Sometimes it's so easy to see how systems meant to help go bad.  Some of it is the strange exponential brew of unrelated line items that form some really ugly whole.  For instance, if SFUSD is interested in both providing the least restrictive environment for children with special needs AND wants to save money in delivering services...well, it's very easy for that to become a block to any child receiving any services.

Of course, the issue of intentions always comes in, and there's something about central district offices that seem to cause those employed there to become very leery of school site workers.  Maybe it's seeing the whole picture: one can see that district wide a certain population is over-represented in low graduation rates/SDC placement/ED classrooms, so one views with suspicion the school site personnel proposing that a student from that population receive services.  It might be understandable, but it's still unpleasant: you have to assume the best of the people with whom you are attempting to serve children, or the children pay.

What I really dislike, though, is the way certain "procedures" that block access to assessment and services get quoted at you over and over and over, even when you know that the procedure in question is rarely followed or in fact illegal.  This is when it's very useful to carry a procedural binder and a copy of relevant case law.  It may make one unpopular with certain district folk who don't really like being (gently) corrected, but if the one in question is me, you were destined to be unpopular with those people, anyway.

The Problem with Master Teachers

If you want to be a really great teacher, get out of the classroom.


Seriously, within weeks you will look back on your classroom days through a heady rose tint.

I don't know what causes this, but I do know it's close to universal.  Part of it is that if you're in a coaching job or ed reform job or marking time administrating, you are probably reading books and articles about pedagogy, management and all that noise.  These books are invariably written by people who have spent little time teaching, and the words are so nice and aligned on the page: look how easy this teaching thing is!  Just like a formula!

And hey, they're probably calling you a "Master Teacher" or "Teacher Leader" or something.  People start believing in their titles.

You likely are also observing teachers teaching.  Observation is great because observers see all kinds of things that the working teacher does not.  They are in a position to simply watch.  They can get up and move around to notice specific events.  They have no responsibility for management, content or results.

This means the observer is going to notice things the working teacher does not, and that can be an enormous help.  You may not know that the two students sitting next to each other are having a spat that day, or that what appears to be notetaking down the aisle is actually highly involved doodling (if I am a student in your class).

Of course, the observer may not know that the detailed doodling involving multiple colors of ink is a listening device, and if that student cannot doodle, there will be no recall (and rather more foot-tapping, note-passing and smarmy-comment-making).

See, the observer doesn't know the students.  Nor does the observer necessarily know anything about the management strategies in use.  Maybe the grumps in the back are actually working on problem-solving techniques and they're going to check in with the teacher after class.  But the combination of an all-seeing eye and a belief in one's own greatness makes it difficult for the observer to even remember to ask about these questions.

And the longer you're out of the classroom, the worse that superiority gets.  This is why I'm leery of Master Teachers, Instructional Reform Facilitators and similar who are out of the classroom for years on end.  I have the experience of watching these people reflect upon their teaching with rosier and rosier glasses every year.  They get harder and harder and more convinced they know what's going on, and their technical knowledge often is beyond compare.  But they aren't teachers anymore and they don't necessarily know how to put all that technique into practice.


This is why I think out-of-the-classroom jobs should be term-limited; three years out and then one in, say.  Or at the very least Master Teachers and Literacy Coaches and the like should be doing regular - more than once a week - demonstration lessons.  During my one year (I.  hated.  it.) out of the classroom, that's what kept me from a swollen head.  (Moreover, my demostration lessons tended to go really well, which gave me credibility when I did have suggestions for a lesson or a management problem.  And when I did have issues, I was honest about them and took the blame rather than assigning it to the students or the general teaching their regular teacher gave them.)

This would also help keep people useful.  I have more teaching experience than my principal and the staff IRFs combined.  I also like to read a lot, am a big nerd, and have had a lot of professional development especially in literacy, so my technical knowledge is pretty strong.  Can I learn from these people?  Of course: there is a reason why observation is a good thing.  I actually request more observation than I get; I had a mess of people observe in my room this year, but rarely for the purpose of providing me with feedback.  (And sadly, even when you tell the observers that you demand feedback in exchange for being on stage, they may not have any to give.)  On the ground at a high-needs school, though, my needs are fewer and I have fewer questions, so I get less support.  If these educational leaders were doing more in-classroom lessons and demonstrations, I'd be able to observe those myself and benefit from being the all-seeing eye.  I'd also probably notice things I want to know more about that I haven't thought of (and therefore don't think to ask).

This is why I'm leery of evaluation-heavy systems like IMPACT in DC: I know myself how the Master Teacher role - which sounds so supportive and pro-teacher - can turn evaluative and administrative.  No one is as awesome teaching as they think they are when they're not.

In other news, I am going hiking with some teachers today.  We are playing Raid E. Rat's Closet beforehand.

Recyclescrounge-o-Rama

The following things are endlessly useful in the classroom:

• Glass jars.  Try to get people to soak off the labels (or at least wash and dry them well) first.  These make for candleholders (tissue paper "stained glass), meditation jars, paint mixers and cream shakers (not the same jars, of course).
• Yogurt containers.  The two-cup Greek yogurt containers are fabulous for watercolor painting water cups.  The little individual ones are good for holding counting chips and things like that.
• The little trays and containers my Chinese takeout come in.  These are good for holding collage supplies.
• The trays on which sit summer rolls to go.  I have big containers of colored pencils and thin, non-scented markers (thick markers are in marker stands and stinky markers are out only when needed).  Kids grab a handful for personal or partner use and put them on a tray.  This is time-efficient for me and provides opportunities for negotiation - although it does involve some teaching and class meetings at the beginning of the year.*

*Although honestly I think fights over supplies tend to start with kids assuming that there will never be enough.  While I encourage careful supply use and conservation, I also make sure that we have more than enough of any one thing.  Supply affluence cuts down on hoarding and arguments, and I believe children learn best when they can devote their energy to learning, not worrying about who has a pink crayon and who doesn't.

Christmas List!

Dear Red-Suited Imaginary Arctic Gift Givers,

I may not have been good this year, but definitely I did good things.  Despite epic budget cuts, regular interludes without heat and the daily denigration of my profession, I have successfully taught my students to read, figure, and treat others with a modicum of respect.

Given American capitalism's "pay for breathing" plans for CEOs, I suppose I could demand presents without any work.  However, the same Rand-reading illiterates* receiving bonuses for their ability to take in oxygen seem to think teachers have something to prove.**  Hence the above.  Additionally:

• I did NOT go to New York so that I could be used to denigrate my own profession.
• I voted in all elections.
• I spoke at Board meetings, gave interviews to the press, and had my picture in national publications. In all venues, I observed that equity is not equality.
• I spoke against child-blaming, parent-blaming and teacher-blaming.
• I took responsibility for my students' learning and demanded that the powers that be take responsibility for their inequitable actions.***

I'm worthy.  I demand presents:

1. Math and reading games to fill the backpacks for my students to take home this summer.
2. Bird print funnel neck dress, size 38 or 40 IT.
3. SFUSD cuts administrative paychecks and positions BEFORE cutting teacher jobs.
4. UESF does not capitulate on "No Layoffs".
5. We get the PAC-TIN grant.
6. Magical black tights that do not get ladders.
7. Aga Six-Four stove and range.
8. 20:1 class size reduction K-12 throughout the state.  12:1 reduction at "high needs" schools (say, those with FRLP over 75% and/or those serving a major public housing development).
9. Lots of nifty light fiction.
10. My very own cross trainer and/or elliptical machine.

As you can see, my desires are both many and extravagant.  I figure such an attitude has served Lloyd Blankfein well, so it can't hurt me any.

In anticipation,

E. Rat

*Yes, I meant for that to happen.  You don't really need strong reading comprehension skills to suffer through Ayn Rand.  Her books are all a disturbing amalgamation of bad, mildly sadomasochistic romance novels and repetitive semi-philosophical pablum.
**And the ones who didn't slap some sense into those boys DO.
***Not that they did, of course.  How much you want to bet that Garcia declines to take a solidarity pay cut (beyond furlough days) again this year?

If I Put My Jacket Over My Head, Will It Be Over Sooner?

Yesterday's rating: NOT AWESOME.

1. Member of my family in hospital having major surgery (which went fine, if gruesomely).
2. Fax machine overloaded as School Transportation cancels each and every free bus field trip already confirmed for this school year.
3. School under lockdown for most of the afternoon.
4. The lockdown was due to a shooting, one that killed a former student of our school.

Today we have an oh-so-exciting District Walkthrough, which after a banner three hours of sleep should be fun for child and adult alike.

I predict much painting, crayon melting recycling and similiar this afternoon.  We're all going to need it.

Deep Thoughts: I Don't Really Have Them.

1. Does it bother anyone else that the "All these lower-income children many of them of color don't all need to go to college!" brigade is led by the racists who brought us the poorly-researched, worse-cited and intentionally misleading The Bell Curve?
2. It is better to pay the taxes one owes than to donate cash to schools.  Goldman Sachs et. al merrily dodge their way through the more esoteric portions of our tax code and starve the public sector - yet receive accolades when they toss a couple million at a charter endeavor.
3. None of these "best and brightest" currently telling me how to do my job have any evidence that they are, in fact, terribly bright.
4. Related: Three years in the classroom and conflicting reports (from one's own mouth, no less) of one's success there does not an expert make, MICHELLE RHEE.
5. Every so often in teaching, one has a student who is just on your wavelength.  It's neat and it doesn't happen every year, which is why yesterday I hosted the latest meeting of the Ladies Who Love Clothes (More Than You) in my classroom.
6. One week until the first field trip.
7. Having a Teacher Resident is so great that I am preemptively getting worried about possibly not having one next year.  Our school community is under increasing stress - the economy is bad everywhere and worse for people who were already low-income.  The stress manifests itself in underslept, underfed and underhoused five year olds and a prevalent air of tension.  We need two adults because our kids need reliable, known and loving faces who are not themselves drowning in a sea of needs.
8. If this budget is the best the state Congress can come up with, they really should've just not bothered.