A Fitting End to TFA...

We were inducted as TFA alumni this week.



A student's letter to me on my birthday:

"Dear Ms. A!

Happy Birthday! I hope you have a very good birthday :) Especially on a Friday! I'm going to get you a card on Monday! Lets hope your day goes perf, and your students are good to you. I really appreciate all that you've taught me, and all that I've learned! I wish I could've known it was your birthday like a week ago.  .-.  I would've gotten you a present because I really appreciate you as a teacher, a person, + a friend! Im not going to lie, you are my favorite teacher! + you let me go to the bathroom when my tooth came out, my bloody mouth >.< I wish I had you next year as a math teacher! I should be your TA next year (: Lol. I'm really gunna miss you next year, I'm gunna visit you EVERYDAY! You're such a joyful person! Even when 6th period class is being loud + destructive, you're always in a good mood. I just hope this letter made your day just a little bit brighter! I Love You Ms. A!

My favorite Teacher: ~ (my name) <3

Sincerely,
(Student)"




(6th period class has not even come close to being destructive! Loud-- yeah, I'll give them that. I frequently tell them how much I love having them at the end of the day.


I love my kids (most of the time). I love teaching (most of the time).

Teaching, year three (four if Berlin counts)-- here we go!

Vroooom!

Last year, Apple donated an iPad to all TFA corps members. I spent a weekend downloading all kinds of free or cheap math games, along with some other free games and gizmos. 

During lunch the following week, a few students were in my room for homework help. I gave the iPad to one of my students who struggles with his multiplication tables, and told him that he could play one of the multiplication games... but only a multiplication game.

As I worked on two-step equations with another student, I started hearing, "Vroom! Vroom!" from across the room, and I noticed that the kid was holding my iPad at an angle while tipping his head and upper body to the side. 

I called, "Get off the racing app and get back on multiplication!"

What did my student have to say? "Oh my gosh, do you have x-ray vision? You saw through the back of the iPad!"

Oh, 7th graders. So mature at times, and yet so childlike at others.

The joys of being a young teacher...

One of my students came in during lunch today, looking very concerned.

Student: "Ms. A? What happened to your head?"
Me: "Uh...?" (Did I draw on myself with a whiteboard marker?)
Student: "This morning you had a big bruise on your head."
Me: "I did?"
Student: "Yeah, it's right there." *points to the side of my forehead*
Me: "Um... that's acne. I'm having a bad skin day."
Student: "Oops."
Me: "Thanks for checking on me, though."

I also accidentally wore the school uniform (khakis and a navy blue sweater) and was mistaken for a student in the hall.

Other recent stories:
- My school's VP walked into my room and looked around. He didn't see me standing in front of him, so he started to freak out a little. "Where is Ms. A? Where is she?" I was quite literally standing under his nose. When he noticed me waving my arms, he said, "Oh, I thought you were a student." In front of my class. Thanks a lot.

- An 8th grader shoved me while I was walking up the stairs. Another 8th grader said, "Dude! That's a teacher!" The first 8th grader had had no idea.

At the very least, looking the same age as your students gives you plenty of entertaining stories.

One of my biggest challenges this year has been keeping my post-lunch class in line.

I call one of my students in that class the Perfume Pyromaniac. As the name suggests, she once doused her hand in perfume and set it on fire.

In class.

(Fortunately, not my class.)

The Perfume Pyromaniac made catty comments, called out during lecture constantly, and drew as much attention to herself as possible. I bribed, wheedled, cajoled, and eventually started kicking her out and sending her to the other 7th grade pre-algebra class the first time her behavior prevented me from teaching. I was pretty sure that the way to reach her was by showering her with attention, and she was winning every day that I continued to fight with her. So, Perfume Pyromaniac spent a solid week and a half getting kicked out in the first few minutes of the class (the first few minutes that she deigned to show up for)... but when she was in class, I positive-narrated the heck out of her.

I started to see small changes.

She started coming in five minutes late instead of ten minutes late, and she made it a few minutes longer without getting kicked out.

She started coming in a minute after the bell, out of breath. (Hey! She was running to class!)

One day, she made it through an entire class. Granted, her head was on her desk, but she was only calling out every 5 or so minutes, rather than every 30 seconds, and she would stop after one hand gesture.

The following day, she was 30 seconds late to class, showed up out of breath, and asked for a pencil and paper. She solved the Do Now along with the rest of the class and made it through the first slide of new material before putting her head down.

Progress. That was three more minutes of engagement than I had gotten the previous day.

I spoke with her during the independent practice and told her that I was so excited to see her participating during the first part of class. She lit up. I asked her if she could commit to paying attention for just a little bit longer the following day... could she stay on track during the Do Now and during the first half of the new material? She agreed... and smiled! We're only a few days into the new-and-improved Pyromaniac, and I'm loving it.

Today, I was scanning the results from the district benchmark in the office, and she was sitting there as well. One of her friends was complaining about his math teacher, and you know what my Perfume Pyromaniac said? "You should switch to Ms. A's class; you'd like her."

20%

I'm officially over 1/5th of the way through my first school year as a real teacher.

Wow.

October is supposed to be the hardest month for first year teachers.

I'm hanging in there.

Behavioral issues are either going away entirely or getting magnified. At the beginning of the year, there were about eight students in my last period class who never stopped talking and/or talking back. Now, I'm down to two students who are off-task... but these students' behaviors are worse than they were at the beginning of the year. (On second thought, no, their behavior is not worse; it's just more visible now that fewer students are talking.) On the plus side, I've also gotten some (unprompted!) apology notes from students who realized that their behavior was preventing them from getting good grades. About ten of my previously underperforming students have really stepped up in the past week and are putting in ten times the amount of effort that they were in the first unit.

I'm so proud of my kids.

Yes, scores are low. Yes, some of my kids don't know how to multiply. However, every kid in my class wants to be in school. They don't storm out of class. They get upset when I send them to another teacher's room to complete a think sheet.

They're learning. I'm learning, too. I'll be honest: I wanted to cry and hit my head against a wall after grading the one-step equations quiz. It's just not that hard. The mean was around a 55-60% in four of my classes. I thought about reteaching one-step equations but decided to remediate as I taught two-step equations. I knew that if I taught two-step equations well and if my students paid attention, one-step equations would come naturally. The scores on the two-step equations quiz were higher in every class except for my honors class. I bet all of my classes will hit 80% mastery of one-step equations on the unit exam and maybe 80% mastery of two-step equations.

Did I mention that I'm proud of my kids? They're really, really putting in effort. Some of my kids are giving impromptu lectures to other students in class about how it's distracting when others whisper and why other students should turn in their homework.

A lot of my students are struggling, but I see them working independently now. The students who whispered and doodled during the first and second units are asking questions. They're raising their hands. They're asking to solve problems on the board.

Some days, it's hard to remember this. My students aren't perfect. I'm definitely not perfect. (I'm a first year teacher! I'm might be TFA Model 2.0 with my 3 years of TAing, but I've never been responsible for entire classes by myself!)

We're taking small steps every week. Nothing drastic. But a few small steps every day for 180 days? That's a lot of small steps.

Just when you're not sure if it's worth it...

I haven't updated recently because life just hasn't been going especially well. Teaching is the easy part of my life, if that tells you anything. I do have updates coming as soon as I have a more stable internet connection... well, once life gets more stable.

My lesson plan today was not good. In retrospect, I should have spent a full day on addition and a full day on subtraction instead of cramming everything together, and I'm going to have to spend that extra day remediating what I taught badly. Despite this, when I checked in on one of my students during partner practice, he looked up at me, smiled a little, and said, "I think I'm actually getting better in math this year." I gave him a handshake/high-five. :) When I called his mom to tell her what he had said, she told me that he has never had a grade this high in math and that he has never been motivated to work hard in math. Both of us are hoping to encourage him to come in to tutoring at least once a week so that he can stay on top of his work.

Yes, sharing a studio with two others is worth it... even though I'm typing this in a closet (the only place where I can steal internet from neighbors), and even though I've been sleeping on air mattresses and couches for six weeks. I love these kids.

What We Learned

One of biggest critiques of TFA is that corps members learn on students.

We do. (Student teachers do, too.)

Fortunately, the middle schools at my Institute site run enrichment programs over the summer, which means that students are previewing material that they'll see the following academic year. I really appreciated this model because it prepared us a little bit more for the learning curve we'll see when we start teaching during the school year. Summer school was also low-key and low-pressure for the students; they knew that if they struggled with a concept, they would see it again in a few months. I was going to say that the pressure was lower for us, too, but I'm not sure that's accurate because we were being observed constantly by CMAs (corps member advisors), our SDs (school directors). other CMs (corps members), and whomever decided to drop by the school that day. (The director of Institute visited my classroom! I got accolades on my lesson plans, but she was not too impressed with the fact that my INM lasted 25 minutes. Oops.)

I'm not sure whether the teachers or the students learned more this summer.

- I learned the most from video feedback. Until last year, I really struggled with talking too quickly and not enunciating well. After a year in Germany, I've gone too far in the other direction: I talk way too slowly and pause way too frequently.

- My students learned exponent rules and why they are the way they are. They really liked exponents, and they rocked that unit. They weren't pleased when I taught them the rules after making them show all of the work the long way, but I think that's for the best: now they know why the rules work!

- I learned that I'm really, really good at writing lesson plans (the director said I wrote the best LPs that she had seen at Institute!) and that I'm good at presenting content at an appropriate level.

- My students learned about malleable intelligence, and they were really motivated by the phrase "get wrinkly brains."

- I learned that I'm not very good at investing students. In fact, I can be downright boring when I talk too slowly. Several people commented that my students were more invested in me than in the material.

- My students learned one-step equations. (100% mastery of one-step equations with multiplication!) They still struggle with two-step equations (they learned two-step equations the same day I introduced one-step equations), but they understand the concept behind one-step equations.

- I learned that students work really, really hard on problems when you jazz up a worksheet. Give them a marker and call it math art... turn a worksheet into a detective story... write questions on construction paper and post them around the room... students do the exact same work (probably more work because they're happy!), and they like it a lot more! :)

- My students learned that being good at math is something you should celebrate! One of the girls wrote: "I learned that I am really smart and shouldn't hide it just show anybody." Even though the grammar is a bit lacking, that's a powerful statement from a 12-year-old girl, especially considering that she was talking about math class. This is the age where girls start to fall behind boys in math, and I hope both of the Ms continue to rock it. (I hope the guys continue to rock it, too, of course.)

My students were incredible. I wish I could teach five classes of identical students. The class changed a few times-- students started late; others left for vacation after a few weeks-- and I ended up with a class of 2 girls and 9 guys. They were funny, smart, insightful, and all-around great kids. We did an activity where they had to write one suggestion for changing their school, their community, and the world, and at the end, they had to write one way they could "be the change" in their classroom.

I'll be the first to say that we didn't make it to long-term transformational change this summer, but there was some great stuff happening in the room. We had a safe and supportive classroom. If a student answered a question incorrectly, I never worried that another student would make fun of him or her. Students asked each other questions, and they were expected to listen to each other's answers. Every person contributed to the physical classroom, which also made them respect the room. Students designed the welcome sign; teachers made posters. Class was fun, and the activities supported their work! Almost all of the students made dramatic academic growth (almost 50% higher than last year's average!).

Good times.

Also, I just have to say that TFA made me an immensely better teacher. It did. 5 weeks made more of a difference than 9 months of mentoring at My Gymnasium and 4 semesters of UAing with a faculty mentor. There is a lot to criticize about the training model, but I don't see how I'm doing worse than any other 1st year teacher at this point. (When my department chair peeked in, I apparently was holding up a stopwatch and telling my students to Do It Again.) More to come about week #1 in my new full-time position...