Our wonderful students...

Here in the county we firmly believe in maximizing instructional time and reaching every student, but I guess this doesn't apply to the history department.

One unfortunate history teacher has classes of 25-30+ freshmen who still haven't learned how to behave. On one beautiful morning she turned her back to the class as she wrote notes on the white board.

As her back was turned, one young scholar turned the lights off. As she turned around to confront the student, other students proceeded to throw textbooks at her.

This teacher then marched the class to the office, turned in her grade book, and drove home.

Not to worry, I'm 99.9% sure that none of the students involved got in trouble.

Whatever happened to kids who respect authority?

The perfect student?

Still riding the struggle bus...

In retrospect...

It would have been nice to know a few things before teaching in the county.

1. Everything is a teacher problem/The kids are not accountable for anything.

Let Billy's mom show up and accuse you of failing Billy. Even if you plan interventions and give extra opportunities for Billy to bring his grade up, it is not my responsibility to convince Billy that he should try to get above a 65 in my class. But don't worry, it's the teacher's fault that Billy didn't feel like doing group work, independent work, art activities, lab work, learning through song, etc. As a result, Billy's mom is in the right. It's the teacher's fault. Shame on the teacher for not doing cartwheels and back flips to get Billy excited about learning.  

2. Too many kids "need" accommodations.

Billy's dad wants Billy to sit in the front row, but I can't do that since I have more than 10 other students with a behavior plan that requires him/her to sit at the front of the room. I'm no magician, so there is no way to make more than 10 front row seats even if I have the room split in half with the kids facing each other. Well, sorry Billy's dad, request declined.

3. Alternative school is an ineffective rehab facility

Billy and Suzie are notorious for disrupting the classroom environment, and both have already received several days of in school suspension and out of school suspension. At this point both students now have a behavior plan which essentially allows them to misbehave without getting written up unless the teacher follows steps 1-10 on their "positive" behavior plan. Nevertheless, Billy and Suzie continue to disrupt class and are therefore sent to alternative school.

Problem solved? Not quite. Low and behold Billy and Suzie are on a 10 day plan at alternative school, so 10 short days later they're back in my classroom doing the same nonsense they were doing before they left. To sweeten the deal they are both now 10 days behind on classroom material.

4. Everybody knows somebody, so nobody gets in trouble

Before coming to the county I was told that we rarely ever have fights, because if a fight breaks out, the students are taken to the police station.

Since I've been here we've had at least 8 fights, so that means at least 16 students involved in violent activities on school grounds.

How many of these students have actually been handcuffed and/or escorted to the police station? Zero.

Why? Well Suzie's mom knows officer B., so he can't bring himself to handcuff her. And If he doesn't handcuff Suzie, then he can't handcuff Brenda either. Or, one of the students involved belongs to an influential family in the community, so we can't handcuff him or take him to the police station.

When there are no real consequences for bad behavior, the kids will do whatever they want to do.

Still riding the struggle bus...

Kool-aid pickles?

Kool-Aid pickles (kool-aid +sugar + pickles) are quite the thing in the county as well as in many other places.

Kool-Aid pickle

During break time (snack time) the school sells things like sports drinks, chips, nachos, fruit snacks, and of course Kool-aid pickles. 

On one fine afternoon several young female scholars proceeded to do "unspeakable things" with said Kool-aid pickles in the bathroom, so the school no longer sells this southern delicacy during break time.

Our fearless leader was deeply moved by these events, so she decided to make a public service announcement at the start of classes the following day. She kindly informed the student body that "we are aspiring to acquire greatness, not sucking to acquire greatness." 

The struggle is real.

 

No sub, no problem

Here in the county many certified staff use all of their sick time and then some. The problem is that nobody likes calling out sick ahead of time, so the school is always scrambling to find a substitute at the last minute.

If we are especially fortunate, one of the bus drivers will stay on as a sub, but when lady luck is not on our side we push for more innovative methods.

Option 1: send the students to the gym so that 20+ kids can disrupt the gym class that already has 40ish students.

Option 2: send the students to the library so that the librarian can babysit 20+ kids with nothing to do.

On one such occasion when we resorted to option 1 (sending the kids to the gym), students used this opportunity to engage in "inappropriate activities" in the bathroom.

Such innovation, such preparation, such flexibility.

The struggle is real.

A typical day in the lunch line

Student: Ms. Smith, you take food stamps in between paychecks?
Teacher: No.
Student: How you survive without food stamps?
Teacher: I use my money.
Student: So you don't get food stamps?
Teacher: No, I don't get food stamps.
Student: Ms. Smith, I never knew no black folk that don't get food stamps.

Here in the county 100% of our students receive free lunch and most if not all of them receive food stamps.

The struggle is real.

Enrichment?

The department chair decided that enrichment would be more effective if we allowed a few select students to run each classroom. These chosen elite would be the teachers delivering instruction and clearing up confusion in each classroom. Sounds awesome, but that's not how it worked out.

The students didn't respect their "peer teachers", so no "enrichment" took place. But no worries, we have a flawless plan in place. We will continue to run enrichment the same way for the rest of the year.

Here in the county we believe in continuing to beat the dead horse even when there are several signs telling us that there is no life remaining in the poor beast.

Well, I guess its easier to leave something broken instead of using precious resources to fix it.

The struggle is real.

CPR training...can someone help the nurse?

Sounds crazy, but this really happened. Our wonderful principal thought it would be in everyone's best interest to learn CPR and get certified. I also agree that learning CPR is pretty important especially when you work with children. So, we plunged into fall break with professional development ie. CPR training.

To speed up the process we broke off into groups of 4-5 people. My group finished demonstrating our mastery of CPR pretty early, so we sat back and watched the other groups in action. I noticed a middle aged woman seriously struggling to deliver the chest compressions and rescue breaths. I'm not the only one who noticed this because I saw other heads turn in see what was going on. Naturally, I was curious to find out who the poor woman was, so I asked my colleague sitting next to me. She leaned in close to my ear and whispered, "that's the nurse!"

I stared back at her with wide eyes. I couldn't believe it. My colleague noted my surprise and said, "girl, I'm dead serious, that's the nurse."I proceeded to shake my head in disbelief as my colleague then whispered, "if somebody passes out, you better say a prayer because the nurse can't help."

Apparently the CPR instructor noticed the struggle taking place, so she said, "can someone give this woman some assistance?" The look on her face was priceless when someone informed her that "this woman" was the school nurse for the school district.

Here in "the county" we have a long standing practice of hiring people who are under qualified and holding on to them even when there is evidence that the person is incapable of doing what the position requires.

The struggle is real.

....and I'm my own grandpa

Not really, but I am my own TST (teacher support team). Awesome students, not so awesome students, average students, failing students, students who have failed this class one or two times before, and students who just don't care; I deal with them all, I plan lessons to accommodate all of them, and I plan interventions to reach all of  my "diverse learners".

In the great state of <insert name here>, much like other states, we classify students based on tiers.

Tier 1 = typical students
Tier 2 = students at risk of failing
Tier 3 = students who have failed 2 or more classes in the past

Once a student gets to Tier 3, the TST, comprised of much smarter people than myself, is supposed to step in and plan awesome interventions that the teachers can implement in the classroom. In "The County" I am officially my own TST. Even though I document interventions and students' responses to intervention, nothing ever comes of it. It is amazing how progressive the education system is in the nether regions of our beloved country.

At the end of the day, If you are failing a class where there are 3 tests, 5 in class art projects, and 20 daily grades/classwork assignments, then you deserve to fail. Aside from the sheer quantity of assignments given in the first 9 weeks, I have used collaborative learning groups, learning through song, educational videos, and tons of graphics.

There comes a time when the blame slides off the teachers back and creeps up on the student. The blame then leaps onto the student and grabs him or her around the neck and clings tightly. That time is now. If Billy and Suzie choose not to complete assignments, it is not Ms. Smith's job to convince them that it would be in their best interest to make an effort to complete their work. If Billy and Suzie are absent more times than they are present, it is not Ms. Smith's job to hunt them down to give them 3-4 weeks worth of make-up work. Even when Ms. Smith goes above and beyond the call of duty to put together missing work for Billy and Suzie and she then tells them that they need to complete this extra work by <insert date here> to pass the class, it is not Ms. Smith's job to force Billy and Suzie to complete said make-up work and turn it in before grades are due.

The struggle is real