Dark Sarcasm In The Classroom: Part One
This post is decidedly a bit darker than most AOGB fare, but I have had many questions asking for elaboration about what it is like to be a teacher in today's schools. So in a way, you asked for it. Don't say I didn't warn you.
They say that you've truly "arrived" in the blogging world when you start to get mean, hateful or just plain misunderstood comments written about you, either on your own blog or someplace else. If this is the case, then color me arrived.
A little over a month ago I wrote this post which was picked apart on this site. Lucky for me, comments were open and so I was able to defend myself a bit, even if I was preaching to the converted.
Then last week this post took some heat on this site. I couldn't openly comment on this one though (something about registering which I couldn't do for some reason), so I emailed my rebuttal to the person who linked to the post, someone who also seemed rather ambiguous about what side she was really on. This woman has yet to email me back. She also has not yet posted my rebuttal. And meanwhile, the negative comments continued to pour in.
Now I know I shouldn't take it personally, but I have begun to notice a trend- the times where I am getting negative feedback revolve around my writing about my experiences in education. Apparently a lot of people are passionate about this subject, as am I. In fact, this is why I get so annoyed when people write about my posts, spending a lot of time speculating when they could simply ask me directly.
Let me first, address the misconceptions. Even if I don't always write about it, I am constantly looking for ways to improve my teaching methods so that these kids get it. I am very serious about the job I have of educating these kids. When I see it isn't working, of course I blame myself and yes, sometimes I even cry.
But then I try to take a step back and put things into perspective. I know I am a fairly new teacher, but this problem is not only in my class. This is a school wide epidemic that has permeated every grade, even the classrooms of teachers who have been teaching far longer than I. For all I know this could be a state wide or even national problem. Now that would be really scary.
In regards to the one post about the Social Studies test I will say this. A lot of people were confused because they thought the questions sounded hard for even them to answer. But the children didn't have to memorize anything. All they had to do was count how many pictures they saw on a map and most importantly, write down answers that made sense.
If you knew my class you would know that the hopes that all the children are going to "get it" is long gone. This is not a negative attitude, it is a realistic one. So sometime this year my goal for this particular group shifted. I don't need for them to get all the answers all of the time, but I am trying to get them to a place where they at least can defend the rationale of how they got to those answers.
And the SS test is just ONE example. I have literally hundreds more where that came from. For example, the other day I gave my students a making change word problem. They had a dollar and they bought a 70 cent candy bar. They had to tell me how much change they would get back.
I went around the room, asking everyone what they thought, and the answers were as diverse as the colors of a rainbow. One girl even put down $71.00. Some of them had the idea, but still don't know how to subtract properly. Things like this occur EVERYDAY in my classroom.
Now how this can happen is a question that should be asked and one that I have long looked forward to answering. However how to answer it without writing a novel is another issue entirely.
So that is why I am going to attempt to break down what I see as the major problems and I am going to do so in four, easy installments over the next four weeks. Although the four problems, (as you will come to see) do overlap, it's just easiest to do it this way. A new installment will be posted every Monday covering the following categories:
1. Discipline
2. Motivation
3. Grouping/Placement
4. Parental Involvement/Culture
The remainder of today's post will focus on the first part, discipline.
My school is a very well respected school, known for making real progress with inner city students from Spanish speaking homes. But this year, the climate in the school has decidedly changed, namely in the upper grades.
The school I work in is comprised of grades K-4. Last year my third grade class was a handful to say the least. With all of the things my school does right, discipline isn't one of them. Which brings me to the first major problem, there is no formal discipline plan in place. If you have a difficult child, you need to figure out a way to deal with them because administration either can't or more accurately more often than not, won't get involved.
So I end up giving a majority of my lunch periods up to monitor things like lunch detention for students who misbehave or didn't do their work. I could literally do this everyday, but some days I let it slide if only because I need a break.
And the monitoring doesn't only go on at lunch. There are constant disruptions for misbehavior while I'm trying to teach as well. If you have one or two kids who are problems this isn't a huge deal. But what if you have 5, 10 or 15 difficult children like I have the past 2 years? What do the other 5 kids who want to learn do? They sit there and wait and lose out.
Since I pride myself on running a very tight ship, most of the time the kids don't fall apart behaviorally unless they are not with me. Times like lunch or specials or when I am absent. Anytime, basically where there is no structure. But even though this happens when I'm not around, I'm forced to take time out of my instructional day addressing behavior issues. Who cursed. Who hit who. Who is crying... etc.
So another part of this new culture of non-achievement plan was a school wide initiative to come down hard on non-achievers. If a kid is disrupting your lesson or causing a problem with your class? Send them to the office, provide them with work and they will take it from there. Great idea, right? Only the best ideas only work if you actually follow through with them.
The same day they unveiled the new plan students of mine were fighting at lunch. They were throwing rocks. One day someone is going to seriously get hurt. So I told the guidance counselor who in turn told the vice principal who in turn did nothing. He didn't talk to the kids who did it. He didn't give them detention NOTHING on the VERY SAME DAY HE TOLD THEM THINGS WERE GOING TO CHANGE. Now what kind of message is THAT sending?! Instead he allegedly told the guidance counselor that kids were going to fight cause they were kids. Nice, right?
The problems they are seeing in the fourth grade are even more severe then the ones I am seeing now. But then again, I had many of the four graders who were problems when they were third grade or what I like to refer to as "the last year of innocence." In third, for the most part, kids will listen to consequence, not talk back and are afraid of authority. But by the fourth grade, it is a whole different ballgame.
In fourth grade this year alone we had two kids try to set fire to a desk and another pull down his pants and tell another student to suck my you know what. So fourth, is obviously administration's priority right now since their problems are more severe.
Or are they?
Just because third grade doesn't exhibit as severe behaviors doesn't mean they aren't as important. After all, if they addressed the problems that are happening in the third grade now maybe they could avoid some of the problems they will have next year when THESE students get to fourth grade. But instead, my school waits until it becomes a bigger problem instead of stopping the problem in its tracks.
Although the school lacks in discipline with no real plan in sight, that does not stop me from holding students accountable for their actions when they are with me. I am a firm believer most of these kids act out because they think no one cares and as a result, I am dead set on proving them wrong.
Tune in for Dark Sarcasm In The Classroom: Part Two, next Monday.
They say that you've truly "arrived" in the blogging world when you start to get mean, hateful or just plain misunderstood comments written about you, either on your own blog or someplace else. If this is the case, then color me arrived.
A little over a month ago I wrote this post which was picked apart on this site. Lucky for me, comments were open and so I was able to defend myself a bit, even if I was preaching to the converted.
Then last week this post took some heat on this site. I couldn't openly comment on this one though (something about registering which I couldn't do for some reason), so I emailed my rebuttal to the person who linked to the post, someone who also seemed rather ambiguous about what side she was really on. This woman has yet to email me back. She also has not yet posted my rebuttal. And meanwhile, the negative comments continued to pour in.
Now I know I shouldn't take it personally, but I have begun to notice a trend- the times where I am getting negative feedback revolve around my writing about my experiences in education. Apparently a lot of people are passionate about this subject, as am I. In fact, this is why I get so annoyed when people write about my posts, spending a lot of time speculating when they could simply ask me directly.
Let me first, address the misconceptions. Even if I don't always write about it, I am constantly looking for ways to improve my teaching methods so that these kids get it. I am very serious about the job I have of educating these kids. When I see it isn't working, of course I blame myself and yes, sometimes I even cry.
But then I try to take a step back and put things into perspective. I know I am a fairly new teacher, but this problem is not only in my class. This is a school wide epidemic that has permeated every grade, even the classrooms of teachers who have been teaching far longer than I. For all I know this could be a state wide or even national problem. Now that would be really scary.
In regards to the one post about the Social Studies test I will say this. A lot of people were confused because they thought the questions sounded hard for even them to answer. But the children didn't have to memorize anything. All they had to do was count how many pictures they saw on a map and most importantly, write down answers that made sense.
If you knew my class you would know that the hopes that all the children are going to "get it" is long gone. This is not a negative attitude, it is a realistic one. So sometime this year my goal for this particular group shifted. I don't need for them to get all the answers all of the time, but I am trying to get them to a place where they at least can defend the rationale of how they got to those answers.
And the SS test is just ONE example. I have literally hundreds more where that came from. For example, the other day I gave my students a making change word problem. They had a dollar and they bought a 70 cent candy bar. They had to tell me how much change they would get back.
I went around the room, asking everyone what they thought, and the answers were as diverse as the colors of a rainbow. One girl even put down $71.00. Some of them had the idea, but still don't know how to subtract properly. Things like this occur EVERYDAY in my classroom.
Now how this can happen is a question that should be asked and one that I have long looked forward to answering. However how to answer it without writing a novel is another issue entirely.
So that is why I am going to attempt to break down what I see as the major problems and I am going to do so in four, easy installments over the next four weeks. Although the four problems, (as you will come to see) do overlap, it's just easiest to do it this way. A new installment will be posted every Monday covering the following categories:
1. Discipline
2. Motivation
3. Grouping/Placement
4. Parental Involvement/Culture
The remainder of today's post will focus on the first part, discipline.
My school is a very well respected school, known for making real progress with inner city students from Spanish speaking homes. But this year, the climate in the school has decidedly changed, namely in the upper grades.
The school I work in is comprised of grades K-4. Last year my third grade class was a handful to say the least. With all of the things my school does right, discipline isn't one of them. Which brings me to the first major problem, there is no formal discipline plan in place. If you have a difficult child, you need to figure out a way to deal with them because administration either can't or more accurately more often than not, won't get involved.
So I end up giving a majority of my lunch periods up to monitor things like lunch detention for students who misbehave or didn't do their work. I could literally do this everyday, but some days I let it slide if only because I need a break.
And the monitoring doesn't only go on at lunch. There are constant disruptions for misbehavior while I'm trying to teach as well. If you have one or two kids who are problems this isn't a huge deal. But what if you have 5, 10 or 15 difficult children like I have the past 2 years? What do the other 5 kids who want to learn do? They sit there and wait and lose out.
Since I pride myself on running a very tight ship, most of the time the kids don't fall apart behaviorally unless they are not with me. Times like lunch or specials or when I am absent. Anytime, basically where there is no structure. But even though this happens when I'm not around, I'm forced to take time out of my instructional day addressing behavior issues. Who cursed. Who hit who. Who is crying... etc.
So another part of this new culture of non-achievement plan was a school wide initiative to come down hard on non-achievers. If a kid is disrupting your lesson or causing a problem with your class? Send them to the office, provide them with work and they will take it from there. Great idea, right? Only the best ideas only work if you actually follow through with them.
The same day they unveiled the new plan students of mine were fighting at lunch. They were throwing rocks. One day someone is going to seriously get hurt. So I told the guidance counselor who in turn told the vice principal who in turn did nothing. He didn't talk to the kids who did it. He didn't give them detention NOTHING on the VERY SAME DAY HE TOLD THEM THINGS WERE GOING TO CHANGE. Now what kind of message is THAT sending?! Instead he allegedly told the guidance counselor that kids were going to fight cause they were kids. Nice, right?
The problems they are seeing in the fourth grade are even more severe then the ones I am seeing now. But then again, I had many of the four graders who were problems when they were third grade or what I like to refer to as "the last year of innocence." In third, for the most part, kids will listen to consequence, not talk back and are afraid of authority. But by the fourth grade, it is a whole different ballgame.
In fourth grade this year alone we had two kids try to set fire to a desk and another pull down his pants and tell another student to suck my you know what. So fourth, is obviously administration's priority right now since their problems are more severe.
Or are they?
Just because third grade doesn't exhibit as severe behaviors doesn't mean they aren't as important. After all, if they addressed the problems that are happening in the third grade now maybe they could avoid some of the problems they will have next year when THESE students get to fourth grade. But instead, my school waits until it becomes a bigger problem instead of stopping the problem in its tracks.
Although the school lacks in discipline with no real plan in sight, that does not stop me from holding students accountable for their actions when they are with me. I am a firm believer most of these kids act out because they think no one cares and as a result, I am dead set on proving them wrong.
Tune in for Dark Sarcasm In The Classroom: Part Two, next Monday.
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