My Not-So-Grand Exit

Friday is my last day with the Wichita Public Schools after eleven years of service. (Notice the change in title for this blog...)

My path has been winding and often uncertain, but I love teaching and believe so strongly in the education of children that I've stayed in a district that has not always treated me well. As a para I was not generally treated as an equal because I didn't yet have a degree in education, but I continued on my path to complete my degree as I believed that teaching was the most important job I could do with my life. For my first year as a classroom teacher I was hired about a month into the school year and not given a mentor teacher to support me or even an updated copy of my school's policies and procedures to guide me. When schedules were built there were actually a few "veteran" teachers that were openly rude to me because I had taken all their "good kids." For my second year as a teacher I was told by the district that I would not be getting the annual raise that "all" teachers received because I technically hadn't taught a whole year since I was hired a month into the prior school year. But outside of that my second, third and fourth years of teaching went relatively well. I had an administrative staff that supported me as a teacher as well as a team of teachers that worked well together to help educate our children and I was able to teach in a problem-based environment and integrate almost all the technology I wanted into my instruction. Then I was given the opportunity to work at the district level as an instructional technology specialist. This was by far the best three years of my teaching career! I was completing my master's degree in educational technology and working with an amazing group of educators. Then the economy crashed and I lost my job. I was the last person hired by three days and after three years in this position, the district just cut my job without even trying to find a position for me that might have been open due to attrition. "Luckily," I was "allowed" to apply for jobs that were supposed to be listed as "in-district applicants only." They treated it like that was a really big deal - that  a person that had devoted themselves to the district for 8 years would be given such a privilege as to apply for jobs within the district before someone who had never worked a day within our district. But, I still felt that I could positively affect change in education, so I took a job as a data leader and site technology specialist at a middle school within our district. In this position I worked on a tightly-knit leadership team, collaborated with some really fantastic instructional coaches and really felt that I was helping to make some positive changes within the school structure. But at the end of that year the school was restructured due to not making 'Annual Yearly Progress' on the standardized tests (don't even get me started on this topic) and was told that my services were no longer desired at Jardine. At this point the district placed me at another school without interviewing me, without the principal meeting me and without asking me if I even wanted to teach there. But off to Truesdell I went, where I learned throughout the school year that after teaching adults for four years I just really no longer had the ability properly to teach 6th graders - they were just too young. So I was faced with a dilemma: stay at a school where I would likely not be happy or try to get a job at yet another school within the school district. I chose to apply for a job as a data leader at a high school and also as an educational technology specialist (again) as there were openings for my old position. Sadly, I was not even offered an interview for the technology specialist position because of my "instability within the district" and my "lack of recent classroom experience." But in the end, I was very excited to be offered the job as a data leader because not only would I be working with some amazing educational leaders that I had known from prior jobs within the district, but also because my last year of sixth graders from my first year teaching were to be seniors at this high school. It's been difficult adjusting to high school from dress code to procedures to general student behaviors. It has, however, been utterly wonderful seeing my little sixth graders approach adulthood! 

But now, I have been offered a job at Cargill doing IT work (in other words utilizing the master's degree which I worked so hard to obtain) and I can't turn it down. Why? In a word: stability. The education system seems to be moving in a direction that goes against my core beliefs as a teacher. We're emphasizing test scores rather than creative, critical thinking skills. We're de-emphasizing technology integration in a time where almost everyone seems to have a computer in their pocket at all times. We're pushing all of our students to the middle, stifling creativity and we're not graduating any more students that when I was high school. Oh, and did I mention that for the last four years I have made less money than the year prior and each Spring have had to worry if my job would be cut again?

So it is with highly mixed emotions that I leave the district in two days. One minute I'm excited for the new opportunity in my life and the next I feel like a complete sell-out for leaving education. Last week I had to leave a pep assembly twice to cry because I was watching "my kids" perform for the last time. I've worked with some really amazing and passionate people and even more importantly, I have been a part of some really great kids' lives. I know that this is the right move for me and my family and still hope to teach some adjunct college courses so that I can continue to impact students, but I am quite sure I'll shed more tears over the next few weeks as I come to the final realization that I will no longer be able to introduce myself as a "teacher." 

Professional Slap in the Face

As a data leader is it my job to pull down data from a number of sources, break that data into meaningful chunks and distribute said information to various groups and individuals throughout our building. At our last building in-service, my boss asked me for some assessment and discipline data for our school to be presented to the staff. At the end of our session a staff member came up to me very upset that I had presented "skewed data" because I had shown the number of discipline referrals by ethnicity but did not include the number of "repeat offenders." I discussed this with him and agreed that it would be interesting to look at that data and that I intended to do so and share it with the staff the next time I was given time to do so. After our discussion I shared the information with my boss and then went to investigate on my own. Come to find out, the data weren't skewed at all - the percentages were almost equal. About 1/2 of our discipline referrals are represented by one ethnic group and about half of the students with multiple offences come from that same ethnic group. In fact when I made pie charts I could almost literally lay one on top of the other and have the exact same portions. 

A couple of weeks after the session, my boss asked me to post the data slides I had ALREADY PRESENTED on my "Data Bulletin Board" in the staff lounge for the staff to review, which I did. This morning I noticed that someone had defaced my display. In ink, someone had written "This is skewed data. It misrepresents our student population" and so on... I was completely taken aback that another "professional" in my building would do something like that. Since I remembered the conversation after I had originally presented the information, I assumed that it was the same person that had defaced my work. So, being the outspoken person that I am, I walked right up to him and asked him if he had done it. At first he tried to say he hadn't, then he tried to say that he didn't know that it was mine and finally argued that he was justified in defacing my work because he felt it was skewed data. Throughout the conversation I told him: "Yes, a number of those slide could be misleading - we're on the same page with that" and "If you'll remember, I agreed with you at the time of our conversation but that's not the point. The point is you could tell that an adult in the building had put in work and posted it and you defaced it anyway. I would NEVER walk into your classroom and deface anything you had posted." He tried to justify his actions several times as he felt the data were skewed while I continued to state that I agreed with his point on the data but that I found it professionally insulting that he decided to deface my WORK. He finally said we'd have to "agree to disagree." 

I'm not crazy am I? This is clearly a display of unprofessional behavior, right??

GREAT WORK - You did the bare minimum!!

Somehow, somewhere along the line it has become a custom in our society to expect praise for simply following expectations. "Aren't you proud of me Miss? I have a pass to be in the hallway!" "Look at the medal I got because my mom signed me up for sports and took me to the games!" "You passed the assessment because you got 1/2 the questions right!" I mean we all like to be praised. Who doesn't like it when we're told how fantastic we are? Or that someone is proud of us? But at what point does it become pushing everyone to the middle? When I was a kid I was so proud of my medals and trophies that had a place value on them (1st, 2nd, etc) but I also distinctly remember throwing them out as I got older if they said something along the lines of "Certificate of Participation." Well I KNOW I participated - I was THERE! My daughter (whom I love and adore and have clearly somehow raised her to display the following behavior) said to me the other day "Hey I'm on time. Aren't you proud of me? Can I have a (fill in the blank with random teen-aged stuff) because I came home on time?" My reply of course was "Uh no, you CAN continue to have normal PRIVILEGES though because you were on time tonight. I love you!" Now don't get me wrong, when she does something that blows my mind, I let her know just how amazing she is. Such as when she made the talent show and sang so beautifully it made me cry, I told her that it was so beautiful I cried and that I think she's completely fantastic. Or when she lettered as a freshman at a 6A high school in Cross Country, I rushed out to buy the letter jacket and sewed the letter on it myself. But it seems that we (as a society) have come to expect things to be given to us simply because we show up. There are a number of professions where people actively petition against work evaluations or merit-based pay, yet many of these same people expect a yearly raise simply for coming to work on a regular basis. I just don't understand. 

I distinctly remember receiving a state reading assessment score in elementary school and asking my mom what the 90+ percentile meant. She smiled at me, told me she was proud of me and explained "That means if 100 people lined up in order of their scores, you'd be ahead of more than 90 of them in line." I remember that because I had worked really hard on that test and was incredibly proud of my achievement - not because I happen to just show up and do the minimum. On the opposite end of that spectrum, I remember coming in WAY past curfew one night and being told I would be "volunteering" with my sister's cheer squad at a fireworks stand the whole rest of the 4th of July weekend instead of hanging out with my friends like I had planned. My parents set very clear standards for my behavior and I knew that it was my responsibility to follow these standards. If I did something above and beyond the minimum, I was praised and I enjoyed that because it was heartfelt praise and I knew my parents were genuinely proud of me. If I failed to meet the minimum standard, I knew negative consequences were appropriately headed my way. Perhaps this type of upbringing is what has made me the matter-of-fact, outspoken person I am that can sometimes be "a bit too much" for some folks to handle. And I know it's made me the kind of person that would be a less-than-adequate preschool and elementary school teacher. But it's also this same upbringing that gave me the drive to finish high school even though I made the poor choice to become pregnant at 17, complete my bachelor's degree while working full-time to raise that young child, obtain a master's degree while working full-time and continue to work hard to further my career success.  I've learned through these life experiences that I enjoy a challenge and the feeling of personal accomplishment that comes with meeting a challenge head on and conquering it. Is that so bad? Do we not wish our children have better lives than we have? Do we not want our children to work hard so THEIR kids can have better lives than they have? If we continue to tell people "Great work!" simply for showing up, or "You're amazing!" because they've met the bare minimum, where will our society be when my kids are my age? Or my parents' age? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I don't really have a great feeling about it...

Image courtesy of http://www.fotopedia.com. 

Perpetuating the Cycle

It's that time again, election time. Debates, campaigning, political ads...and people that normally don't care about politics at all spouting off about his/her chosen candidate at any given opportunity. I almost don't want to post to any social media sites because what I say could be interpreted as needing a comment or reply about how it's (so-and-so politician's)'s fault that I'm feeling what I'm feeling and that (so-and-so different politician's) will hopefully be able to begin fixing the almost irreparable damage caused by (first so-and-so politician's.) Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for people standing up for their beliefs and convictions, I'm all for freedom of speech but it makes me sad that people can get so hateful and belittling about it. The number of times I've seen posts on Facebook about how anyone who votes for a certain candidate is "a complete moron," "clearly doesn't have the ability to think," or the worst one: "doesn't deserve to live." These are posts from people that I have always considered good people and my friends. Even worse, it's leaked over to our children. My twelve year old nephew asked me the other day if I was voting for a certain candidate and when I said "no" he stated "Well you're just stupid then!" At first I was hurt but then I realized he's just parroting back what he's heard adults in his life say. I explained to him that I follow the campaigns, do my research on all the candidates (not just the two major parties' candidates) and then choose a candidate whose beliefs and values align most closely with my own. Of course being a smart kid who adores his Aunt Erin, he was pleased with this answer. 

But, all of this caused me to notice the same kind of behavior elsewhere in my life. I was listening to ESPN Radio yesterday (as I do every morning) and couldn't believe some of the messages sports fans were actually composing and then hitting send about sports. Some people were arguing about whether Trout or Cabrera should win the MVP this year in Major League Baseball. Clearly this is a subjective view but the downright nasty messages people were sending were appalling!  And then there is the famous "catch that wasn't a catch" in the Green Bay vs. Seattle football game in which a replacement official named Wayne Elliot made a very controversial call that caused Green Bay to lose the game. Mr. Elliot reported that his phone rang non-stop for 72 hours with hateful calls from the Wisconsin area. I know I personally read so many tweets, status updates and posts with equally nasty messages about the situation that it turned my stomach. I have also recently "un-friended" a few people on Facebook because they posted what was supposed to be a funny picture, but that I found to be incredibly racist. I had commented on the wall of one person that posted it that it's the posting of images such as that one that perpetuates hate and racism in our society. He stated that he isn't racist, he just thought it was funny. Then an onslaught of his friends, whom I have never met, attacked me personally by calling me ignorant, stupid, self-righteous and a large number of other things that I can't post here. It was truly disheartening. Most disturbing of all, I recently read and article about a Tabor College student being beaten to death by a McPherson College student over a football rivalry.

In all of these cases I'm describing behavior of ADULTS. Can you believe it? ADULTS! I'm used to children acting on impulse in heated situations and saying or doing hurtful things not realizing the impact of their actions, but adults? Everyday I walk through school hallways, malls and other public places and hear teenagers calling each other the most vulgar names and physically harming each other because of their differences. It's always been my goal at home and work to provide a safe environment of respect where other people's opinions, ideas and cultures are valued and appreciated, but lately I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed that one person isn't enough. I'm feeling like I can provide a safe, nurturing environment for my own students and children but that once they walk away from me they're just going to be bombarded with negative, hateful and threatening people. The fact that it's 2012 and we still have to worry about racism, sexism and general hate towards others who differ from "the norm" is incredibly heartbreaking. How can we possibly hope that our children will grow up to be happier, healthier and have better lives than us if we continue to raise them in a society that promotes and perpetuates hate? How can we hope to grow as a society if we continue to not learn from our past mistakes? 

Perhaps all this political fever is just getting tempers running high and leaving people on edge. Maybe once we get through elections next month people will start to calm down and begin acting more civilized...at least I'll continue to hope that's what will happen...

Online Research

I love that part of my job is to find online tools for others to use. I stumbled this online album creator today called imgur while reading my Twitter feed and decided I wanted to see how the albums look embedded online. Well I just HAPPEN to have this blog, so I thought I'd give it a quick try. I realize the images have nothing to do with education or teaching, but my kids are awfully darn cute! Imgur allows you to upload from your computer or online, it gives some pretty nice image editing options (crop, rotate, draw, annotate, blemish fix, whiten, brightness, contrast and a few others) as well as some really nice image effects. It's super easy to use and share. I'm a fan!

"Those Schools"

I work at one of "those schools." You know "the ones" I mean. It's a school that when I tell people (teachers or not) where I work the response is usually "Oh, sorry to hear that" or "Man, I bet that's no fun" or some other sentiment along those lines. In fact, I've spent my entire teaching career in "those schools." My daughters have gone to "the best schools" in our district due to where we live and I'm telling you right now I am almost certain I wouldn't be able to work in any one of them day in and day out. I absolutely love working at "one of those schools!" Yes, many of my students' families fall below the poverty line. And yes, many of our students' parents didn't read to them much (if at all) when they were little. And yes, there is a large portion of our student population that struggle to read because not only is English not their first language, but they aren't literate in their native language either. Fights happen here (as in all schools), we fight the daily battle of sagging pants and too-short shorts (with students and their parents who don't think it's a big deal), students cuss at me because I ask them to wear their IDs or walk on the right side of the hallway and the list goes on and on. 

BUT, I also get to be part of a safe, consistent and caring part of our students' lives. Yes, they know I'm going to be there every day "bugging" them to follow the rules, but at the same when I'm gone they notice - if only because they were able to slip through my little section of the hallway without following expectations. At the beginning of the year there were a number of students that were excited that I remembered them from middle school, were soon grumpy that I remembered them and still held high expectations of them but we've now fallen back into the comfortable groove...they usually follow expectations but when they don't they don't get upset with me because they know I'm consistent. A number of my former middle school students have had babies in the years since I had them in class and but told me that they're working hard to finish school AND be a good parent because they remember that I showed them that it can be done by sharing with them my own personal experiences. 

So really what I'm trying to get at is that I feel sorry for those that don't see my job a desirable. I'm sad that not everyone gets to see kids overcome adversity the way I do. They'll never know the joy of having a student that is currently homeless walk into school every day to learn. A few weeks ago I was able to connect with a student that is currently in foster care herself whose infant had been taken away from her by SRS. She now comes to see me every day with updates not only on her family situation, but also how her classes are going. So many people will never be able to see the joy in all the things that I get to experience every day and I am so lucky to be able to do so.

Art or Profession?

While obtaining both my bachelor's and master's degree the question came up time and time again: "Is teaching an art or profession?" My initial thought is always "both" but even I realize that's a cop-out and non-committed answer. So let's think about this for a moment. 

• Do teachers have to obtain a degree in order to gain employment? - Yes
• Do teachers have to obtain certification in order to gain employment? - Yes
• During their careers, are teachers expected to maintain their certification? - Yes
• Do teachers have contractual obligations and expectations? - Yes
• Are teachers expected to attend professional development and continue to grow as educators? - Yes

This is all looking like compelling evidence that teaching is a profession, right? Well lets keep going. Recently our BOE and teacher's union completed contract negotiations with some of the below highlights.

• 1% increase in the overall pay-scale
• Adjustment to salaries for additional education (taking classes beyond bachelor's degree)
• Moving to appropriate place on longevity scale (years of tenure within district)
• Professional dress

Why were all of these necessary? Well for starters, Wichita Public School teachers went four years without an increase in pay - all salaries were frozen. Teachers were expected continue coming to work everyday, continue taking professional development course in order to maintain their certification all without any additional compensation (not even to adjust for inflation.) I just can't see how teachers were being treated as professionals in this instance. Mandates kept coming for teachers to increase the rigor of their lessons yet were not being compensated, either monetarily or with extra time in the work day, to make the changes in their teaching. Morale has been at an all-time low among the teachers in our district. And can you blame teachers? Cost of living continues to increase yet we are not being compensated for what we do day in and day out - change the future of our country by educating today's children.

But, there is that last bullet point...the one about "professional dress." When I think about an artist (one who makes money for creating art) I think sloppy jeans, old tshirts, a disorganized work space and a very casual attitude toward work. And the fact that verbiage about professional dress has to be added to a teacher's contract makes me see some teachers as artists rather than professionals. I can walk down the hallways of any school in our district and see teachers in wind pants and tshirts (teachers other than P.E. teachers that is), "professionals" in jeans and tshirts and still others wearing cargo shorts and hoodies. Now, anyone that knows me knows that I own my fair share of band tshirts, cargo shorts, workout clothes and jeans but I don't wear them at work. I view myself as a professional so I wear slacks, khakis and blouses or sweaters to work (aside from specially designated "spirit day") so that when I encounter others they will immediately get the impression that I take myself and my job seriously. It just seems to me that if you want others to take you seriously as a professional, you need to present yourself that way. (If my high school self saw me today at work, she'd be so embarrassed!) 

So, this is a call to action to all teachers. It doesn't take any more money to purchase a couple of pairs of pants for work as it does to buy a couple of pairs of jeans. And yes, I fully support teachers wearing school shirts, but wear it with a pair of chinos. If we want the world to take us seriously as professionals, to listen to our cries that we're don't have the resources available to educate today's children they way we'd like and to throw us some support when it comes to getting those resources (monetary or otherwise) then it's time we start making sure the world actually sees us as professionals. 

Image courtesy of Eric Jusino and Creative Commons

Seeing the Final Product

Well I've "moved up" to high school this year as a data leader, which means I help staff members use classroom and assessment data to drive instruction (that's the hope anyway.) I have always worked in middle school so I've never been able to see "the end product" with my students. Until this year that is. I am at the high school right next door to the middle school where I had my first teaching job and this year's seniors are my last group of sixth graders from "across the lot." It has been very exciting for me to see so many of my former students these last few days and sad to see many of them not here because they have already decided school isn't "the way to go." When I taught "across the lot" I had all of the ESOL students as soon as they left the Newcomers' program. I have been impressed and awed by the development of so many of my former students' language skills - they ROCK! I've been really surprised and flattered by the number of students that not only remember my name but also have memories from my class that they've been wanting to tell me. These are SENIORS people and that was six years ago, which in "teen-aged years" is practically a lifetime! 

Some of my favorites have been memories of the hissing cockroaches I had in my classroom, the time that a student tried to pull the tail off of my leopard gecko, how much they loved "Science in a Box" days, using technology in class "almost every day" and various memories of my former partner teacher and I goofing off in the hallways. One story in particular stuck with me. A little girl that spoke very basic English in 6th grade (Vietnamese is her native language) walked up to me in the hallway and said "I remember you. You were my very first science teacher in the United States and your class was so interesting. You had those hissing bugs and gross lizards, but I loved your class anyway because we got to do the work with our hands, which helped because I didn't speak English very well yet. And my friends from that class were just talking the other day about how you said that when you got your diploma book at graduation there was a problem and no one got their diplomas that year. You had to go back to the school later to get them. Some of my friends are wondering if the same thing is going to happen to us. We think that would be funny if it did!" It was such a small story that I told to my students yet six years later there is a small group of students that remembers it. It's astounds me everyday the connections we make with our students and the impact on their lives we have. I don't know why they remembered that particular story, but it made me feel so very important that they would pay attention to such a little thing like that and reminds me again of the important role we as educators play in our students' lives. 

So with this in mind, remember that your students really are listening when you speak and that you play a HUGE role in their lives - both educationally and otherwise. 

Photo courtesy of iStock

Praising the Positive

I try to make regular positive phone calls home to my students' parents, especially those that tend to cause problems and regularly get negative phone calls from the school. I made two such phone calls today. 

The first call, the student thought it would be hilarious to call his mother and pretend that he'd gotten into trouble again in class. I didn't think this was a great idea, but his mouth was moving before I could even think to tell him otherwise. So he hands me the phone and I remind her who I am and I can tell she is very displeased. I just couldn't go along with his plan and told her how awesome her son had done in class today. She started cracking up! Apparently this kiddo knows his mother's sense of humor better than I expected - either that or she was just so relieved she didn't know what else to do. After she was done laughing, she thanked me about 5 times for calling on a good day.

For the second call the student just couldn't contain himself and his mouth was moving so fast I don't know how his mother understood a word he had said. But at some point he did hand me the phone and I informed her what a great day her son had today and how genuinely proud of him I was. This mother reacted differently. Her voice started to shake and crack as she thanked me about eleventeen times and I thought she was going to cry right there on the phone. She then asked me to hand the phone back to her son so she could also tell him how proud of him she was. Poor kid sat there while his mother obviously gushed all over him on the phone, his face getting more and more red, but he was very clearly happy to have made his mother proud.

Teaching middle school is hard folks, but being the parent of a middle schooler is also hard. They've gone from elementary school where everything is in one place and the whole class goes everywhere together to middle school where they have to be responsible for everything - going class to class, managing homework, learning to open a locker, changing in the locker room and so much more. And as a parent of a middle schooler all you can do sometimes is hold on tight to those often few and far between positive moments and hope for the best on the other side of puberty. 

The two mothers I spoke to today definitely needed some positive moments with regards to their own sons and I was so glad I could provide that for them. Those phone calls not only boosted the kids, but it made the day of the mothers and made me smile. On top of this, the next time one of these boys acts up in my class I will most certainly have the support of these mothers when trying to rein in the boys. So, why not try to find some posiitivity in a place where there is usually only negative and sing it's praises? You never know when that will come back to you - it usually comes back to me when I need it most. 


Image courtesy of http://www.liveandlovework.com/ 

Where Have All the Parents Gone?

Caution: It's about to get real candid up in here!
I serve many roles at my school in addition to technology teacher. I am also a mentor, after school tutor and lunch recess supervisor. I get to know my students on a completely different level in these roles than I do as a classroom teacher and make connections I would not otherwise probably be able to make. At recess I am able to be a little more goofy than normal with the kids, in my tutoring group I serve as a reading teacher and with my mentoring group I get to help kids learn who they are as people. At the exact same time though, I "get" to learn more about my students' lives than many people do.
 Now, let's preface all of this by saying I was certainly no angel growing up and saw some things in my home that I have made sure as an adult that my own personal children will NEVER see. The fact that I had my oldest daughter my senior year in high school is a testament to that. Nevertheless, I have used all of that life experience in my career as an educator in order to connect with my students. But, my heart is broken nearly on a daily basis by the lives that I see my students living outside of the walls of our school. 
On the playground I hear some of the most foul language possible to hear, as well as some extremely sexually explicit comments. Yes, some of this comes from media in our culture, but the graphic nature of the conversation indicates that not only are they being allowed to take in media that is completely inappropriate, but also that they are hearing that type of talk in casual conversations at home. Never mind the types of clothing that my students are wearing to school...it's quite disturbing at times. 
I tutor 6-8 grades students and have three students that are at or below my 1st grade daughter's reading level. The heart-wrenching part is that they are completely oblivious to the fact that they should be able to read much more difficult texts. It pains me to think that "my kids" weren't read to as small children. No one sat with them at bed time and read Green Eggs and Ham or the The Napping House. In conversation with them, I learn that for most of them they didn't even HAVE books in their homes when they were little - nor did they have crayons, markers, scissors and paper to use for crafts. 
In making phone calls home to my mentoring students I call just as many grandmas and "aunties" as I do moms and dads. I see kids with pants that are far too small, shoes that have been worn way past their end of life and children taking home bags of food from the Communities in Schools programs because there just any food at home. I have homeless students, students who travel from one parent "home" to the other having to be the adult in both homes and so many students who don't even know both of their parents that it makes me want to cry. 
I'm just so incredibly baffled by how this can possibly be. I messed up my life big time as a teenager when I got pregnant but I have spent every day since trying to make a good life for my daughter and be a positive and strong role model for her. I understand that life happens, circumstances aren't always what they want them to be, but how can anyone just GIVE UP on their kids? How can I have students with all of their brothers and sisters being gang members? How do I have a student hand me a picture of a family member and the student says "This is my nephew and his daddy - he looks really high huh?" In what kind of home does a child have to live that they find it perfectly normal to come to school and call their peers and teachers every  cuss word imaginable? 
There are days that all I can do is sit with a student and let her cry in my room, or let a boy sleep instead of complete the classwork because he didn't have a bed to sleep in the night before. Some days I just sit in my classroom after they've all gone and cry myself because I know I can just never do enough in the small amount of time I have with them. All I can do is take solace in the fact that I know I can provide a safe, caring and stimulating environment for them to grow and learn. 



Image courtesy of http://writeaboutnowjt.wordpress.com

Why Are You a Teacher?

I just completed the paperwork for my ninth student going to expulsion hearing this school year. Upon turning it in another adult said "I bet you were sad to see that one go." To which I responded "Hey, I really like that kiddo." The other adult said "Misegadis, you're so weird. You like those kids that no one else does!" I of course just laughed and kept walking, but then it got my thoughts churning. Sure, everyone has that one student that just seems to be able to get to them, but to have an administrator say more than once "You were the only person who had anything positive to say about that student on his/her expulsion form." is disturbing. We have students from all walks of life, whose parents may or may not be doing any actual parenting and it's just so incredibly upsetting to me that there are adults in this world that don't take that into consideration when dealing with students. I have students that I know only eat full meals when they are at school, students who live with grandparents because their actual parents are strung out on all kinds of drugs, students who are homeless and so many other life situations I cannot even fathom. So how is it possible that there are adults that DON'T want to be one of the few safe, stable and supportive parts of every one of our children's lives? How is it possible to look a child in the face that you KNOW hasn't slept because of all the fighting at home, and not care for that child just a little bit more?

Several of my friends know that I have recently considered leaving the world of education, at least for now. This has nothing to do with my passion for teaching. In fact, the longer I teach the more passionate I become it. I love being a teacher! It's who I am and it's what defines me. (This is a shout out to my favorite teacher Mrs. Samuels at PSU.) No matter where I go or what I do in life, I am and will always be a teacher - I really have no choice in the matter. But, because I am so incredibly passionate about teaching I can't do it half-way. I've applied for (and been rejected) several positions outside of teaching lately while at the same time seem to be growing stronger relationships with my students than ever. I don't know if I'm being tested or reminded about why I became a teacher, but I do know that I am definitely thinking about my career as an educator more than I ever have before. I don't know what the future will hold for me. Will I continue to teach middle school technology? Will I look for a job as a peer consultant? Will I try to teach at the university level? I simply do not know. What I know for sure is that despite negativity, change, diminishing pay and constantly being shuffled about this district, I love teaching. I find it to be the most important paying job any one person can hold and, for now, will continue on my mission to educate and reach every child that I meet.

Changing the World

I've had a crazy semester (thus the non-posting by Ms. M) but as it comes to a close I  inevitably reflect on my experiences, both with others and on my own. This is just a random collection of thoughts I've had in the last week or two.

• I still truly believe that teaching is the most important career (aside from being a parent) that anyone could choose to pursue. I love kids and am amazed on a daily basis by their perspectives on life - positive or otherwise. I tell my students that I change the world every day, as everything that happens in my classroom impacts them in some way and they will take that with them when they leave me. Thus, it is my goal to change the world in a positive way as much as I possibly can. Every day has to be a fresh start for every child that walks into my room, no matter what has happened in the past.
  
• I have to realize that I have no control over what happens in classrooms that aren't mine and that the best way to help students overcome adversity is to be a positive role model and support them even when they don't think they want or need it. Dwelling on negativity not only doesn't help anyone, it becomes a disease that will infect my classroom if I allow it. Not only do I need to give my students a fresh start every day, I need to allow myself that same privilege. Every morning I need to start over, forgetting whatever slip-ups I may have had. No one is perfect, so I should not expect perfection from myself. To be human is a beautiful thing - imperfections and all.
• It's time I start being an advocate again for technology integration and Project-based Learning. With changing schools and jobs this year I have let that slide, and it is unacceptable. I will start blogging again, I will start posting student projects to my class website and I will start offering to host PLCs in these areas. They are things which I truly believe will impact positive change in education (and face it, our education system is seriously damaged right now) and if I want it to change I've got to do my part to change it. Someone's got to be an impetus for change, why can't it be me?

I am incredibly grateful for my small collection of friends that have helped me through this very challenging semester and am going to try from this point forward to be the positive influence in the lives of both students and teachers that I know is needed. I can not control what others do, but I can control what I do and hope that it impacts others in a beneficial way. 

Summer Challenge

So I've had my last day at Jardine and cleaned out my office yet I still can't bring myself to take those boxes to my new classroom at Truesdell. I've gone to some trainings for the new program I'll be teaching, I get along really well with my partner teacher next year and the new curriculum looks really exciting. Yet those boxes are still in my car. I can't believe how incredibly hard it has been for me to let go of a school where I only worked for one year. I am usually one to embrace change and take charge of a new situation, but I am really struggling this time with moving forward. The students at Jardine are such awesome kids and the staff was so incredibly welcoming that I'm just plain afraid to leave. In a month I'll be completing two weeks of training for the Project Lead the Way program that I'll be teaching next year and I really hope that I will have been able to bring myself to get those boxes out of my car. I am certain some of this fear stems from having lost my job last year and then being told that I won't be returning to Jardine due to restructuring. I have been forced to take a long hard look at how I go about doing business and reflect on my own practices. I really feel that I try my best to do what is best for kids and improving our flawed education system, yet I continue to be moved about in our district. I work in the education system because I believe I truly can make a difference, but I must admit that my fear of the unknown is making me leery of moving forward in my usual "all in" way. I'm afraid that if I jump in with both feet the way I usually do that I will once again be shuffled along, but I know that if I start pulling my punches in order to walk a safer line I will not be able to look at myself in the mirror each day. So here I am, with a car full of moving boxes but unable to take that next step.

Image courtesy of http://sincerelypaige.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/moving-forward.jpg

Back to My Roots (again)

This year has been all about adapting to change for me. My position was cut at the end of the school year last year due to budget cuts so I went on the job hunt and found a science teaching position at Jardine to move into this year. Well long story short I ended up getting moved into the assessment coordinator and site technology specialist position before the school year ever even got started. Then to make an even longer story short, there ended up not being a coordinator for the assessment coordinators this year, so I kind of had to start “winging it” from the get go. No training or PD available left me feeling like I was a day late and a dollar short pretty much all year but I do feel like I’ve kept my head above water most of the time. But to add to all of this, Jardine is going through restructuring this year due to not making AYP for a number of years. (Although this year’s scores look like we will make it this year – yea!) We’ll have a new principal next year and almost 50% of the staff will not be returning, including me. So now I wait to find out where I’ll be placed next year. This means I’m heading “back to my roots” by teaching kids next year. I’m getting pretty excited about it as I feel that I have learned so much in the last four years in the various roles I’ve filled (technology integration specialist, assessment coordinator, DEN Leadership Council member, site technology specialist, Glogster EDU embassador and others) that I will be such a better teacher than I was. It will be really great to share first hand all the new knowledge I’ve gained directly with students to see their reactions and growth for myself.

Making the Most of DE

Have you noticed how different your dashboard looks when you log in to DE this year? Well there are a number of new features on your dashboard that will help you maximize your use of DE content as well as help you keep up to date with upcoming events within the DEN. I will highlight to of the biggest changes to the dashboard that will help you to immediately get more out of DE today.

1. Making the Most of DE

When you log in to DE, you look for the section with this header. It is actually a series of three tabs with helpful hints and trick for utilizing DE content. Notice that they are labeled Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. This allows you to find support at your own comfort and skill level. These tips start at searching for content within DE all the way to utilizing the Builder Tools.

2. DE Webinars

Another great and now easily accessible feature is a listing of all of the upcoming webinars DE is offering to all DE users. This listing can be viewed either by date or by program (as in DE products or STEM webinars.) If you look this week you'll notice that the 2010 Fall Virtual Conference is coming up. This is always a great learning experience! Click here to register for the Virtual Conference.

DEN Summer Institute

This week I was privileged to attend the Discovery Educator Network Summer Institute at Bentley University in Waltham, MA. It was an incredible learning experience! I it just such an uplifting experience being among so many amazing educators who share a similar vision for education as I do. To be able to converse and share ideas, gain resources, learn new skills AND have fun all at the same time makes the learning so much more meaningful and impactful for me. We started with some networking (the picture is from the networking trip into Boston), spent a few days in learning sessions and completed a professional development project for something in Discovery Education. We even got to view each others' projects before we left and I was again blown away by the talent of my fellow STAR educators. The best part about the projects is that Discovery Education is going to upload ALL of them into their Professional Development section so that all Discovery educators can utilize the resources. Thank you DE for such an wonderful and educational experience - it will most definitely have a positive impact on my teaching!

Meltdown in the Twitterverse

Monday, the folks over at Twitter were working to fix an auto-follow-type bug and many people in the Twitterverse went into panic mode right away because their Following/Followers lists had apparently been wiped out to zero. Now for those of you that weren't on Twitter at the time - your Twitter stream was still visible to you as a user so it was pretty obvious that you were still following everyone you'd chosen to follow. But there were still a large number of people that went into a panic that they had lost their followers.

I was simply amazed at the number of people that were upset AND how few mentions there were of no longer following those they had chosen to follow - meaning most people were simply concerned that people were no longer following them. Now granted I have just a little less than 300 followers and follow a little less than 200, but I just don't see what the big deal was. If I'm saying things that others find to be truly meaningful and worthwhile won't they find me and start following me again? And vice versa: I know who I would start following again because I know whose tweets I find compelling and interesting. 


So personal reflection time: What does it say about us if we are freaking out when something like losing our Twitter followers happens? 


Image courtesy of Twitter.

Going Back to Move Forward

About a week and a half ago I was told that due to budget cuts, my position was "being recommended for elimination to the BOE" and the following Monday the BOE approved that recommendation. If you have ever met me or read any posts on this blog you know that I LOVE my job. I love the opportunity to help other educators grow and improve the educational environment in their classrooms. When I lost my job I was at least able to apply for any open teaching positions within the district and have taken a position at a middle school teaching sixth grade science.

So in August I'm "going back" to the classroom.

It's still hard for me to fully grasp that idea, that I've lost the job that I love and it has nothing to do with my job performance or capabilities. In a time where there are entire schools being restructured by having all employees re-interview for their jobs, the only part that factored into selecting my position was that I was the last person hired. Some days I feel like I'm progressing through the stages of grieving, and other days I feel like I'm just going to wake up tomorrow and it will all have been a very long nightmare. And yes, it is a grieving process. I have lost something which I love and had no choice or say in the matter.

This weekend I was starting to see a light and begin to be excited about some of the possibilities with this new job. When I left the classroom blogs had only been approved for use in our district for a couple of months, the only wiki anyone had ever heard of was Wikipedia and the tools like Glogster and Voicethread hadn't even started yet. When I think about all that I have learned in the last three years as an instructional technology specialist, and pair that with all of the technology I will have available to me in the classroom, I really do start to get excited. I know that my experience as an ITS has made me a better teacher and that I will be able to more strongly impact students when I have that daily, face-to-face interaction with them, but I'm still struggling with the whole idea. 

Leaving the classroom to take this position was the hardest thing I had ever done in my professional life at the time as I love teaching, and now I'll be "going back" with a new perspective and new skills.  

Image courtesy of ManojVasanth and Flickr.

My Advice?

I was excited and flattered when an instructor emailed me to ask if she could interview me for a class she is teaching about being a technology integration specialist. Since it is a class early on in the program it mostly covers what it means to be an integration specialist - what skills are involved and such. So the questions were pretty much what I expected: What would you say are your major responsibilities? What is a typical day like as an integration specialist? (This was the hardest question to answer as no two days are alike.) What advice do you have for those looking to become technology integration specialists? It is this last question that was both the easiest and I feel most important question she could have asked. And these are the main points of my answer:

• Expand your Professional Learning Network (PLN) - I learn SO MUCH when I take time to read my RSS feeds and just "listen" to the education talk that occurs on sites like Twitter. 
• Be approachable, but not a door mat. - It is important that the educators and students you support know that you will help them when they need it, but don't do the work for them. If needs support keep your hands off of their computer if at all possible. This may possibly be one of the hardest things I had to learn because "I can do it faster." But, if you fix the problems for them, they will come back again expecting you to fix another problem and won't ever learn the skills themselves.
• Don't let your work take over your life. - It is so easy to sit down "for just a few minutes" with your computer in the evening and then realize that two hours have passed. One of my favorite aspects of my job is that I get to explore the internet for new tools and exciting ways to use them in the classroom. But this can be very time consuming and can cause you to feel overwhelmed if you are not careful.

There were of course a number of other things I could have said, but I felt these were some of the biggest ideas that I wanted to convey.  And of course as soon as I publish this post there will be even more that I wished I had added.


Image courtesy of Flickr and laughlin

Kansas Roads More Important than Education?

I just saw on local news channel KWCH that Reader's Digest ranked the roads in Kansas number one in the nation, which was of course followed by an interview with an official from the Kansas Department of Transportation telling folks why we shouldn't have to cut any money out of the KDOT budget next year. That we would certainly drop from the prestigious rank of #1 if we were to cut the KDOT budget.

At the same time, the district where I work is looking at having to cut somewhere around $25 MILLION from our budget for next year - and that's just one district. Top that with the fact that the state has already been delinquent making payments to school districts a number of times this year and it leads to some potentially terrifying implications for our education system in Kansas.

Now it may be that I am biased because I am an educator, but it seems to me a really easy way to get more money into the education budget would be to move some of the money from the KDOT budget over to the education budget. I know as a Americans we are taught that it we must be number one (think how many times the medal count was displayed on NBC during the Olympics) but as a Kansan I am really okay with letting our road conditions slide down the list a bit if that means our students can continue to get the educations they deserve.

Image courtesy of Flickr and TheDphotography.