In the Lou

On the last day of school, as we were waving goodbye to the kids, I thought about how it seemed anti-climactic. I didn’t have expectations for things to be different, it’s just that they got on the buses and were gone. That was it. The year was over. Done. No frills or brass-band.

Teaching ninth graders, so much of my energy was spent on trying to invest them in themselves on a path toward college. (more…)

Alright, this week, it will be amazingly short compared to my chapter book published last week.

This week we got our classrooms. I teach on a team of four people. I’m teaching algebra and such. The only problem is that I’m not getting much teaching done because my kids are having a really hard time behaving right after lunch. Yes, I know, lucky me with the post-lunch crowd.

Things have been going frustratingly slow because I spend much of the little class time we have (they have been getting back from lunch late because they won’t be silent to be dismissed from the cafeteria) doing discipline. By Friday, I was already a full lesson behind on our schedule, none of them had learned anything, and basically, I had decided the end of the nonsense had to come.

When my students came into the class, they were supposed to start working on the “Do Now.” Although we have gone over my expectations, I have a sign on the door that they can’t help but see that reminds them “Do Now = Do it Now Silently.” After asking them twice to work silently with no success, I warned that we would go back out into the hall and start class again once everyone was silent. Well, we had to go out to the hall. Twice. In total, I spent 28 minutes of our 45 minute block with my students in the hall — waiting for them to realize I was serious about them coming into class and getting to work.

The final 17 minutes of class went beautifully. We went over the do now (the “trouble maker” even volunteered to write the answer on the board — with the correct answer I might add), the previous day’s quiz, and a new lesson! Of course, their mastery of the new objective was not what I would have wanted, but I can weave in some remediation over the next several days in a related objective.

Here’s to hoping they remember my expectations tomorrow and come in silently.

What is this? I’m reposting my emails (exactly to the day) sent to family and friends during my summer 2006 Institute experience in Atlanta. TeachFor.Us didn’t exist at the time — hence the title. For some of you, this will be a trip down memory lane. For my hundreds of current readers, I hope you find these emails interesting. I feel they are an important part of the Teach for America experience that would otherwise be absent from my blog. Without further ado…

First, let me apologize for the method of delivery. I know that receiving a “mass email” is somewhat impersonal, but I’ll only send out one of these. My reasoning is that I have, for the most part, been remiss in getting in touch with most of you personally to let you know what I’ve been doing, what I’m doing, where I’m going, etc.

The Sparks Notes edition:
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Thursday afternoon, I received an unexpected letter in the mail. I received my placement letter for next year confirming that I would return to my original middle school.

It’s not the assignment that was unexpected. What’s unexpected is that St. Louis Public Schools is organized enough to get the placements finalized within a month of our transfer requests.

Hopefully this is indicative of some larger systemic changes that are happening under the leadership of Superintendent Diana Bourisaw.