Two Hoops Away...

...From Quiting the Teacher Profession

I have had a really rough day. For the past few weeks I have been trying to get emergency substitute certification so that I can get paid to teach (As I already am) on days that my cooperating teacher is sick or takes time off. I finally found the 11 pages of paper work that need to be filled out online and I filled everything out, sent it to the printer in the main office at school, went to pick it up, and...nothing. So, I sent it to the other printer, the one in the staff work room. Again, nothing. So, I asked in the main office and they said to try it again. So I did. And then again to the staff work room. And the again the main office. These are the only two printers that are installed on the computer. I don't have a printer at home. After running back and forth from one end of the building to the other and back again I finally found a tech guy to install an different computer and with 2 minutes left in my prep I got the form printed.

Or so I thought. Turns out only the first 8 pages printed. I have no idea what happened but at least I got the opportunity to print it again later and it worked.

So, after looking over the forms I noticed that I have to have part of it filled out by the district superintendent. So, I call the district office to find out about where to send the forms and I was on hold for over 12 min. before I had to hang up because my lunch break was over.

I also have been trying to figure out the certification process for NJ and NY for once I move. I tried to take care of these certifications during the summer when I had time. However, the NJ department of education is only open for phone calls between the hours of 3 and 6 on week days during the school year. As I live on the west coast this means I have to call between 12 and 3. I am teaching right now and I have not been able to stay on the phone long enough during my 25 min lunch to get my questions answered. The menu before you even got on hold to talk to someone takes about ten min.

We had an assembly today so I decided to make the phone call during this time. After being on the phone for an hour I found out that I have to take a total of science tests to become certified in both NJ and in WA. I don't know about NY yet. At 100 bucks a pop I not only don't feel like I can afford this added expense but I am pissed because these tests are practically the same, only offered every three months or so, and you can't take more than two on any of the dates offered. I ave no idea when I am going to get the opportunity to get these taken care of.

Ok, so that was frustrating. By the time I got off the phone with the NJ people it was to late in the day to call the NY people and find out what I am going to have to do to get certified there.

Because I could not get a hold of the district people during lunch I decided to track down the principle after school. It took a little doing but I finally did. The one good thing today was finding out that she is the person to actually fill out the district part of the forms. At least she says she is and the forms are signed.

So, after going through the ringer of trying to get information from different departments of education I can't believe we have as many teacher in the US as we do. If I were a smarter person I would not want to be a teacher. Every year it gets hard to do the job and even more complicated to get and stay certified. Teachers get paid crap. They are constantly at risk of losing their job. The hours suck (even with summers off). And the hoop jumping is ridiculous. They make it so hard for the people that actually want to be teachers to become teachers that I am amazed anyone even tries.

Why, oh, why do I do this to myself. I am worth more that this headache.

My Seemingly Boring Life

My days right now would seem pretty bland to most of the population, of that I am sure. I get up at 5:15 (before my alarm goes off), get ready for work, and I am walking through the door of my classroom by about 6:15. I plan, I teach, I eat, I teach, I plan some more, and then I leave at about 4:30 only to come home, eat, plan, and sleep. When I put it like this it seems even worse than it is in my head. I am spending all my time preparing for a job that I am not even getting paid for. In fact, I am paying to do this job...just one of the beauties of my masters program.

At least I think it is fun. This last week I have had students run up and down stairs to learn scientific notation and the metric system, swing meter sticks around like swords and light sabers (sp?), learn about Fibonacci, and race around the room to find the leaf in the leaf line up. It has been a pretty eventful week considering all I taught about was measuring and the metric system.

To top it off I got into some trouble with the administration because I am teaching something different than the other 6th grade science teachers. We are actually all doing our own thing around the same topics. The 6th grade house leader wants us all to be doing the exact same thing on the same day. Well, I am sorry but I teach science and we only have enough equipment for one class at a time. Which means that while we all did the same 2 day activity we all did it on different days, spanning over 10 days. This means we have to have different ways of teaching the same material because we have to font load some learning depending on when we get the materials. Even after this has been explained the administration doesn't quite understand.

One of the great thing about teaching is you can be really creative about how you teach a topic. You can cater to the kids you have. We can't all teach the exact same way because we are different people. If I wanted to have my curriculum handed to me each morning and basically read off a script I would have chosen to work in the Bellevue School District. What they are asking for is teacher proof teaching. And yet, they all talk about the "great" teachers of the world. Let me tell you this...Those great teachers are not reading someone else's lesson plans every day doing exactly what is written on the sheet and then moving on to the next day, no thought involved.

2 more quotes

From property today:
All right, they will all die....big deal

If he does not graduate Harvard, because he is dead or because he is dumb, it doesn’t matter

Frighteningly Close to Home

Ahhh...the bureaucracy

Today is Tuesday the 11th. This means that I have taught for all of five whole days. Already I am fighting the bureaucracy and the politics of the education system. I am a strong believer that for the most part those people in the education field want to do what is best for students. Call me naive or optimistic but I know they didn't get into the field for the money.

Well, in all of five days I am already fighting with other educators at my school for information. I think that I should have access to all of my students that have IEPs, 504s, or are ELL (basically all my students that have special needs). I want to know which of my students get distracted so I can avoid seating them facing the window. I want to know which students need extra help so I can assign them a lab partner that will accommodate this need. I want to know which students are more than 2 grades behind in writing so I can make accommodations on their assignments.

But, I cannot get this information. I don't even know which students are English Language Learners. I have 150 students and some of them are quiet so I can't exactly tell which students are having trouble understanding me when I give instructions. I can't get the information I need because the people in charge of the student files don't want me to label the students before I get to know them.

This makes some sense to me. I wouldn't want to assume a student couldn't perform in my science class just because I know they have a learning disability. I wouldn't want someone to do this to me. However, I have the best of intentions. I just want to be able to accommodate those students that we know have a specific need we can actually meet. I just want to do my job to the best of my ability. Why is it so hard to see that all I want it what is best for my students and what is best for them is for me to have the information I need to accommodate their learning styles and abilities.

Actually said in law school

Two actual quotes from today's torts class:

One does consent to have their feelings hurt when they get married

When you get married there is a certain amount of trust........supposedly

Attention to detail

2 pages. Everyone has written 2 pages before. The question is what does 2 pages mean to you? Is it double spaced? How big are the margins? Tomorrow I turn in my first memo and 2 pages couldn't possibly be more precisely defined. 26 lines per page, 12 characters or less per inch, 1 inch margins and an entire grade drop if you go so much as 1 character over. 6-8, 10-12....undergrad was all about some indiscriminate length where you really weren't punished if you came anywhere close. NOW though, now I spent an hour removing the last 2 lines of text from 2 pages of writing. I've never rewritten so many sentences just so that I could remove one stray 5-letter word here or there. I am really enjoying law school, but this exercise was like pulling teeth.

Rick Ankiel

I love sports. Anyone who knows me knows this, and baseball trumps them all. Its more than a past-time, its damn near my religion. Being so, the story of Rick Ankiel was most likely the most compelling/wonderous/uplifting/inspiring to come out of sports in my lifetime. At 20 years old he was at the top of the world, pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals and doing a fabulous job. Then he forgot how to pitch. He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a baseball. In the playoffs that year he set numerous records, including the most wild pitches in one inning. In very places in all the world can you have personal struggles so openly viewed as in sports. We read about celebrities and news makers everywhere, but it is always a second hand account of their misdeeds or misfortune. Ankiel's nightmare played out on his sports biggest stage while millions of people watched on. Can you think of something more humbling. After 5 years of failure trying to learn how to pitch again and devastating surgery he called it quits. The game wasn't fun anymore (can anyone blame him?) and he went on his way. Except that wasn't it. He was a damn good hitter growing up and he asked the Cardinals if he could try out being an outfielder for a while. 3 years after having quit, Ankiel got the call from the Cards and was in the show again. What an incredible story. A man watches his dreams get flushed away, not knowing why and in front of MILLIONS of people, and not only has the perseverance to keep at it for 5 years, but also was humble enough to start over. How many people are that strong? Not just that, but how many people are both that talented AND willing to work that hard? I can't express how amazing the story is, and if you don't have a passion for baseball I probably cannot convey how unreal it really is.

I'd like nothing more than to say that was the end of the story. I was so devastated when I read what comes next that I had to take a day to compose myself before I wrote about it. Ankiel, to me, had been the poster-child for all that is good in sports. Hard work AND talent. Never giving up. Humility. Success. Playing for the love of the game. But that isn't the story that will be remembered. What will be remembered is that Rick Ankiel used HGH. He is Bonds, Giambi, Sheffield and every other player who shits on the game. Was it against the rules, written or unwritten? No. Did he stop before it WAS against the rules? Yes. Does any of that matter? No. Why? Because if you'd asked those players if what they were doing was right, not okay or necessary or widespread, but right, they'd all have said "no" themselves. Anyone with a heart felt for Ankiel, but he committed the unforgivable sin. Ankiel's story made me feel like a kid. Like anything was possible, and wonderous things came to those that didn't simply slide along on their talents. I had told people that I'd be telling kids about Ankiel in 50 years, the story was so compelling. I took a day to make sure I wasn't over reacting because it was so stunning, but I feel worse today than I did yesterday. Nothing in this era of sports is sacred and NO one is free from suspicion. My most crushing moment as a sports fan

Teaching Science Is SOOOOO Much Fun

So the first week of school has come to an end. I am teaching 6th grade science and boy is it a good time. I am starting to think that the 6th grade is the perfect age to teach. My students are so excited about science that they hang on my every word. I am sure it helps that I am so much fun in the classroom but still.

[Dangerous chemicals I prepared for Tuesday's lab]

Not only do I have great students but I get to teach such a cool subject. In what other class do you get to play with dangerous chemicals like baking soda, phenol red, and calcium chloride? In what other class do you get to figure out how to turn two circles into a square? And, in what other class do you get the excitement of burning things? Ok, so we haven't had any fires yet but we have done the other two. Oh, and did I mention that we don't even have a text book. Can a class get any better. Later in the year we will be learning about killer lakes and after that we are going to build our own batteries and battery powered cars and race them down the hallway.

After reading all that can you really say you don't want to be taking my science class??? I think not.

But, why am I excited? I am the teacher. I have already done all this stuff. I have to be at school at 6:45am and on days like today (a Friday I might add) I stay until after 5pm. While it doesn't sound all that glorious I have yet to find another job where I can talk about all the nerdy science stuff I want and where I get to come up with awesome ways to share my knowledge and understanding with others. For example, on Wednesday I will be eating a flaming candle. Why? Because scientists should not jump to conclusions and they should be very careful when describing things. So, what will I really be eating? A peice of string cheese with a sliver of almond that I will have lit with a match. But do my students know that? No...because to them it looks just like a candle.

Finally

I'm not usually the quiet one in class. I love to engage in a good debate, to further discourse, answer questions, etc. After 2 weeks here I definitely hadn't been my usual self. I'd only spoken when socraticized by my LRW and Contracts profs and not otherwise. Over the long weekend I decided that is was time to start talking. Enough time had passed to take the temperature of the room and the profs so I figured I might as well jump in. Yesterday I finally got around to it, and it wasn't so bad. I answered some questions well and didn't fail too miserably once the profs fired out questions in response to my answers. I also learned one valuable lesson. In contracts I need to be stoic if I don't want to be called on. My prof, Hyde, asked a question of the class and no one wanted to raise there hand for a few seconds. I could literally feel the light go on above my head when the answer hit me, and Hyde saw it immediately and called on me without my volunteering. I must have done one of those "ah HA!" faces. Hyde was looking in my general direction and the SECOND I figured out the answer he called on me.

Learning

On a happier note, I thought I ought to express how much I'm learning every day here. Never in my academic career have I taken away so much from any given reading, class, or lecture. I still have my reservations about the usefulness of some (LOTS) of the in-class discussions, but that isn't to say that I'm not learning a great deal from even those classes. Property has recently been about how to steal other peoples stuff, including land, and get away with it. We (the lawyerly type) call it adverse possession, but I think its fair to describe it as theft by someone with a good lawyer. Say something is yours long enough, and openly, and you just might end up owning it. This is a bit of a simplistic view, but it sure does help me understand why people hate lawyers so much.

On another front, I'm almost finished writing my first memo for my Legal Research & Writing class. The writing is painful in a way, because the legal way of writing is equivalent to choppy sentences and forumlaic structure, but it is calming to know exactly how to format my paragraphs and remove any and all fluff. The best part has got to be that I get to actually write, rather than regurgitate something that someone else has written. Read, analyze, synthesize, and apply....it sure beats memorizing.

Socraticized

Well, the first full week of Law School has come and gone. I quite nearly made it through without looking too ridiculous, but if you're reading this blog then you probably know nothing ever goes that simply for us. None of my professors are of the Kingsfield fashion immortalized by the movie "The Paper Chase", but that isn't to say the socratic method prevalent at Rutgers Newark. I was called on to recite the facts and tell what happened below in the Peevyhouse matter. Peevyhouse is a classic little guy gets screwed case about a mining company in Oklahoma in the 60s. I thought I had a pretty solid hold on what was going on, the facts/issues/reasoning/etc. so being called on was a good thing. I was going to have the opportunity to at least look competent, or so I thought. But here's the rub, I started getting quizzed on policy questions in the case. I hadn't read the case from that perspective (hell, I was happy to have understood the rule and the reasoning) and I quickly got lost in the professor's questions. Each of my classes has had this tone. We're constantly talking about the underlying policy and I feel its to the detriment of learning the power and interplay of the rules themselves. I love the material (who knew you could steal land from people legally?), but I'm still not completely comfortable in class because of it. I GET the material, or so I feel every night, but then the profs are firing off questions that I don't see the relevance of or at best think are not nearly as important as larger issues. I'm sure I come to realize more and more what is expected of me at every step of the way, its just hard not to be frustrated right now.