with them, asking them what I could do to help them understand the material better, asking them why I needed to keep asking them to be quiet, and finally asking them if they were egging me on so that I would send someone to the office.  I felt like sending someone to the office to exert my power was exactly what I should not be doing considering our philosophical discussions in class.  And I certainly wasn't going to yell at them.  So what do I do next?  No one person is out of control; no one is doing anything seriously wrong.  But the class as a whole is unfocused and loud.  What tools do I have to pull the class back in and make them respect me (and I respect them too)?  I was frustrated at the end of today.  Not because I was personally upset, but because I really want these ideals to be able to come true in the classroom, and it just didn't seem possible.  

I guess my question is, do I send a student to the office just to make a point that will continue to perpetuate the racism that is already institutionalized in our schools, or do I send a student to the office for the purposes of gaining respect from the students, or is there a completely different solution to this question?

I am still here - really, I promise!

So I know I haven't updated in over two weeks, and for that I truly apologize.  Once we got into the swing of things, it became really difficult to updated between going to school and going to... school?  So anyway, I thought I'd make two posts today: one to give you a little idea logistically what my days are like and what I'm doing in the classroom, and one with all my philosophical thoughts and questions on how to be a teacher.  I'll start with the logistics:

The schedule is such that every academic class is about 90 minutes long.  So my school day starts at 8am with our Math 2 class, then the next period is our prep period, then we have 40 minutes of either tutorial or advisory (depending on the day), then 30 minutes of lunch, then 45 minutes of seminar (which I think I explained but maybe not), then our final class of the day which is Math 5, and this all ends at 2:30.  So I could lay out a schedule for you, but it's not really terribly important.  Friday is shorter: we only have the three academic periods, which go from 8am to 12:30pm, then we have 25 minutes of advisory before the kids are excused for lunch.  Then we have faculty meetings 1:30-3:30pm.  So that's basically what a typical week looks like.  It's interesting because I only actually have two math classes, but then there's all this other stuff (advisory, tutorial, seminar) that gets crammed into the middle of the day.  Ironically, the 90-minute math classes always seem to go much faster than those 45 minutes of seminar... ugh.  

As far as seminar is concerned, I have no idea what I'm doing.  We split up the students between the three co-teachers, and they gave me only a three, because they know I don't know what I'm doing.  :)  Even with only three students to check in with and grade all their work, I still feel totally lost.  I don't know how to grade papers or even how to give feedback on their work.  And I worry that the students won't do well because I won't be able to support them as well as a real teacher would.  Moreover, I know nothing about senior grant, so when I have to answer their questions, I tend to send them to ask another teacher, because I can't help them.  Meanwhile, there are a few students who are trying to push me because they know I don't know how to deal with them, and I feel like I'm undermining my own authority by being clueless.  I don't know.  Basically, I hate seminar because I'm useless.

However, my math classes are going really well.  My mentor has been was out on Friday, and she'll be out again tomorrow, so I have been leading the classes.  Things went pretty well on Friday for the most part.  My first period class was a little louder than normal, and I wasn't sure how to deal with that.  But everything else was fine.  I need to grade all their quizzes this weekend.  Usually I take attendance, check homework, and pass back papers while my mentor teaches.  Then I work one-on-one with the students when they're all working independently.  I've been teaching a bit more lately - going over the homework with them at the beginning of class.  It seems to be going really well.  I really like what I'm doing, and I really like my students.  There are a few that I am still unsure how to deal with, but I am trying to approach them without assumptions and without being authoritarian and condescending.  But I'll get into that more in my next post.

So I hope that covers things.  I'll do my best to give you more specifics in the future.  I have more and more questions every day with how to deal with students and how to manage the classroom.  It's quite the adventure.

The Real First Day of School

Yesterday was such a great day!  I loved meeting all the kids and finally seeing what it's like to be in the classroom.  It really felt natural, and it made me feel really good.  The kids are sometimes chatty and sometimes afraid to ask for help, but they're really all good kids.  

The morning class (Math 2) was interesting for both me and my mentor teacher, because we realized we had no idea how to explain the algorithms for long division problems or even borrowing in subtraction.  We were then very concerned with how we were going to get them to learn these skills.  However, through talking with other math teachers, we discussed how it's probably not even essential for them to know how to do long division, because so many people use calculators when they need to do stuff like that.  Furthermore, it is probably more helpful to them if we teach them estimation and mental math, because that is really the true problem-solving aspect of it.  That is what will be most beneficial to them in the long run.  It is also more important to teach them the logic so they can check their answers.  Sometimes their responses are just totally illogical, and it would be helpful if they had a self-check mechanism in place.  So I think we're going to try and go that route instead of finding a way to teach arcane algorithms that no one uses any more anyway.  I'm also going to try to figure out ways for them to visualize what exactly they're doing with number lines or blocks or whatnot.  I am optimistic that we can still be successful with them if we teach the concepts instead of memorization.

The afternoon class (Math 5) was at the opposite end of the spectrum.  These kids asked a lot of questions about the why and how it worked, and they even caught mistakes in the worksheets.  They were diligently still working when class ended, and it was nice to see them already excited on the first day.  Also, while my mentor was teaching the lesson and comparing the equations of compound growth, there were a lot of sounds of understanding and realization from the kids: "Oh," "I get it," and "That makes sense."  That's always gotta be good feedback for the teacher.  It was also nice to see the kids that caught on quicker helping the other students.  However, I do worry that there were still a handful of kids that it may not have clicked with, and I hope I'll catch those sooner than later before they get too behind.

In short, it was a really successful day.  I am really happy about it, and I am really excited for this year.  I've still got a lot to learn from my mentor teacher about reading the kids and how to discipline.  But maybe I won't suck as much as I thought I might.  :)

I am officially Miss Wallace!

So I got on the train this morning, and I was watching all the kids and wondering if any of them went to my school.  But then I thought, well, just because you're going one place doesn't mean everyone else is too.  Then a girl in front of me turned around and asked me for the time, so I told her.  Then she started talking to someone else about my school, and I chuckled to myself.  I had just met my first student, and she didn't even know it.  Oh well!

The day was good.  The students are wonderful.  I'm not sure what I expected, but I guess I expected them to be wild and crazy and out of control.  I guess that's my own bias coming into play, but I was pleased to find that the students are high school-like.  I'm not sure how else to explain it.  They're really just smaller people with a little too much energy.  I'm really excited to get to know them all better, and I'm excited to see how the first day of academic classes goes tomorrow.  

I also was really inspired listening to the dance students talk about the summer dance programs they went to.  (My mentor teacher advises a group of dance students, so I follow along.)  It made me really want to get more involved in dancing again.  I need a group, and I need to be proud of the art I'm doing.  Right now I just feel lazy and well, uninspired.  But maybe these kids will whip me into shape.

We also had a little pep rally in the park, and they introduced all the faculty and staff.  It was easy to tell who were the most loved teachers, and maybe one day I'll be one of those too.  We also had back-to-school night, and we met some of the parents.  I felt clueless (again), because I barely know the students in the first place.  Anyhow, it was a super long day, and I'd like to be as rested as possible for tomorrow.  So I'm going to sleep and dream about compound interest and also basic integers and their operations for the other math class we have tomorrow.  

Last Day of Preparation

Today was our final day of preparation, because the children arrive tomorrow - ahhh!  No, I'm really very excited to meet them all, and tomorrow will not be stressful, because there are no actual academic classes happening.  So why do they come in, you may ask?  Because they still have to meet with their advisors, get their schedules, and have lots of meetings to discuss how the school year will function.  It's really like an orientation day for all students, and then there's a pep rally in the park across the way!  Woo!  Then they are released early for the day.  So at least I'll get to meet a number of them and see how the school works with all the students there.  

However, as for our final day of professional development, we started off in a very heated debate about whether this school is and should be a pre-professional program versus a conservatory versus an arts-enriched high school.  It was fascinating to listen to and to compare to my performing arts high school experience.  The faculty here truly believe in teaching the discipline of their arts.  For example, they train the students to be prepared (with music or dance clothes), to practice their art, and to act professionally in performance and rehearsal spaces.  They expressed that these are skills that can transfer to any career they may choose, and they stress that they do not push the students to go into the arts.  It seems like a good balance to me.  My high school had much more of an emphasis on performance, and they never really seemed to teach us process.  There were very few teachers there who were good at teaching - most of them liked directing, which is a very different skill.  I learned a good amount about performing arts in high school, but it was more thanks to my passion than to my teachers (depending on the teacher).  So that debate continued for a while.

Then we had elections for union representatives and board representatives.  I was clearly not a part of this, but it was amusing to watch.  I wonder what the teachers' union is like here.

Then we had a mini writing workshop.  We read one student's college essay and discussed what we noticed about it and how we would grade it.  It was a really interesting essay, because the student wrote it all in the third person, except for the last sentence.  So I was grappling with how to evaluate that.  Most people seemed to agree it would be a C/C- paper, but when I first saw it, I would have given it a B.  There were a lot of grammatical errors, but it seemed very creative.  I'm very concerned at how I'll be able to grade students' writing.  

Then we had "open space," when anyone was allowed to share any sort of thoughts or concerns.  I thought about sharing that I felt clueless, but I think that's been apparent to everyone for the last week from the look on my face.  Many people expressed concerns about the new schedule or about their new responsibilities of being both a parent and a teacher or about serving such a high-needs senior class.  Others said they chose not to be worried and that they'd get worried later on.  It was interesting to hear what everyone had to say.  But I think it was more interesting that they have "open space" in the first place.  I doubt most schools have an environment in which all the teachers and administration can come together and share openly and honestly how they feel.  No one seemed to act like it was a waste of time, and no one disrespected anyone else's feelings.  I just still can't get over this school culture.  I mean, there was tension during the first discussion of the day about the arts curriculum, but no one ever raised their voices, and everyone respectfully disagreed.  Does this last all year?  Or is just this because they're optimistic at the beginning of each year?  Another intern working at another school told me today that she met with her math team, and they got in some serious arguments.  Her mentor even told her to leave so she wouldn't be subject to their intense fighting.  I was really surprised to hear it.  I just hope this spirit of cooperation lasts all year.

Lastly, I spent more time with the math teachers planning curriculum and with the seminar teachers planning the first week.  I hope I'm ready.  But I also hope I can make up a decent worksheet by Friday about the compound interest that I talked about yesterday.  I really think I came up with some good ideas, and I'm excited to get started.  However, I don't yet feel comfortable pushing my mentor teacher to change stuff.  I wasn't prepared well enough to convince her of my ideas yesterday, but now that I've thought it through I don't want to waste any time!  I guess I still don't understand my role, and I still don't understand the dynamic of our working relationship yet.  What do you think?  Should I make up a worksheet and at least offer it to her?  Or should I sit back and wait until I understand the school a little better?

After that, I had my first math pedagogy class, and I am REALLY excited about this professor.  I already feel like I'm on the same page with him, so I guess we'll see how that goes.  There are fewer than 10 students in the class, so it will be very intense.  But now I'll rest so I'll be able to greet the kids tomorrow!

More Professional Development

I am sooo tired.  When will I ever adjust to waking up before the sun rises?  I really think the answer is never.  Today was not made any better by the train this morning.  It started smoking, and we had to evacuate.  I smelled like burnt rubber the rest of the day.  Blech.

Anyway, we started the morning with a meeting with the other high school that shares the same building with us.  We met in our content teams and discussed differences in our practices and curricula.  Our school creates all their own math curricula.  They use a variety of textbooks and spend lots of time making photocopies and typing their own material in order to create a curriculum that works for them.  It seems like a really great idea to me, because they can pick and choose which lessons are most important and rearrange things as they see fit.  However, they discussed how some of the negatives are that students are not prepared to read math textbooks when they get to college, because they never had a math textbook in high school.  That definitely came as a surprise to me, because it didn't even occur to me that reading a math textbook was a skill.  But it's a skill that I have that I certainly take for granted.  I suppose I'm going to have to start noticing the assumptions I have about teaching and learning and figure out how to deal with them.  The math team from the other school just changed their curriculum too, so we are all interested in seeing how it works out for them.  Hopefully, the teams will keep in touch with each other during the year so we can collaborate and learn from each others mistakes and triumphs.  We discussed the MCAS and the SAT and how to deal with those standardized tests in the classroom.  There was a general feeling that they've improved significantly every year in getting more and more kids to pass the MCAS, but they all feel that SAT progress has flatlined.  I hope I'll be able to help them somewhat with their SAT prep, but they all seem so competent that I'm not sure what more I can offer them.

Then we had an inclusion workshop with the learning center, so we discussed a few case studies of students that we will have in our classes.  It appears I have already been assigned to mentor one student with severe emotional/behavioral problems in our math class.  I sure hope I'm up for it!  At least I had an introduction to special education this summer.  I won't be completely clueless in the classroom when I get such high-needs students, although I still think it will be difficult for me to figure out how to build a relationship with a student who doesn't trust adults and often walks out in the middle of class.  But I guess that's what I'm in for if I wanna be a teacher!

After that I ate lunch with my mentor teacher, and we began discussing the curriculum for Math 5 - the calculus-like course.  So the curriculum currently begins with logarithms and exponents with the first lesson being on compound interest.  Honestly, I cannot possibly recall what specific topics I studied and when in high school, so I have no idea if it makes more sense to start with this as a topic.  However, after reading through the first lesson, I already started thinking about how I could make it better.  Basically, compound interest is just dealing with how you accumulate interest over time with your money.  So the formula we start with is the formula for interest compounded annually: A=P(1+r)^t, where A is the total amount accumulated, P is the principal amount of money, r is the interest rate, and t is the number of years.  For example, if you start with $5,000, and you have an interest rate of 5% over 5 years, you write A=(5000)(1+.05)^5=6381.41.  (I just made that up and used the google calculator, so please double check me.)  The point is you make lots of money if you invest at high interest rates over long periods of time.  However, sometimes interest is not compounded annually.  For instance, sometimes interest is compounded biannually, monthly, or even fortnightly (I love this word).  So in this case the formula is A=P(1+r/n)^nt, with all of the above variables being the same and n being the number of times it is compounded annually.  In other words, they're really the same formula, but the n is invisible in the first equation because n=1.  (r/n=r/1=r and n*t=1*t=t)  However, I think it's just mad confusing to give the students two different formulas to memorize, plus memorizing when to use which one.  Not only does that not even bring up the question of where the equation came from in the first place.  I feel like I need to go back and think thoroughly about how this equation was derived and start the students from there.  If the students don't understand why the equation is what it is, then they haven't really learned the math just by memorizing it.  Any tips would be super helpful!

Later in the day, we had a very intense discussion on exactly how tutorial works.  Tutorial is a new thing at my school.  They used to have a different type of program called support and enrichment, but due to budget cuts that is gone and tutorial is here.  All students must attend the short tutorial period in the classroom with their seminar teachers, and today's discussion was what do they do in tutorial if they are required to attend.  I found this logic slightly backwards already, because I couldn't understand why they were trying to define this new period after they had already restructured their schedule to fit in tutorial.  Theoretically, the reason the decided to add tutorial was because someone somewhere had some idea of what purpose tutorial would serve.  However, everyone today seemed completely clueless and out of sync about how tutorial should be run.  Then there became lots of debates about whether or not they should be working on seminar work first because they are in tutorial with their seminar teachers, whether they can visit their other teachers if they are struggling to complete an assignment from another class, whether they can use electronic devices as agendas or headphones as a focusing tool, whether they can eat or sleep during tutorial, and whether all the classes and grade levels would have to have the same rules.  School starts in two days, and no one seems to have made any decisions on how tutorial is going to work.  It seems like a good idea, but no one can agree on logistics, so it may end up being unsuccessful.  Honestly, I'm not sure what the big deal is - I thought people were getting in rather heated debates over nothing.  Anyway, I think tutorial can be a useful period for students to catch up on work, and I will do my best to help keep kids focused and on-track during this undecided-upon period.  

Afterwards, the interns collectively rode the T back to school for our first classes of the fall semester, and I went to the gym after class for the first time in a billion years.  We'll see how long this all lasts.  There was also a brief moment today in which I thought I might lose my mentor teacher and be switched to someone else so that I could act as his sub more frequently while he was out of class for leadership team meetings.  However, I think they decided that it was both not a good idea to switch mentor teachers after a week of getting to know each other and not a good idea to throw me into substitute teaching consistently my first semester.  So I'll be doing my best to figure out how to best teach this calculus course and learning how to build relationships with students with behavioral problems.  Can't wait for Thursday!

Seminar!

So today we met with our seminar teams.  Let me first describe exactly how our curriculum works.  As I said before seminar takes the place of an English class, and it is co-taught by teachers of any subject, meaning all teachers teach it.  So because there are an odd number of teachers, I am working with two teachers instead of simply being paired with another teacher.  I am with a Humanities and a Music teacher, and all of our students in seminar are music majors.  They group them by arts discipline in 11th and 12th grade.  So basically, each grade has a different curriculum (obviously).  But for 11th and 12th grades, they have worked out a cyclical curriculum, so that teachers are either in an 11/12 block or a 12/11 block.  For instance, I am in the 12/11 block, so I am with 12th graders first semester and 11th graders second semester.  Since I really only know the curriculum of my block, I'll only be able to explain that.  We teach college admissions, SAT prep, and senior projects, whereas I gather that the 11/12 block has an arts history curriculum.  The reason for the cyclical block is because theoretically if a teacher is there for more than one year (unlike myself), they will have the same 11th grade group in the spring which them becomes their 12th grade group in the fall.  This way they have the opportunity to provide SAT prep, college admissions, and senior projects stuff all in the correct timeline.  It really actually makes a lot of sense, so I'm gonna go with it.  :)

So I guess it's most important for me to explain the senior projects, because I'm sure you can assume what we do to help with SAT prep and college admissions (college essays and resumes, choosing schools, and doing well on the SAT).  The senior project is unique to this high school.  The mission statement of our school clearly outlines that we try to help students become artists, scholars, and citizens of our world.  So the senior project is the ultimate combination of these roles.  Each senior must write a grant proposal and must achieve at least a grade of 3 on a scale of 4 in order to graduate, though they can revise it as many times as they need.  So the students have to find a community organization they would like to become artistically involved with and write a proposal for a grant that would help fund them so they could in return help the organization.  So they are using their artistic skills but also their scholarly skills in order to write a clear and effective proposal and also their citizenship skills because it is a community service-oriented idea.  It's really the capstone of their high school years.  It sounds like a fabulous project, and I cannot wait to see what the students come up with.  Then they bring in outside judges to select some of them to actually receive the grants.  They get $500 to do their project, and those that complete the project fully graduate with honors.  It is the only way to graduate with honors, although they do have a separate program to get the honors designation on their transcripts for a particular course.  There is no exam to test into honors, it's open honors, so any student who wishes to can choose to.  They are not in separate classes, they simply do more work (read more books and write more papers).  I think it's such an important lesson for students - to give them the opportunity to elect whether or not they want to do extra work to learn more.  

Also, the teachers discussed that this 12th grade class in particular is a very high needs class, meaning I will be working with a lot of special education students (they call them learning center students at this school).  I am curious to see how that will play out, because they do work towards inclusion as much as possible, so I will definitely have high needs students mixed with all kinds of other students.  It will be an interesting environment, and I am excited to see how that will play out.  They told me that some students will have completed the summer reading assignment fully and others will not have even started, so I guess I'll learn how to deal with that.  They also told me that I would be working with students from the very beginning.  This class particularly is very individualized for each student, so I'd probably get a group of three students and follow them specifically throughout the semester.  I still don't exactly know what that means, but I am excited and nervous to see how it all works!  I even managed to speak up and make suggestions in our meeting today.  My classes start on Tuesday, and the high school starts Thursday, so things will be in full swing soon - oy!

The Math Team

Today we had content team meetings, meaning I met with all the other math teachers.  Instead of meeting at the school, we instead went to one of the math teachers' houses.  So I went to a new area of Boston, which was cool, but again I was awkward because I was the first one there.  I even thought about this possibility and purposely sat in the T station longer so I wouldn't be the first one.  I try so hard...  Anyway, I spent some time talking to the math teachers until finally everyone arrived.  Of course, my mentor teacher was almost an hour late because she got into a small accident on her way.  (Don't worry, she's fine.)  She commutes from out of state, and she's from New York, so she only got her first driver's license last year.  She was also the first to leave, because she wanted to beat the traffic on her way home.  Anyhow, I was generally pretty useless today, but I learned a lot by listening.  And I ate a lot of snacks.  :)

First they reflected on what they did and didn't do well last year, and then they brainstormed what they wanted to do better this year.  They all had really good points.  Then they had to apply the school-wide goals for the year and figure out how to apply them to the math team, and then they had to develop specific math team goals.  The whole school is very much into setting goals and making sure they improve every year.  They are very reflective and self-aware, and I am constantly amazed at how well they all work together and collaborate.  I am sure that my high school teachers had meetings and professional development days that I was unaware of, but I cannot imagine them all being quite so cooperative.  None of them appear either very stubborn or very lazy.  They all make suggestions, and they all receive them openly and genuinely consider whether or not the idea makes sense.   I just hope I can live up to their expectations and be equally as cooperative and innovative.  The chair of the math team is extraordinarily organized and productive, so he was good at keeping us on track when we got distracted by other things.  Also, one of the teachers had to bring his three-year-old daughter with him today, and I realized that all of math teachers are married, and most of them have children.  I feel so young.  :)

One thing that was funny was that they had to set very specific benchmarks for their goals, so they decided that they way they will measure one of their goals, which is redefining some of the curriculum, is by seeing if I (as a future first-year math teacher) find the curriculum to be clear and easy to use in my instruction.  So I will be the one to declare whether or not they met that goal.  I guess that means they trust me a little?

In the afternoon, they went over their class lists and discussed ways of evening out the number of students in each class, because some classes were as small as 15 and others as big as 30.  (I know, 30 was not big at my high school, but there are fewer students in total here than in my graduating class alone.)  They also went over every student to make sure they were in the correct level course.  I was amazed at how well they knew all the students.  They knew without referencing anything which students had not already passed the MCAS and which students had low skill levels and which combinations of students would be behavior problems.  Of course, I've never met a single student, but I still learned how much every teacher truly pays attention to the individual needs of every single student.  I just hope I will be that alert as a teacher.

So also, I will be helping/observing the development of the Math 2 curriculum.  They just recently changed some things around, so some of the curriculum needs to be redeveloped.  Furthermore, my mentor is the only teacher teaching Math 5, so it will really just be the two of us rewriting the curriculum that she lost last year.  So that will indeed be an adventure.  I don't even know if I remember calculus.  Oops.  I know that a lot of the people who intern here end up staying and getting jobs here, so they must be pretty good interns.  I just wonder if I'll be a good enough intern and if I'll be able to keep up with everything and learn to teach well quickly.  I also worry that no other school that I'd actually get a job in is as highly functional as this one.  I can't imagine there are this many public schools that utilize so much collaboration and reflection and support.  I can't decide if it would be better to teach in a crappy school, so I'd be prepared for the absolute worst.  I guess I'll just hope for a job in a relatively good school.  I think it's also important though that this is a high functioning school, but it is not a school full of students from wealthy families.  It is still an excellent socioeconomic representation of the city of Boston, so by good school, I do not mean a wealthy one.  I mean a public school that does a good job of serving its students.  Anyway, I learned a lot from the math team today.  Maybe I should review some of my math so I can be more helpful next week.  :-/

Meeting All the Teachers

Today I met all the teachers, including my mentor teacher, the whole math department, and well really... everyone.  My mentor seems really nice.  She seems slightly soft-spoken and very calm but also very cheery.  She's a competitive salsa dancer, and she also went to a performing arts high school in New York.  So we have some things in common, and hopefully I'll get to know her more in the next week and we'll discuss my role in the classroom and everything before all the students start showing up.  

The day started off with a bang.  We played pictionary in groups as a warm-up.  So I was with a bunch of teachers that I hadn't even been introduced to yet, and I got the strangest thing to draw.  It wasn't objects we had to draw but key phrases that they had discussed in their professional development from the day before, when of course I wasn't there.  So I was terrified I was gonna get something and not know what it meant.  And of course, I did.  However, they were still able to guess it thanks to my mad drawing skills.  The phrase was "no genital clutch."  What?!?  What does that even mean?  I cannot possibly even imagine what that refers to.  There I was, the intern that no one has met, holding the pen, and thinking, "can I really draw this?"  So I did.  I drew a penis.  That's right.  I drew a penis.  And then I drew a hand holding a ball to represent clutching something.  And they managed to get it.  So I was a little proud.  However, they did then hold up the picture to show everyone that the intern drew a penis.  So now I'm the intern who drew a penis within the first 10 minutes of meeting all the teachers.  Awesome.

Otherwise, the rest of the day was kind of dull.  We spent most of the day sitting in the assembly hall while people talked at us, and it was especially bad for the interns because none of us know what they're talking about.  They talked about their summer programs and how well or not well they went this year and also how they're losing more and more money both from the school system and from grants.  We went over the calendar, but a lot of the dates were either wrong or were going to change, so I'm not sure how useful that was.  Then all the teachers received their schedules and class lists.  So this is when I met the math team.  There are five math teachers, and they all seem really great.  So my mentor is teaching one class of Math 2 and one class of Math 5 in the fall and two classes of Math 3 in the spring.  Also, she said she had an awful computer incident at the end of last year, and she lost a lot of her curriculum, so it seems we will be writing a lot of curriculum together, which is kinda cool.  Anyway, then the math teachers sat around looking through their class lists talking about the students.  "Oh, he's difficult."  "She is a hard-worker."  "He does better when he sits next to girls because he likes to show off for them."  So I kinda just chilled.  I felt a little awkward already, and then I was just totally not included.  I don't blame them - I would do it too.  But is there any way to not have awkward moments when you're the new person?  I mean really, it's just this horrible inevitable part of being new, and it totally sucks.  Then the academic dean comes up and says to the math team that they're going to meet over lunch, and she turns to me and says, "You don't have to be there - not that I mean to exclude you, but this is something we have to deal with from last year."  And you know, I totally get it, I understand, but it doesn't make it any less awkward.  Someone please explain to me how to be less awkward in these situations!  Anyway, we broke for lunch, and I ate my little ham and cheese sandwich all by my lonesome, because all the other interns ate with their content teams.  Le sigh... At least I was included in the faculty picture, right?  

After lunch they talked at us some more about how to write our professional development goals.  They gave us a worksheet with circles and boxes and charts that I guess I have to fill out.  I don't really remember this part, because this is where I started to doze off.  It was just too much information that I didn't understand, so my brain just shut down.  Oh well.  Then we broke up into our literature circles based on whatever summer reading book we chose to read.  I only found out last week that we needed to read a summer book, and with all the moving, I was not very far into it.  So when we broke off into groups, I was with only three other teachers, and I had absolutely nothing to share about the book, because I just started it.  Again I felt totally awkward and unprepared.  But I did manage to suggest ideas for planning our classes.  In these literature circles, we will meet twice during Seminar with the students who read the same book.  So basically we had to plan two forty-five minute classes with a homework assignment in between to help facilitate a discussion about the book.  So I had a few good ideas for homework, and I really liked the collaborative nature of planning these classes.  Everyone was really open to everyone else's suggestions, so I didn't feel stupid when I spoke.  So hopefully I'll finish the book soon, and I'll be able to participate better next time.  :-/

Tufts Orientation

Today I was not at my high school but at my university for orientation.  Since I went to the same school for my undergraduate degree, it was probably not as helpful as it could have been.  However, I did meet a lot more of the faculty and staff from the Department of Education, and I learned that I have a new advisor, because my advisor for the summer has gone on sabbatical.  My new advisor is also the chair of the department, so she should be super helpful... I hope.  :)  It seems like everyone has similar goals in how they want to help change the education system, so I'm really looking forward to getting to know lots of the faculty and really being supported by them.

We also had our matriculation ceremony, and I have officially been inducted as a double jumbo!  I met a lot of other grad students in many other departments, and the grad student council organizes bbq's and pub nights and even an apple-picking trip.  So I will hopefully be able to get involved in all of these activities and still have a social life while in grad school.  Tomorrow I'll be back at my internship, so I must prepare for a long day ahead.  And I'll finally meet my mentor teacher - yay!