It’s All About the Data.

At least that’s what it seems like.

I swear, I feel like my whole year has been centered more around data than around building relationships with my students. It’s all about how the district is doing and how the school is doing and how my class is doing.

I’ll be honest, statistically speaking my class isn’t doing so hot. Guess that means if I was being paid on merit I wouldn’t be making too much (or I’d probably be fired).

To me, this is absurd. Not because I would probably get fired if I was getting a merit-based paycheck, but because none of this focuses on the students, and they are the reason I chose this profession.

I didn’t want to be a teacher because of the bureaucratic politics or the disengaged (or overly-engaged) parents or the piles of paperwork. I wanted to be a teacher because I wanted to inspire kids to become lifelong learners and to love every minute of it.

Unfortunately, I don’t know how inspiring I am when I have to give my third graders bubble sheets every nine weeks to test their “skills.” Multiple choice tests aren’t even developmentally appropriate for third graders if you asked me, and frankly I care more about whether or not my students fully understand a concept rather than if they can just pick a letter to color in on a scantron sheet.

I want my students to be able to explain to me how Roald Dahl develops his characters in his books, and then compare the characters to one another. I want my students to explain to me step-by-step how they were able to divide 13 brownies between 3 people so that each person gets an equal amount. I want my students to explain to me how the human body works interdependently.

Is any of that going to fit on a bubble sheet?

I just had my reading groups read through a recent TIME For Kids article called “The Future of Testing.” It discusses that their tests will one day be taken on tablets and computers, and not all of the questions will be multiple choice.

I suppose that could be seen as a step in the right direction, but why is everyone so focused on all of this data?!

Yes, data can guide instruction, and that’s great. I want to know what my kids are struggling with so I can create engaging lessons that will meet their needs, and I see how this data does that, but everyone just seems so concerned with data that they don’t care about progress.

For my class, progress is a pretty big deal. One-third of my students do not speak English as their first language, and all of those students came to me reading below grade level. Another one-third of my students come from difficult home situations and have outside hindrances affecting their education, and they came to me reading below grade level, too. The final one-third of my students came to me reading on or above grade level.

So what’s a teacher supposed to do? I work hard and I’m a good teacher, but my students aren’t performing. Am I supposed to work a miracle and take a child reading on a first grade reading level and get him on a fourth grade reading level by June? Is that even possible? No wonder teachers and administrators cheat! Look at Atlanta — how sad it is to hear about so many educators fudging numbers so they can look better. And how about the alleged test scandals during Rhee’s administration as chancellor of DC Public Schools?

I can personally say that this strong push with data has hurt my self-esteem as a new teacher. I look at my data and see red and orange and I see failure on my part as a teacher. I see that I’m not doing my job well enough to get these kids to where they need to be.

Is that what we want? Do we want to be so focused on merit-based pay and good numbers and more tests that we crush the spirits of bright-eyed new teachers and demean the job of educator to pencil sharpener and paper-passer-outer?

To be honest, I’m tired of hearing the word data — I want to hear people talking progress.

I have a student whose first year in the United States is this year. She came in speaking very little English and was only reading 13 words per minute with 65% accuracy. I progress monitored her last week, and now she’s reading 65 words per minute with 98% accuracy. How hard she’s worked and how far she’s come since September! Unfortunately, that doesn’t get to go on her report card.

All of my students have made some kind of progress since they came to me in August. Each one of my students is a higher reader now than they were at the beginning of the year. They can do multiplication and fractions and they know about plants and the human body — they’ve been incredible! It just breaks my heart that I have to quantify their achievements with a number that isn’t a true indicator of their progress as a learner.

As my first year of teaching begins to close and the End of Grade tests draw near, I can’t help but contemplate these things. My hope is that as teachers, we’re able to come together to encourage one another in our endeavors so that we do not become faint of heart — this is a battle worth fighting.

PLNs.

I’ve been using Twitter since the summer of 2008. Not many of my friends used it, but I was determined that it was going to be awesome and better than any other social media out there. Flash forward about five years and here it is, 2013, and everyone and their mom is on Twitter.

Well, my mom isn’t on Twitter, but…my dad and brother are. Amendment to previous statement: Everyone and someone else they’re related to is on Twitter.

So it was only a few months ago, around when school was starting, when I talked to my tech savvy friend Tim about how I wanted to get connected with more educators. His advice? Twitter.

Tim rocks because he basically set up my PLN, pubbing me all over Twitter to his educator contacts. My number of followers rose (as did my number of those who I started following), and the vast amount of support from these other educators was tremendously encouraging!

Now, I’ve always loved Twitter — the 140 character quips are just too amusing. But, now I don’t only love Twitter for its jokes and witticisms, but also for legitimate support in my teaching career.

I love my third grade team at Parkwood — I’ve mentioned them so many times before because they are such vital assets to my sanity. Our PLC (for my non-teacher friends, that means “Professional Learning Community,” otherwise known simply as my grade level team) meetings are normally very productive, and we all work well together. The way we plan for our weeks is pretty simple: each of us takes a different subject to plan. One of us does math for the week, one does reading, and one does science/social studies, depending on what we’re covering at the moment. I am honored to say that I get the privilege of planning science/social studies, and I have loved every minute of it! This system is great because of a few reasons: (1) we all trust each other to plan solid lessons, (2) since each of us plans a subject for the week, our lessons are all pretty streamlined, which keeps us on pace with the district, and (3) it lightens our workload significantly throughout the week.

Planning science/social studies, though it has been incredibly fun and rewarding, has also given me its fair share of challenges, too. Because science/social studies aren’t “tested” subjects like literacy and math (though science is becoming more prominent), there simply isn’t as much out there for me to use when planning. Note: I am not saying there is nothing out there — just saying that the resources for reading/writing/math are far greater, at least in my first-year opinion.

I’m currently planning out social studies lessons for local history. Our third graders will learn more about Durham, and I couldn’t be happier to plan lessons that are so incredibly relevant for my kids! Our team is in the midst of working out kinks for a walking tour of Downtown Durham, and we’re working closely with the librarian to do a culminating research project about people, places, and events of Durham’s history. We’re going to make a timeline of Durham for our classroom and write paragraphs to compile a class book about Durham. Needless to say, I am thrilled about this!

Here’s where my friend Tim’s advice about using Twitter comes in: whenever I need an idea or any kind of help with virtually anything teacher related, I can ALWAYS find a response from my PLN.

My PLN, or Personal Learning Network, has been one of the most helpful things to me this year as a first-year teacher. As a first-year teacher, many of you know that you come into the game with little to no resources. You have the stuff from student teaching and your School of Education classes, and maybe a few helpful links from other teacher friends or professors, but that’s about it. You don’t have tests made, you don’t have projects completely planned out, sometimes you don’t even really know your curriculum!

In about September, I started participating in the New Teacher Chat (#ntchat) on Twitter. This hour on Wednesday evenings is dedicated to new teachers and answering our questions so we can get input from others. This has been an awesome resource for me because it reminds me regularly how I am never alone in my struggles with things like behavior and planning and balancing my personal life with my teacher life. We’re in this together, friends!

As my PLN continues to grow, I continue to find it more and more helpful. I personally love collaborating and getting ideas from any and everyone, and this online medium has been beyond beneficial. Seriously, whenever I need an idea for a read aloud or if I need resources for teaching about local history, there never ceases to be someone responding, trying to help me out in my first-year teaching endeavors. Though I haven’t met these people in person and I haven’t sat down with them around a conference room table, I still find these PLN “meetings” to be some of the richest educational conversations I’ve yet to have.

It’s a beautiful thing when I can rely on both my PLC and my PLN to get me through this year in third grade. I came in with only a semester of third grade under my belt, and I feel so much more prepared to take on 2013 in my classroom.

I cannot thank you enough for your continued support!

NC Teacher: “I Quit”

NC Teacher: “I Quit”.

Such a moving commentary from a North Carolina public school teacher. Breaks my heart, but I have to say that it also makes me want to figure out what changes need to be made to start implementing them now. Teacher retention in the state of North Carolina used to be something that I would think was fairly decent, especially with programs like Teaching Fellows and Prospective Teacher Scholarship-Loans. These programs kept good teachers in North Carolina for some period of time, but now that the funding is gone for those programs, I’m sure we will see a serious drop in the number of good teachers in this state.

What makes me sad is that I can identify with this letter in so many ways. I know what it feels like to be unsupported, to be a test administrator, to physically feel the effects of my job.

There needs to be accountability. The leaders of our schools and districts need to open their eyes and see what’s going on in our classrooms. Where are the people who want to make public education a successful pathway for students?

Friends, we need to be bold and stand up for the injustices in our public education system, especially here in the state of North Carolina.

Harsh Truths.

I think I’ve alluded to this in previous posts, but it’s worth reiterating: there are some very difficult realities to face as a teacher.

It’s only Tuesday and I’ve had a girl suspended, a boy write me an alarming note about his self-esteem, and made contact with five families for behavior. I have a student who racially slurred and threatened another one of my students, I’ve seen bullying in and out of my class, and I’ve got kids who just won’t do their work. Their motivation is low and their desire to be perceived as “cool” is high. I asked one kid today what was going on with him and he told me that his mom loves her boyfriend more than him. Isn’t that heartbreaking?

My eyes have truly been opened to so much, especially these last couple weeks when everyone’s true colors started to show. I’m keeping notes in an anecdotal behavior journal (future teachers: DO THIS, it will be SO HELPFUL to you in the long run!) and am trying some new interventions this week. This is good, but I have to ask myself if it’s enough.

I know I’m doing the best that I can with what I have, but it is so hard for me knowing that some of my kids don’t have a home to go to after school. It makes me so sad knowing that some of them have no academic support at home (who in this beautiful world would ever call their child dumb? I mean seriously, who would do that?). I really think a little piece of me dies inside when I know that one of my kids isn’t being loved and respected at home.

I might only have 23 students in my class, but I feel for the whole third grade here — I feel responsible for their learning as well, because the other three teachers and I are working in such close collaboration that I feel like their kids are my kids, too.

Needless to say, the last six weeks and counting have been very eye-opening, and it’s very easy for me to say that I’ve learned more since school started than I have learned in my four years at UNC.

Seriously.

So. Much. Learning.

I’m taking some things that were taught to me in the past and modifying them for my group of kids, but I was never really taught how to handle a racist child who has anger outbursts and unsupportive parents. I was never really taught how to handle a child who wants to die. I was never really taught what to do when a child blatantly disobeys you when you don’t have a lot of disciplinary support.

I feel like a lot of people will read this and feel bad and think that I’m just having the worst time teaching, and that’s the complete opposite of what I want you to get out of reading this. I want you to know that there are so many challenges that I never really thought I’d face, but I also want you to know that these problems are the reasons I’m doing what I do. I couldn’t imagine just leaving this school because it’s harder — what would those kids do if I left them? Actually, what would I do if I left them?

These realities honestly keep me motivated to do my best teaching. Even though there are moments when my heart hurts for these kids, the desire I have to push them toward something greater always overpowers the negativity.

Seven Days.

In a week from this very moment, I will be face-planted on my couch (or probably in my bed), reveling in the fact that I have finished my very first day of teaching.

Today was my first workday and it was a long day. There were meetings and acronyms and planning — needless to say, by the time I finally got out of school my head was spinning with a headache and that feeling you get when you’ve had superfluous amounts of information crammed in it. Truly, it was a good, productive day.

Tomorrow is an even bigger day for me — I create my classroom website, find out who my mentor is, AND (drum roll please) I get my roster.

I get my roster.

I get to put names to the desks in A28. Do you see how real this is getting? I have NAMES of REAL CHILDREN, and I am entrusted with these children so that I can TEACH them things. Isn’t that amazing?

We planned out what our third grade literacy block will look like this year and it was really exciting for me. I really love teaching literacy and working on writing in particular (says the blog nerd of over five years and counting), so it felt good to solidify what that time in our day would look like. Planning and outlining schedules is coming together and that makes me feel more confident in the year coming up.

Despite my sheer exhaustion, I’m just so excited about everything. I’m not stressed, I’m a little nervous (I get more nervous by the day), and I have an overwhelming feeling of joy. I’m hoping that’s how it’s supposed to be.

Ten Days.

In ten days, I embark on the wondrous adventure that is my first year of teaching. I’ve just finished three long days of New Teacher Orientation and start full on workdays on Monday.

It’s getting really real, y’all.

I’ve spent weeks in my classroom trying my hardest to make it as perfect as possible. Even though it’s a little rough around the edges with the school’s ongoing renovations, I still think it’s just a beautiful place for learning. Hopefully my kids will think so, too!

Waiting for my roster has been the absolute worst. I want to put names on the little construction paper Carolina basketball jerseys I made for my door — we’re a team and I want them to remember that.

After orientation today, a good friend of mine offered to help me out with any classroom stuff. I mostly have planning to do at this point, but I was able to come up with some classroom funtivities for us to do today. After we divided my whiteboard with blue tape and finished the aforementioned jerseys, I had a bit of a hard time leaving. I turned off the lights and lingered in the doorway.

“Do you want to come out and go back in again?”

It wasn’t about leaving and coming back into the room for me — it’s the fact that I meet my kids on THURSDAY. Six days. Less than a week. Almost countable on one hand.

This is huge.

I just stood there thinking about how great this all was, and how much better it’s going to be once I have third graders in those desks and on that carpet. I love them so much already that I can feel it in my stomach. My heart is thrilled to spend 180 days with these children.

I know I still have planning to finish and confusing district paperwork to take care of, but the only thing on my mind is these kids. I want to know what they’re going to be like and who they are as individuals and what they want to learn. I really want to teach them things they want to learn, you know? Not every kid is a math person, but finding the percentage of free throws your favorite basketball team (North Carolina Tarheels, cough cough) makes is math. Not every kid likes writing, but you don’t always have to use the standard and often boring “five paragraph essay” format.

Do you see what I’m getting at here? I want to know everything about these kids and I want to make sure the education they get this year meets every need they have. It’s my job as their teacher to show them how empowering it is to learn.

Team A28 is going to blow my mind. I can feel it.

It’s almost here.

School starts two weeks from today. That leaves the beginning of this week to finish up classroom setup and the end of the week is left to New Teacher Orientation. Next week start Durham Public Schools teacher workdays, and I have Open House next Thursday. Then, before I know it, it’s going to be the first day of school.

Now normally I’m not a morning blogger — I seem to usually have these profound thoughts at night. Despite my morning blogging, I thought of all of this stuff last night and physically wrote it down in a notebook (because I’m old school like that and still use notebooks and pens).

I had this nightmare the other night that I got to the first day of school and didn’t know what to do — basically, I was wingin’ it on my first day, and if you know me, you know that is NOT me. I was making stuff up on the fly and figuring out my behavior management system right in front of the kids. It was TERRIFYING. So, in order to combat these terrible dreams, I decided to grab an old book off of my shelf.

Learning to Teach.

Okay, so I’m going to be honest, I didn’t read a lot of stuff when I was in college, this book included. I had this book for my EDUC 412 class with Dr. Bolick, and our class consisted of learning about various teaching styles and behavior management. Looking back, I wish I would have maybe paid more attention to the readings, but I didn’t find it quite relevant at that point of my education career. I was perusing the book last night to look for a chapter or two about different styles of classroom/behavior management, and when I turned to the first chapter there was a question:

What kind of teacher do you want to be?

It listed various kinds of teachers, everything from “strict” to “lax.” Then, it posed that very question. I sat in bed and really thought about that. What kind of teacher DO I want to be?

I want to be both strict and compassionate. I want to foster a safe and comfortable learning environment for my students. I want them to trust me. I want them to “be good” because they want to “be good,” not just because an adult says so. I want to teach my students to be independent learners who love gaining knowledge. I want to be understanding. I want to cultivate their creativity. I want to introduce them to what quality  music really is. I want my students to feel at ease when asking questions. I want to be approachable. I want to be patient. I want to be positive. I want to use encouragement as a motivator. I want to truly teach these kids something so that it sticks with them forever, not so they forget it after they take their standardized multiple choice test. I want to show these kids their ultimate potential. I want to give them opportunities they never knew they’d have.

I want to inspire.

Here’s to hoping I can do those things this year as A28′s third grade teacher.

The Act of Choosing vs. Being Chosen

Today I signed a yellow-papered contract stating that I will essentially commit myself to the education of the students of Durham Public Schools (specifically at Parkwood Elementary) for the 2012-2013 school year. I have a packet of benefits to go through (who knew that you could get insured for virtually everything?) and copies of my social security card to make so that I can get paid come August.

I signed a contract. A binding document. I’m getting (under) paid by the state for my services as a teacher in a public elementary school in Durham. This is incredible.

This morning I had to go to a session led by DPS so that I could sign my contract, learn about my benefits, and get some information on beginning teacher support (yep, there’s a support group for this — should be a great year). We learned about licensure, how to find substitutes, and all sorts of other necessary teacher things. As the session came to a close, I have to admit that I felt a little bit of stress.

This wasn’t  necessarily bad — let me assure everyone that I have been strangely calm and have only (minorly) freaked out twice including this instance (first freak out was when I realized August starts next week — still kind of getting over that one).

So much was going through my head: I still have to finish getting my room ready and now I have to worry about filling out all this paperwork by Wednesday, and this paperwork is a big deal and I don’t know if I can fill it out by myself and I just really want dad to look at this with me.

Yep, it was just like that, run-on sentence and everything.

Some of my temporary insecurities were quenched after talking to the HR representative about my scholarship-loan from the past two years (which is no longer offered since the North Carolina General Assembly apparently doesn’t find education important enough to properly fund). Glad to know that all I need to do is have her sign a paper at the end of the year saying I was employed at an in-state public elementary school and bam (!) I have loan forgiveness.

On my way out, one of the presenters from DPS was walking out with me and inquired about my placement. I told him how excited I am about being in 3rd grade at Parkwood and about all of my classroom cleaning binges from the week (if you know me well, you’ve heard first-hand what this conversation is like because it’s kind of all I talk about these days — sorry I’m not sorry). We stopped outside and he smiled, asking me to promise him that I’d still have my same enthusiasm in ten years.

Somewhat jokingly, I told him that I hoped to have my current enthusiasm by the time October comes around.

He told me that some people choose teaching as their profession, but there are others who have teaching choose them. According to him, I’m in the latter category.

I felt really honored that we only talked for maybe five minutes, but he felt as though teaching chose me.

That’s cool, right? The whole way home I kept thinking about the concept of someone choosing teaching and then teaching choosing someone.

In a previous post I alluded to how sometimes I wish I could have a bunch of different jobs but then realized I could do it all with teaching. I’m glad I ended up choosing teaching as my profession, but the more I think about it, maybe this guy was right — maybe teaching chose me instead.

My Cohort.

It’s mid-July and it’s hiring season for teachers.

This post will be short and sweet and to the point: I just love seeing that my fellow Tarheel teachers are getting jobs.

Not only am I happy to see that there is still a market for teachers (it’s very comforting knowing that you can get a job with the current unemployment rate), but I’m also just absolutely thrilled for my fellow first-year teachers (#educlove at its finest, my friends).

My cohort experienced a lot of changes to UNC’s elementary education program. Everything was completely revamped — updated classes, different requirements, new program director. Essentially, we were the guinea pigs. Some things worked, other things didn’t work; some classes were extremely beneficial, others found us wasting away on Pinterest planning weddings (some of us actually did need to plan weddings though). It was challenging, but we got through it together.

I don’t even care if you’re reading this and think that last sentence sounds lame — it’s true.

We spent more than just one afternoon venting our stresses verbally and also through the occasional cry-fest. It was a struggle, at least for me, balancing both student life and teacher life. Truly this was no easy task for any of us, but despite this we always had each other to fall back on, and for that I am beyond grateful.

We wrote lesson plans, went on field trips, laughed about our kids, cried about our kids, complained about our “useless” assignments, reveled in read-alouds, and slept our weekends away (because no one but kindergarten gets nap time during the week). I use “we” here instead of “I” because this was pretty much what we did on a regular basis. We were a unit and we shared so many rewarding experiences together.

I think that’s why I get so giddy (yes, giddy) whenever I see a Facebook status about one of the girls in my cohort getting a teaching job somewhere. I know for a fact that these beautiful people from my cohort are the best of the best, and I am so blessed and honored to say that I worked with them in my time at UNC. I look forward to hearing updates about their lives as they embark on their first years as teachers, and I can only imagine how great they will each be.

There will be a lot of lucky kids out there come August 27.

Teacher Talks.

Do you ever have moments when you’re talking to someone and you just think, Wow, this is the greatest conversation ever, I wish we could talk forever!

I have moments like those — every time I talk to a teacher.

Personally, I like to call these conversations with my colleagues “teacher talks” (this is frequently hashtagged as well). I love my teacher talks with experienced teachers, new teachers, want-to-be teachers, ex-teachers, teachers of teachers, all sorts of teachers. I think each teacher has such a special insight to the profession based on his/her experience, and it’s something we all as teachers (especially newbies like myself!) can learn from, and how can you say no to a little positive reinforcement and recharging of your batteries?

I recently met another member of my 3rd grade team at Parkwood. We met just yesterday and attended a workshop about teaching visual literacy at the North Carolina Museum of Art. We got together again today over coffee to continue conversation about planning and various ideas and previous experiences.

The last two days have been two of the most enriching days of my post-graduate career as a teacher. I presented my ideas to someone who supports those ideas, and I have collaborated and made plans and shared resources! I know I’m not technically ready to start the school year (I haven’t even seen my classroom yet!), but mentally and emotionally I couldn’t be more ready. I can’t wait to implement a good behavior management system, color code my white board’s objectives (and everything else imaginable), work with a strong grade level team, and ultimately be an advocate for my kids.

Do you see how exciting this is? To have someone on the same page as you, especially when it concerns the lives of children!?

I get to have another teacher talk on Saturday with my friend who teaches 5th grade who is also in Durham. We’ll talk about life and my new apartment and her engagement/wedding planning, but we will ALWAYS come back to our kids and new teaching techniques and resources.

I really love that — always coming back to the kids. It tells me that there is a deep passion for children and their education when I talk to a teacher and we can’t avoid the topic.

Needless to say I am looking forward to the countless numbers of teacher talks I have left in me for this summer alone. Hey teacher friends, let me know when you’re free and we’ll have a nice, long, enlightening teacher talk!