October Beatings

I just got spanked by October.  

This was no friendly swat on the rear as October happily waltzed by.  Oh no.  We're talking much more along the lines of "head out to the backyard and pick your own switch 'cause you's gonna get a whuppin'" flip- me-over-its-knee kind of spanking.  For all its pretty leaves, sparkly weather, and spicy pumpkin recipes, October hides a nasty mean streak.

Just ask my tutor.  I have an honors student who is a saint.  She volunteers to come into my classroom after school once a week and help with a group of freshman boys who struggle.

"How's it going?" I asked her this week, after hearing howling laughter from her corner of the room.

"DUDE, he drew a cat that looks like a sausage!" screamed one of my boys.

"Sausage!  Sausage, sausage, sausage!" sang referenced "dude."  "I'm a sausage, and I like cats!"

The third boy threw his hat at the window.  Five feet above his head.  On the other side of the room.

"I'm running out of ideas..." said my tutor calmly, looking at the limited vocabulary on the Spanish I sheet.  The hat fell out of the window sill and dropped two inches in front of her on the floor.

"...and patience."  She looked at me sweetly.

"It's cool," I told her.  "You're working for free.  Why don't you call it a day, and I'll take over the hooligans."

"WE'RE NOT HOOLIGANS!" Dude-boy bellowed, grinning.

"ClickTHWACKowdearGOD!" "Señora, wait...I don't get this.."  "I"m done!"  "Psst, señora, I kind of need to talk to you." "I remembered!"

That was, in chronological order:

1.  Fourth freshman boy launching himself through the door, shoulder-slamming into a desk, bouncing off the wall and into a chair where he was supposed to be finishing an essay.

2.  Sweet and very confused girl attempting to complete an exam I had given her class six weeks ago.

3.  Darling boy who must pass my class to graduate completing the practice problems I had assigned him.

4.  Spectacularly shy boy attempting to get my attention to discuss how he felt he was drowning in my honors section.

5.  Frequently absent girl arriving for her exam make-up 30 minutes after we had agreed to meet.

A stunned silence reigned as even the students realize that they had exceeded the neediness quota for any  3.5 seconds of a teacher's time.

My reactions, in chronological order:

1.  "Good god, man, what do your parents feed you for breakfast?  Caffeine laced with sugar?!  Park your butt.  Double-spaced.  Now."

2.  "Nora, it's the same as the practice sheet I gave you.  Present tense, not past."

3.  "Jack, take a 5 minute breather, then I'll check your answers."

4.  "Ivan, let's talk in the hall.  Meet you out there."

5.  "Jenna. Test. Table. Go."

My sweet tutor made a move for the door.  Can't say that I blame her.

And it's somewhere between booting out my hoodlums, ("You guys ready for the test tomorrow?"  "Yeah."  "Prove it."  "We can explain the difference between 'your mother is a fat sausage' and your mother is the fat sausage.'"  "Ok.  You're good.  Now get the heck out.") reassuring my honors kid that it's ok to struggle, and praying to Allah, Buddha and any number of other deities that my borderline students whip out a passing grade, that I become reflective.  More than a decade in the classroom, I muse, nearly two-thousand students taught, and countless professional lessons learned, so why, after all this time...

have I still not learned to avoid assigning nearly 500 pages of assessments in a span of two weeks?

Oh, right.  Silly curriculum.  Then there's the non-instructional stuff.

"Hey, was wondering if you could pop in and do an observation..."

"Staff meeting time on Friday, cover a workshop?  

"Got any resources on your instructional lead position that you could pass my way?"

"Was hoping you could lend a hand to a colleague.."

"Three presentations in one week too much?"

It's the administrave equivalent of launching oneself through a doorway and shoulder-slamming a desk. While shouting about sausage cats.

"Ah, right..." one admin had the decency to acknowledge which involved a conflict getting me into another classroom due to the fact, oddly enough, that I needed to be in my classroom, "you teach, too."  Though I'm pretty sure that if one could smirk via email, she was.

Ok.  To be fair.  I do bring a bit of it upon myself.

But gosh durn it, when a student actually brings me an apple after ten apple-less years and hands it to me with a goofy grin, I'm done.  And when a colleague sends me a note about my meetings being a bright spot in her week, I'm just a full-blown glutton for punishment.  

But punishment is one thing.  Full on physical abuse is another.  So I've had about enough of you, October, you sneaky first semester February disguised in sexy leaves.  I won't miss you.  November's on his way. He may not have your hot bod and swingin' fall style, but you know what he does have?

Thanksgiving break.

Curriculum Wine

I'm afraid I've got a few whiners out there.

Got a group of teachers from a school we'll call Nemo (you know who you are) fussing about a task that we in the business like to call Curriculum Writing.

For those of you not be familiar with the bureaucratic delights of teaching, Curriculum Writing goes a little something like this:

1.   Sit at computer for hours upon hours.

2.  Enter a play-by-play of what you teach,  removing absolutely every joyful and/or emotive word from description.  (i.e. "Use teenagers' obsession with video games against them, and create the Anatomy and Physiology version of Dance Dance Revolution in which students listen to crappy pop music while simultaneously identifying and touching unpronounceable names of joints, muscles and other body parts in rapid succession thus making them look like spastic monkeys who jump at the word scapula..." becomes "Students will use a variety of visual and kinesthetic leaning activities to master chapter vocabulary.")

3.  Link joyless play-by-play to even more joyless content standards and benchmarks.

Oh, standards and benchmarks.  The tediously obvious quality control of education.

Let me give you one priceless example from my own content area:

STANDARDS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING

COMMUNICATION- Communicate in Languages Other Than English

Standard 1.1: Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions

Hang on just a...you mean that students in a Foreign Language class are going to have conversations?  And that this is a notable enough occurrence that it must be indicated with its own standard?  (And that "conversation" must be further explained as "providing and obtaining information and exchanging opinions.")

No wonder you've got so many problems, America.  You took common sense right out of the equation.  

Sorry, where were we?

4.  Repeat steps 1-3 for about eight bajillion hours.

5.  Congratulations!  Your curriculum is now complete!  Go have a drink.  Except, since we're all teachers and poor it's going to have to be BYOB.  Which, neatly, brings me to my next point.

BYOC

Build Your Own Curriculum

Some clown named one of the biggest curriculum building sites "Build Your Own Curriculum."  Which, considering the educational affection for acronyms, is inevitably going to be abbreviated as BYOC.  Which means that that clown was either:

a) an evil genius who sat smirking at his desk as teachers slaving away on BYOC wistfully dreamt of Bringing Beer to the occasion or,

b) a dorky tool who completely missed the obvious alcoholic, college party-day reference of his creation.

I prefer to vote for option A.  Mostly because I like to think that other people live in the same snarky world of sass as me, but also because the other curriculum building sites have even crappier names.  "Curriculum Mapper" (way to state the obvious)  "CurriuPLAN" (dorks) and "Atlas Curriculum Mapping" (Atlas? Maps?  Really bad pun?)

Regardless, Nemo.  Quit your whining.  As painful as it is, stop for a moment and think about what it would be like to teach without a curriculum.

No, really.  Nip that maliciously delighted little giggle in the bud and think about it for a second.  Without curriculum, you'd be "that teacher."

You know who I'm talking about.  You've worked with That Teacher.

It's that colleague who, when everyone else is teaching the past tense,  randomly makes students memorize lyrics to Spanish ballads.  That teacher who, when everyone else is covering causes of the civil war, does a critical analysis of Scarlett O'hara's wardrobe.  That teacher who, rather than teach anything even vaguely related to physics chooses to reenact The West Side Story with dancing hamsters*.

*True story.  Don't ask.

In short, it's that teacher who makes you mildly homicidal because when you inherit his/her students the following year, you have to spend your time filling in knowledge gaps about vectors and the theory of relativity, as well as teach your own content.  All while thirty children serenade you with "I Feel Pretty."

You don't want to be That Teacher, Nemo.  You're too good for that.

So as painful as it is, admit it.  You need curriculum.

Writing it is going to suck, though.  No way around that.  So I thought I would lighten your load a little. By giving you more work.  A whole new set of standards and benchmarks to work with.  Thank you for the inspiration, Nemo.  Consider yourself responsible for...

THE NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR SINGING PIG* EDUCATION

*Singing Pig is hereby defined as any educator who cares to voice his/her opinion on this blog, in comments on this blog, or on pages related to this blog.  We simply remind you that you do so at your own risk.

1.  COMMUNICATION

Singing Pigs will communicate freely and openly about education and educational issues

Standard 1.1:  Singing Pigs will randomly denote any topic of their choice as "education-related" and tackle it (in)appropriately and enthusiastically.

Standard 1.2:  Singing Pigs will metaphorically (or literally, as the individual Pig sees fit) moon any person or party who suggests that teachers should not possess or express controversial opinions related to education.

Standard 1.3: Singing Pigs will incorporate sass into all communication where it is deemed appropriate and/or too good an opportunity to pass up.

Standard 1.4  Singing Pigs will embrace the delicate balance of using inappropriate innuendos as frequently as possible.  In every conversation.  Education-related or not.  (Refer to Standard 1.1)

2.  TRASPARENCY:

Singing Pigs will employ honesty around the education profession.

Standard 2.1:  Singing Pigs will be open and frank about and entirely entertained by anything and everything that teachers aren't supposed to talk about.

Standard 2.2:  Singing Pigs will not sugar coat any realities of the American public education system.

Standard 2.3:  Singing Pigs will demand that individuals with whom they engage in conversation do not sugar coat the realities of the American public education system.  

Standard 2.4  Singing Pigs shall encourage said honesty by obnoxiously thumbing their noses at any would-be sugar-coater while shouting that said individual's mother was a hamster and his/her father smelled of elderberry.

3.  FUN:

Singing Pigs will love what they do and have fun doing it.

Standard 3.1: Singing Pigs will acknowledge that they will never be paid what they are worth.

Standard 3.2:  Singing Pigs will replace lacking financial benefits with the health benefits of laughing until they pee themselves at the shit kids pull. 

Standard 3.3:  Singing Pigs will happily and shamelessly poke fun at all the education crap that deserves to have its fun poked.*

*A true Singing Pig also just snickered at the word "poked."

Standard 3.4:  When Singing Pigs no longer feel passionate about education, they will get the hell  out.  A good Pig knows when to call it a career.

4.  SUPPORT:

Singing Pigs will maintain life balance and serve as a support network for fellow Pigs.

Standard 4.1: Singing Pigs will indulge in frequent and therapeutic happy hours containing some or all of the following coping techniques: oversharing, overdrinking, and/or getting kicked out of public establishments for riotous overlaughing.

Standard 4.2: Singing Pig posses will forcibly remove from school premises teachers who voluntarily spend more than ten consecutive hours on campus.  Singing Pigs will then forcibly submit said teachers to previous standard.

Standard 4.3:  Singing Pigs will take a minimum of one mental health day per semester without feeling the smallest shred of guilt.  You teach in public education, for crying out loud.  You outdid Mother Teresa in good deeds after the fifth bloody nose, third hallway fight and seven hundredth impromptu hallway counseling session - in one day.

So I'm sorry, school Nemo.  You may have thought you were nearly finished with your BYOC, but I'm going to need you to go back and check your standards.  That lesson on medieval England?  Have you included SP Standard 3.2 - laugh until you pee yourself?  Or does your unit plan on fractions specify a date for Sstandard 4.1 - drunken oversharing?

Although, if that seems like too much work, Nemo, there is a shorter way to a successful Singing Pigs curriculum. 

Just change the main verb of each sentence to "fart."  

"Students will use a variety of visual and kinesthetic leaning activities to fart chapter vocabulary."

Bathroom humor.  Works like a charm every time.  Go ahead.  Try it.  What was the last sentence you wrote?  Feel free to leave it in a comment below for the rest of us to enjoy.

But if all else fails, Nemo, there's only one solution.

You're just going to have to Bring Your Own Chardonnay.

Cheers.

PTCF

Parent Teacher ConFerences

Please Take Children Far

Possibly Time to Create Fear

Pretty Tough Children Freak

No, wait...I've got it...

Parent Teacher Cluster F--k

Here's the thing about conferences:

I don't really mind them.  

Ha.  Bet that's not what you thought I was going to say.  Bet you thought I was going to launch straight into a rant about long days, overworked teachers, and rude parents.

Nah.

I'll save the rant for later.

It's just that I'm slightly old-fashioned.  As great as I think technology is, and as insanely happy as it makes me to be able to shoot home a quick email about student progress rather than having to call and get sucked into a fifteen minute conversation about little Suzie's inability to complete her classwork due to incessant flirting with her classmates, I like face-to-face communication.  I can read a lying teenager easier than Dick and Jane Go To School and I can pick out the slightest undercurrent of defiance in the smallest of gestures.  With my back turned.

So one would think it would be handy to meet the parents of the children I teach, useful to get a vibe for the people who produced the offspring I spend my days with. I might discover if the snooty kids have snooty parents, and the sweet kids have sweet ones, or if biology just decided to play Russian roulette with the parental DNA. It should provide a whole new understanding of my demographic.

But most of the time, it's just a clusterf--k.

Everywhere I have taught, PTCFs have been organized in one way:  three to four hours of teacher meetings after a full day of teaching school.

So a quick question for you parents of teenagers:  when was the last time you spent seven hours straight with your child(ren)?  And I don't mean seven hours sleeping, or you making dinner in the kitchen while they madly text away on their phone.  I mean seven.straight.hours. Of teenage face-to-face, quality-time interaction.

Exhausting to think about, isn't it?

Now up the ante.  When was the last time you hosted a teenage event?  Five to ten teenagers in your house, having fun, wreaking havoc, leaving a trail of adolscent mayhem in their wake...
Yup.  So now do that for seven hours, non-stop, with 120-150 (maybe even 170 or more, depending on your school) teenagers who aren't even your offsping and who, in the perfect world, you will also somehow make smarter before they leave your room.

I'm supposed to be coherent after this?  Not just coherent, but pleasant, informative, helpful and charming?

Good luck with that.

"Hi, I'm Kaitlyn's mother..." one woman introduced herself at conferences some years ago.
"Oh, I'm SO glad to see you!"  I gushed.  (At least I had the "pleasant" part of the job description going for me.)  "I don't always see the parents I need to talk to, but I was hoping you would come because Kaitlyn currently has an F in my class."

Her mother stared at me in shock.

"She does?  But she loves your class!  In that case, I'm glad I came, too.  We need to talk!"

Halfway through the delivery of Kaitlyn's poor homework habits, reluctance to participate and failing test scores, I realized with a sinking stomach that I taught two Kaitlyn's that year.

Whoopsie.

"Wait..." I interrupted myself.  "Your daughter is Kaitlyn...who?"

Awkward.  But I still count that as one of my finer PTCF moments.  At least I caught and corrected myself.  What's one of my less finer moments, you wonder?  Why, I'm so glad you asked!   Staring at boobs would be the unequivocal answer.

I once taught a student of whom I have absolutely no memory.  If you asked, I couldn't tell you her name, the level of Spanish she was in, or the tiniest personal detail about her.  But I remember the parent teacher conference.  Her mother had some knockers.  I mean, those suckers were HUGE.  And, so far as I could tell, completely natural.  (And no, I didn't grab them to find out...though the thought crossed my mind.)

"Hi, Teach!" she greeted me kindly.  "How's Abigail (name obviously invented since I don't have a flippin' clue as to who her daughter was) doing?"
"Great!" I answered.  Holy POO those are some boobies!   "Ummm..." Ignore boobies.  Do not stare at boobies.  Weird to stare at parents' boobies.  Especially when you're a straight female. "She's a delight in class.  Pulling a solid grade..." Boobs!  "I'm really glad to have gotten to know her this year."  How does she even hold those things up?  


That was one of my more painful conferences.  But not, I'm sure, any more painful than trying to jog with those melons.  Wrapped up in four different sports bras.

150 kids this year.  Which means I am the proud teacher of around 300 parents who, of course, I share with other teachers, but still...

Let's take a reasonably average American high school.  1,800 students.  Which means around 3,600 parents.  (We'll figure that the single parents average out with the blended family parents.)  Not all attend, so let's shoot for only 30% attendance and assume that only one parent per student shows.  (Both are kind of ridiculous assumptions, but I don't teach math, nor do I have any desire to do so, you weird number-people freaks.)  That still means you have 540 parents, 190 teachers, a handful of students and full administration crammed into your school's cafeteria.  Which, of course, has amazing acoustics (because the government spares no cost in building the public schools which will educate the future government of America) so that when, after a full day of teaching, (which involves multiple repetitions of "Bobby stop that.  Johnny knock it off, Jane are you even listening to what I am saying?") you get to shout things like "WELL, YOUR CHILD HAS A 97% SO I'M NOT REALLY SURE WHAT THE EFF YOU'RE DOING HERE...WHY DON'T YOU JUST TAKE THE KID OUT TO EAT AS A CELEBRATION INSTEAD?"

C'mon, peeps,  I've just spent seven hours using my authoritative voice to teach your kids.  Cut me a break and don't make me talk for another three hours if your child has above a 90%.

Nearly two hundred teachers and six hundred parents all talking loudly in a concrete room at one time?  Say it with me now...

Cluster-what?

And then there's that one kid.  That cute little freshman who plops himself down at my table with a happy "Hi, Sra.!"

"Hi, Owen," I reply.  "You holding a place in line for your mom?"

"Oh, no," he says.  "My parents are busy with my sister's conferences, so I decided to do my own."

"Really?"  I say, trying to hide the little sweet catch I always feel at one of my teens talking to me frankly.  "You're visiting all your teachers to check up on your progress?"

"Well, no..." he replies.  "I prioritized.  I went through my grades and decided that I most needed to go to just the classes where I have a borderline grade.  In yours I have a 90% so I'd like you to tell me what I need to do in the upcoming weeks to put myself in a better position."

"In that case, Owen, I'm very glad you stopped by..." and we have a serious talk about challenges and goals.

So, no.  I don't really mind conferences.

But it never hurts to toss a Starbucks card my way as a "Thanks."  That's right.  I'm looking at you, overachieving parent who makes me shout about how your kid can get from a 97 to a 98%.  And for the love of god...

If you have huge balongas, please don't wear thin cotton T's.

See you in the spring.

A Conversation with "That Kid"

I was a total nerd in high school.

Actually, let's back up.

I was always a total nerd.  So much so, that I sucked all the nerd genes out of the pool leaving none for my little brother who unconcernedly shrugged off worries about grades and set his academic sights on the much more entertaining endeavor of being That Kid.

All teachers know who I'm talking about.  That Kid that tries every last shred of your patience.  That Kid that asks a stupid question simply for the sake of asking a stupid question.   That Kid that arrives late every day and seems oblivious to any consequence you can dream up.  That Kid that lies, skips, annoys, irritates, distracts, sleeps...

You get the idea.

We're only beginning the school year, but I bet you're already well on your way to figuring out this year's "That Kid."  Quick - if you had to name a name, who would it be?

See.  Told you teachers know what I'm talking about.

In the interest of trying to figure out why, when I buy letter magnets so that students can practice Spanish in a new and unique way, I find phrases such as

I is big ribbed duck man

Communist sexo

I pee now

and, perhaps most inexplicably,

peanut Fred

on my whiteboard, I decided to interview That Kid.  If I could discover what makes him (or her) tick,  maybe I would be a better teacher.  Or at least I might reduce the number of times I say things like, "Cory.  Kindly remove your crotch from Mark's face," in my classroom.

Figuring there might be legal issues with walking up to my current That Kid and saying "Hey, you're obnoxious.  Can I interview you and then publish it online?" I decided to settle for the safer, less sue-able option of interviewing my brother.

"I have a kid this year that reminds me of you," I tell him frequently.

"You have a kid every year that reminds you of me," he responds, unimpressed.

Yep.  Sure do.  It's That One.

So for what it's worth in improving student/teacher relations, welcome to That Kid's Brain.

* * * * * * *

Me:  Okay, first and foremost, what qualities do you look for in a teacher?

Bro:  Tig ol' bitties.

Me:  I see.  We're jumping out of the gate with boobs.  Nice.  Anything else?

Bro:  A short attention span.  Smart-assery.

Me:  A short attention span?

Bro: Yeah.  So you can totally get them off topic and do nothing.  

Me:  Wonderful. Let's try some scenarios instead.  Your teacher has been lecturing too long.  What do you do?

Bro:  Silently pray for death.

Me:  Yours or theirs?

Bro: Mine.

Me:  Why not the teacher's?

Bro:  I'm not vengeful. 

 But I do also like to wait for a quiet pause in the lecture, then rip a big one.

Me:  Isn't it embarrassing to fart in front of your peers?

Bro: Isn't it embarrassing to be that teacher everybody hates?

Me:  Touché.

Me:  Moving on.  You don't know the answer to a question on an essay test.  What do you do?

Bro:  This is what I did on an actual music test for which I did NO studying.  I answered the entire test in rhyming iambic pentameter.  And I got a D instead of outright failing.

Me:  And what was your teacher's justification for passing you?

Bro:  She said I put a lot of work into it.  I also once answered a calculus proof with a sketch of a math textbook burning in a trashcan.

Bro:  That one I did fail.

Me:  Didn't you also draw family trees of random animals mating with celebrities, then write essays describing their offspring?

Bro:  That was your other brother.

Me:  Oh, right.  Mixing up the family overachievers.

Me:  Next scenario.  Your teacher drank too much coffee and has to pee.  She begs you to behave for 3 minutes so she can run to the bathroom.  She leaves the room and you...

Bro:  ...shout CARPE DIEM and flip my desk over triumphantly.

Me:  Why would you flip your desk over?

Bro:  Why not?

Me:  Actually...that explains a lot of what goes on in my classroom.

Bro:  It's also symbolic of the struggle against an oppressive regime, turning the establishment on its head.  Besides, f--k that desk.

Me:  What did that desk ever do to you?

Bro:  Sat there all hoity-toity with its uppity chair attachment.

Me:  Right...

*Cricket chirp*

Me:  Describe your thought process during any given class.

Bro:  1st period:  So tired.  Wonder if there is any way to sleep without the teacher caring.

2nd period.  Still tired.  Refreshed from first period nap.  Exhausted by boredom.  

3rd period: Hungry.  Wonder what's for lunch?  Better not be Salisbury steak again.  That's yesterday's meat in last week's gravy.  You're not fooling anyone, cafeteria lady.

4th period:  SO hungry.  Must eat now.  Stare at boobs.  Rate girls in class on a scale of 1 -10 in a chauvinistic, misogynistic way.  

5th period:  Late to class because I waited until the bell rang to go to the nurse for my Ritalin.  Score.  Doubly late because I forgot to get a pass from nurse back to class, so waste time returning to nurse for pass, then returning to class.

6th period:  My favorite teacher, so I actually pay attention...for about 25 minutes.  Then I doodle genitals and random lyrics from songs on my work.

7th period:  Dream about every wonderful aspect of the bus ride home; the muggy pungent bus air, the cracked pleather seats leaving imprints on sweaty things.  Mmmmmmm. Freedom.  Go home and furiously masturbate.

Me:  Aw, bro!  Too much information.

Bro:  You asked.

Me:  If that's your general thought process, describe a quality day in a high school class.

Bro:  a good high school class is like real estate:  location, location location.  Not all the way at the back where you'll be perceived as a slacker, not all the way at the front where you're a suck up. Middle-back, and your seat neighbors are crucial.  Get a good seat and good neighbors and any class is acceptable.

Me:  So what you're saying is that the class has a big fat diddly and squat to do with the material or the teacher?

Bro:  Mostly diddly.  Just a little squat.  

Me:  And what did you do when you sat in prime real estate with friends?

Bro: Talked with complete disregard for the teacher.  Or frequently we would write one sentence of a story and pass the paper to each other, each person writing the next line to the story...

Me:  That's actually a very academic undertaking.  I've used that structure in my classes.

Bro:...usually culminating in a profane adventure featuring the teacher in an uncomfortable and/or sexually deviant situation.

Me:  You made it a point to torture your teachers, then?

Bro:  That wasn't torture.  When we wanted to torture them, we intentionally answered questions wrong with sexual double entendres.  Or we answered them right with obscene over-enthusiasm.

Me:  So taking you and your buddies into consideration, what advice would you offer folks going into the teaching career?

Bro:  Don't.   
But if you must, carry a taser.

Me: Or...?

Bro:  Or a very sharp wit.

Job Description - Developing a Cooperative Relationship With Parents and Students

Students, unfortunately, come equipped with parents.


Most parents, to be fair, are alright.  In fact, I go most of the year without hearing from most parents.  Trouble is, I spend the rest of my year hearing from the crazies who have mistaken the Right to a Free Public Education for the Right to Be An Absolute Looney.  


"What is the difference," you ask?  Weeeeelllll......back to the ol' JD (Job Description, for those of you a few blog posts behind...)


1.  Teacher will develop with parents and students a cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and objectivity*.
*  NOTE: for Job Description Purposes, "mutual respect and objectivity" is hereby defined as respect and objectivity on the part of the teacher, and, apparently, only the teacher.


As a teacher (or an employee of the public education sector in any capacity,) one must relationship-build.  Conscious relationships provoke trust and through trust comes cooperation, thus allowing all parties involved to work toward productive plans for the student.  Still, relationship building can be tricky.  Teachers navigate an unpredictable world of race, religion, and political views.  We must encourage  students to think while simultaneously walking the fine line of respecting an infinite number of worldviews and life circumstances.


A reasonably good teacher will find it easy to relationship-build with students.  Walk in classroom, act like idiot, know the material, crack poop jokes, maintain control, give high fives.  You have now earned student respect.  Those little squirts (poop pun totally intended) will do whatever you ask.


Parents, however, are a tad trickier.  And as they come in a number of shapes. sizes, and levels of looney,  the ideal candidate for teaching will rate "highly qualified" in the skill set of Parental Winging It.


2.   Teacher will effectively deal with the clincally Balls to the Wall Crazy.


In reality, this subset of parents could be divided into sub-subsets.  You have your drunken crazies, mentally ill crazies, your wealthy entitled crazies, creepy crazies and your We Don't Know What the Hell is the Matter With You But You Are Crazy as Hell crazies. For JD purposes, however (and in the interest of saving myself material for a future blog post on types of crazies) all severely crazy parents receive the Balls to the Wall designation.


Cooperative Relationship Skill Set #1:  Avoidance


Nobody can change crazy, so in most circumstances the best weapon is simple Avoidance.  The difficulty with Avoidance, however, is that a parent first must be identified as crazy which is easy only at the highest levels of crazy.  At parent-teacher conferences one year, my principal booted a parent before she could even get in the door.  Imagine, if you will, the level of insanity you must exude in order to actually be kicked out before you get in.  Hell, your crazy just defied the laws of physics.


But those crazies are rare.  


Most parents can mask the crazy in order to slip into contact with a teacher, then scare the bejeesus out of everyone involved.


Take the Crazy Bitch crazy (another Ball to the Wall sub-designation.)  In my case, this was the mother who, when I  ran into her in the hall after school seemed quite pleasant, thanking me for giving her daughter make-up work after being ill for a few days.  


"No worries," I told her.  "I just hope Isabel is feeling better."


"Oh, she'll be fine," the mother told me.  "I told her she should be glad to have the stomach flu.  At least she'll loose a few pounds."


The fatty in question wore maybe a size 4.  On a good day.  Which allowed me to easily designate this mother as nutso and begin my avoidance.  Apparently, however, her daughter had the same idea, which complicated things a bit, thus forcing me to rely on the second essential skill of the teacher dealing with Crazies:  


Cooperative Relationship Skill Set #2:  Passing the Buck


The beauty of being a classroom teacher and not an administrator is that at some point, your crazy quota expires.


"Hey, Sra," Isabel greeted me after school one day.  


"Hey Isabel, how's it going?"


"Oh, alright."  she hung around my desk awkwardly.  Then my door banged open.  Isabel's mother barged in with a small boy of maybe four in tow.


"There you are you stupid little...Where the hell have you been?!"


"Um.  I told you I'd be at office hours today.  And it's earlier that you usually pick me up anyway..."  


Mom didn't hear.


" I've been calling you for an hour!  What do you think I have nothing better to do than chase you around all day? What the hell  were you thinking??  You are such a pathetic student! Don't pretend you care about your work becauseyourgradessuckAndyou'reaprettylousydaughtertoo!!"  the tongue lashing reached epic proportions before I could a) avoid the situation or b) indicate to Crazy Bitch that while she was busy ripping her perfectly sweet high school daughter a new one, her hellion of a son had already torn papers off my bulletin boards, knocked my dictionaries off the front table and was now making a move for the markers and a white wall, all the while shouting "mom, mom, mom, mom, MOM!"  


At that moment, the Dean of Students entered having, apparently, heard the ruckus.  He stared.


"Ma'am.  Is there a problem I can help you with?"  I asked in hopes of diffusing the situation, as my skill set of Avoidance was no longer an option.  


"And YOU!"  Crazy Mom turned on me.  "Didn't it occur to YOU that I might be looking for my daughter?  YOU should know..."


In the spirit of mutual respect and objectivity, I interrupted her.  "I generally hold office hours on Tuesdays after school.  It's perfectly normal for students to show up at this time."


"Yeah but not MY student.  If she showed up to actually work she wouldn't have the HORRIBLE GRADES SHE HAS AND YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT IF YOU WERE ANY KIND OF TEACHER!"


Hellion Boy threw a marker across the room.  Isabel cowered.


Years of teaching make one a master of subtlety.  I cocked my eyebrow ever-so-slightly, which my Dean (also a Master Teacher) immediately recognized as the international sign for "Get this Crazy Bitch out of here or I'm going to punch her in the face, then explain to her why she shouldn't be allowed to reproduce." 


"C'mon, Ms. X," he said calmly.  "Let's take this conversation in the hallway."  


Mission accomplished.  I was successfully able to 1)  objectively identify mom as a Looney 2)  treat said Looney with objectively undeserved respect 3)  Maintain future cooperative relations by effectively Passing the Buck before punching mom in face (the key here, truly, is the timing of the buck-passing) and, most importantly, 4) Maintain respectful and cooperative relations with Isabel who, as my student, is really the person I'm meant for in the first place.  


"Hey, Iz!" I told her the next day, "Good to see you!  I'm glad you've been working so hard in this class. I'm really proud of your B.  And you look so nice today.  You're such a pretty person, inside and out!"  


Take that, Crazy Bitch.  


Even if, in the end, you won.  


Because as any good teacher knows, Crazy is contagious.  So when, after being a perfectly normal freshman year, Isabel ended her high school career with an eating disorder, short skirts, stiletto heels and slipping grades I relied entirely upon Cooperative Relationship Skill Set # 3 in order to maintain my own personal sanity.


3.  Teacher will take no student or parent interactions personally realizing that, in some cases,  respect and objectivity will not change the world.


But in a few cases, it might.  


So let's see what you've got, Crazies.  Because I'll make a bet that I've got more faith in your kid than you've got Crazy in your head.  But in the interest of both of our personal welfare, I'm keeping my Dean on standby.


Just in case.

Budget Cuts

Dear American Public,

On behalf of your youth, I'm flipping you the bird.

You totally screwed over my peach kid.

Enjoying the last days of summer vacation, I went to the local farmers' market to grab some peaches.  By coincidence, I went with my father-in-law.  By coincidence, he's from South America.  So it was by coincidence that, in front of the peach stand, I happened to ask him in Spanish if had any cash on him so I could buy us some fruit fodder for a homemade dessert.

"Ooooh...you speak Spanish," said the boy working the stand with two adults, presumably his parents.  "I wish I spoke another language."

I eyeballed the kid and put him somewhere in middle school.  Probably around seventh grade.

"If you really want to, I'm sure you can!"   I told him.  "You've probably got it at your school, don't you?  I'll bet you'll get a good start, there."

"I used to take it," he said.  "But not anymore."

"They cancelled the program," his mother handed me my box of fruit.  "He took Spanish last year, but it's not being offered this year.  Budget cuts."

I raised my eyebrows.

"They cut Spanish?  That's usually the last language to go, since it tends to be so useful."

"It was the last language to go.  Our district has cut everything except core classes.  I'm actually a counselor at the school, and now they're looking at cutting counseling as well."

My mouth dropped open so far that I'm pretty sure I drooled a little.

"They want to cut counseling?"

Peach mom shrugged.  "We live in a retirement community.  Education is not their first priority.  The economy is bad, and schools struggle for money even when it's good.  In our town, everything has gone except the basics."

So, my dear American Public.  Let's do a little exercise called Making Learning Authentic.  It's fancy speak for when teachers apply what seem like abstract concepts to students' daily lives.  If you were in my classroom, I would have you writing this down and ask you to record your reactions, but since I can't hold you accountable from a blog post, I'm operating on the trust system.  Doesn't work very well with teenagers, but I'm sure that you, American Public, knowing the importance of education, would never cheat the system or, heaven forbid, look for shortcuts when it comes to learning.

Kindly answer yes or no to whether you have done any of the following activities in the past week:

1.  Listened to the radio, your ipod, or music of any sort
2.  Watched TV
3.  Gone out to eat
4.  Viewed any kind of artwork (anything on the walls of you home counts)
5.  Had your car, house, or electronics repaired
6.  Had your hair, nails or make-up done
7.  Gone to the movies, a play, concert, or any other type of public entertainment
8.  Worked out

Figured out where I'm going, yet?  If you haven't, I'd dare you to spend a week in my classroom, because you're going to have to learn to think a lot faster than that to make the grade.  If I still have a classroom, that is.  I teach Spanish.  I suppose I could be cut at anytime, as my subject area is apparently unnecessary.

For those of you who are still a little behind, let's make the connections.

Eliminate every single activity (and any related to it) from the above list.

You get up and get in your car to go to work in the morning.  No radio.  No news, no music.  To produce that, you would have to have folks who've taken communications classes.  Sorry - not core classes.  That also eliminates all of your TV watching, by the way.

At work, you can't go out to lunch.  Nor can you take your family out to dinner when you get home.  You can't cheat and order in, either.  That would require culinary know-how.  Food prep?  Not core.

You're going to have to take down all artwork and coordinating decorations in your house, as producing it required courses in art and interior design.  I should also probably tackle your wardrobe, since it includes an education in fashion, sewing and clothing.

All not core.

I could keep on, but I'd be beating a dead horse.  A useless task, as we all know, but then, if you haven't had your agriculture classes, maybe you didn't know...  Oops..Agriculture and farming.  Also not core.

There goes your food supply.

"You're exaggerating," you say to me.  "We're just talking about K-12 education.  All that professional stuff, that comes at the college level anyway.  No eleventh grader is going to design my clothing."

Yeah?  So what do the state universities do when they get their budgets cut?  Expand?  Offer more scholarships?  Produce more contributing members of society?

 You're not really thinking this one through, American Public.

And, by the way, you don't know my eleventh graders.  They could totally design your wardrobe.  And fix your car.  And make you a gourmet dinner.

If you'd just give them half a chance.

But no, let's just stick to the core basics.

And then let's take away their support network.

 Counselors?  A practical place to make budget cuts, since they're not in the classroom.  They only make sure that students' schedules are made to best fit their needs.  That whole meeting graduation requirements nonsense. (I'm sure the teachers have time to take over that responsibility.)  Oh, and they also run those pointless standardized tests.   (Kids could totally sign up to take the ACT elsewhere.)  Then there's the whole social/emotional messy stuff.  Kids running into their office crying.  Bully-prevention.  Suicide watch.  Mandated reporting of abuse and neglect.  Fru-fru.   Fancy frills. It's not education.  It's not teaching.  That's stuff parents should be doing at home, nothing to do with school.  I mean, really.  Who's ever heard of a kid's emotional problems affecting a classroom? Or a school?

Or an entire community?

Kids committing suicide because they're bullied?  Sensationalist press.  A load of crap.  A...
Oh...wait...
Here's to you, Eric Mohat  http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=7228335
And you, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover  http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc3=&id=89757
Phoebe Prince, Lance Lundsten and Tiffani Maxwell.
http://www.care2.com/causes/the-real-mean-girls-15-year-old-girl-commits-suicide-after-intense-bullying.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/18/lance-lundsten-tiffani-maxwell-suicide-bullying_n_810201.html

There's more.  But I don't have the space.

Still, I'm sure it would never happen to your kid, American Public.  That's probably a safe bet.  In fact, Public, you seem like the betting kind.  So tell me,

Would you bet your child's life on it?

You're a lucky bastard, American Public. Because you've got me.  And hundreds of teachers like me.   And I'll make damn sure that even if you screw all of us over, your kid gets what he needs.  What she deserves.

Too damn bad you can't say the same.

Get your head out of your ass, Public.  I don't care what political party you are from, or where your personal beliefs lie.

We all need education.

And we all need each other.

I can teach my kids to move in a foreign country, appreciate other cultures,  learn the subtleties of a new word in a strange tongue.  But who will teach them to draw a profile?  To play the violin, ice a cake or take a picture?

You can cut all the "extra" programs, American Public.  And yet still, if your kid comes to me and wants to learn how to repair a transmission, I'll find her a teacher.  If he comes to me crying, I'll drop everything and listen.  Lucky for you, American Public.

I have only one question:

What happens when you cut me?

Job Description - The Organized and Professional Classroom

(continued from previous entry.)

Perfectly timed with my resolution to rewrite the teacher job description, I received this comment from a new fan on the Singing Pigs Facebook page: (which you can find here...http://www.facebook.com/pages/Singing-Pigs/153134431420908.  Now go like me.  I'm a shy and insecure soul in need of constant affirmation and validation.  Thank you.)

My wife and I are currently reading your blog. Out loud. This will be my first year teaching. I am leaving a massively well paid job with interesting foreign locales....in the US Army. To teach 8th grade science. Yeah...I think having people want to kill me may be easier than this.

Once I finished laughing, I thought I had better set this new buddy of mine straight on a couple of things: 

1.  You are correct.

2.  People will still want to kill you.  Perhaps, oddly enough, more people.  Evil African dictators with tanks and generals?  Bunny rabbits, compared to the Stepford Wife mother with stiletto heels and a grudge.

So while you, friend, can probably survive harsh geographical regions with nothing more than a pocketknife, piece of twine and a tic-tac, the landscape of the classroom is a whole different obstacle course.  And that is why one should never accept a position without careful examination of the...

JOB DESCRIPTION

Job Title: Teacher

Reports to: Principal

Summary:  Forget all the other crap, we're just going to jump right into the nitty-gritty.

Duties and Responsibilities:

I. Responsible for conducting an organized and professional classroom.

Contrary to standard pedagogical theories, maintaining an organized and professional classroom requires a specific but infrequently mentioned skill set. 

     A.  Teacher will rate highly skilled in giving instructions. 

Think you've got that one down?  Alright, then.  Your students are working in small groups.  You need them to put the desks back in rows and go back to their normal seats.  Ready?  Go.

Did you say something along the lines of  "Students, I now need you to please put your desks back in rows, grab your things, and return to your normal seats?"  

Fail.

Complete Sample Job Description instructions for asking students to complete a task:

1.  Alight, kids, I'm going to need your attention in 5...4...3...2...1...

2.  I am going to give you a set of instructions.  

3.  Do not move until I complete the set of instructions.

4.  When I indicate you do so, you are going to pick up your things, put your desks in rows, and return to your normal seats.

5.  When I say "pick up your things, move your desks into rows, and return to your normal seats," this is no way involves any of the following actions:

• talking to your neighbor
• hitting your neighbor (even affectionately)
• otherwise touching or indicating the existence of your neighbor
• taking someone else's belongings
• touching someone else's belongings
• throwing objects
• using the movement as cover to bolt from the room.

6.  You have 10 seconds.

7.  Go.

And moving desks is a reasonably simple task...

     B.  Teacher will be highly skilled in applying above skills to new and unexpected situations.  Teacher will differentiate instructions as per appropriate age and/or maturity level.

Vomit.

Sorry, that wasn't a command.  I actually met a second grade teacher who rated in the "highly skilled" category for dealing with barf.  (Perhaps this is a standard sort of thing for second grade teachers.  I don't really know, as I make it my general duty to avoid that age group.  We frighten each other.)  Kids barf.  A lot.  So she had her first day of school speech down.

"Okay, guys," she would say.  "If you feel like you are going to be sick, the first thing you do is try and make it to the sink."  She would show kids where the little classroom hand-washing sink was located.  "If you think you're not going to make it to the sink, then the next thing you do is look for a trash can."  She would indicate the various trash cans scattered about the room.  "And, as a last resort, if you think you can't make it to a trash can, you cup your hands together like this..."

No, seriously.  She really said that.  Makes sense, if you think about it.  More chunks in the hands equals less chunks on the carpet.  But naaaaasty...

In the interest of differentiation, I have simplified my vomiting instructions for the high school level with the logic that a) they have more experience with vomiting and thus b) they have a more developed immune system.  Still, even at the higher levels, instructions need to remain concise and clear.  

"Alright, kids," I tell them sometime around the beginning of flu season. "I don't do barf.  So if you're feeling even the least bit ill, I don't want you to raise your hand.  Do not ask me to go to the bathroom, do not tell me you don't feel well.  Just hit the door running.  And take the trash can with you."

Done.

     C.  Teacher will clarify behavioral expectations of students and be transparent in consequences for failure to meet said expectations.

Understand that all of these skills build off of one another.  So I will use first floor teachers as the classic example.

If you teach on the first floor of your school (at least at the secondary level) children will be possessed by an inexplicable yet overwhelming desire to climb out of classroom windows.  Perhaps it is the innate biological longing for the African savannah that still lingers in all of us, but on more than one occasion I have seen a student go rogue and bolt through the just-barely-large-enough opening.  Obviously, this is not on the list of Acceptable Classroom Behaviors, but by making one's expectations clear and the consequences transparent, window-bolting (as so many unexpected classroom issues) can be easily resolved.

Take a colleague with whom I shared a room for a number of years.  In the middle of one of her German lessons, a student made for the window and headed for the hills.  Literally.  He went up the hill just outside of the classroom.  Being the master teacher that she is, my colleague went right out the window behind him. It's difficult to give clear instructions if the student is unable to hear you.

"Bobby!"  she bellowed.  "In 3 seconds, I am going to turn around and start running for the school doors.  If you aren't back in your seat before I walk back in that classroom door you are a DEAD MAN."  


Note, if you will, the teaching finesse.  She gave clear instructions (including an expected time limit,) accurately applied her instructions to a new and unexpected situation, while simultaneously making clear her expectations as well as the intended consequences for failure to perform.

Knowing the importance of follow-through, my colleague then turned and ran for the main double doors, booked down the Foreign Language hallway and busted into her room to find Bobby sitting attentively in his seat, having returned in the same manner he left.

Problem solved.


As a note, so far we've covered:   the Army.  Ralphing.  Instructions.  Second grade, windows, the African savannah, German class, threatening students' lives. 


Is that previous blog entry beginning to make a little more sense?

Still, teachers applying for employment must realize that Conducting an Organized and Professional Classroom is only one part of the job.  A successful teaching is much, much more.  Next up:  Developing a Cooperative Partnership with Parents and Students.  

Get excited.

Oh, and as for our new Army buddy - give him some props.  He left a dream job for barfy kids who go AWOL "...because of the Army.  I have spent the past few years trying to teach new soldiers medical laboratory science, and most of them were woefully ill equipped.  I figured I had better go to the source."

Now, really.  How cool is that?