Summer Fundraising

Yep, it's that time of year. Summer fundraising. I won't go into the list of things we are raising funds for. Carwashes are my least favorite, yet the girls seem to enjoy it. The supplies are usually donated to us and the school parking lot provides the place. The summer custodian hooks up the hose and there we go. But I have 2 big pet peeves when it comes to the cheerleader carwash:

[Talking to the girls:]

1) No skimpy bikinis. Absolutely not. If you wear one, I'll give you a t-shirt to put on over it. All of these girls are underage and we are a public high school. We're there to wash cars, not show skin.

2) Do a good job. If the public is paying good money to have their car/van/SUV/truck washed, then really do it. Don't just spray down the car and quickly soap it up and give it another quick rinse. (My first year doing this, we had customers come back later in the day demanding a rewash or their money back.)

So, after an 8-10 hour day, we might make $200-$300 depending. It's nice to know that the community will support these endeavors.

I'm glad we only do this once a year...

FYI: Trade Secrets

I'm not a golfer, but many of my colleages are. There's a group of men who openly admit that teaching is the only profession that allows them to golf 3 months a year and have two weeks around Christmas to go to Florida or Arizona to golf. These guys usually teach business, social studies or PE/health. They call each other "Coach" since many are coaches themselves: football, basketball, baseball, so on. These guys are also buddies with the principal and other administrators who make up the 'good ole boy network.' They can give their students worksheets and show videos (that's teaching?) and are often held to different standards and are exempt from certain protocols than the rest of the staff.

An anecdote:

When I was first hired into [Name] High School, we would have observations by our department heads, principals, district curriculum heads, and sometimes the superintendent himself. Since I taught more than one content area, I had 2 department heads, 2 principals, and 2 curriculum heads visit my class (guess I was 'okay' enough not to warrant the superintendent's visit). In my first year I had 6 different people observe my class and write reports to include in my yearly evaluation.

Fine, I had already taught for a few years in another state; I wasn't too worried.

In his first year, the baseball coach next door (a nice guy) was observed once, by the principal. At the end of the year I went to sign my evaluations and discuss my year's performance with the principal. He explained that he never gives 5's to people their first year (the scale was 1-5, "poor"-"excellent," for a number of evaluation criteria). I had all 4's, he was pleased and glad to have me on staff, blah, blah, blah, and my observation reports from the 6 other people were all positive. A few days later I was chatting with the baseball coach. He confided that the prinicipal gave him all 5's. I was stunned. This guy had one observation, and though the principal doesn't give anyone 5's their first year, this guy was all 5's. It bothered me for days.

I realized these coaches are largely off the hook. It's somehow more important to run solid sports programs than anything else. In both schools where I have worked, sports came first, then standardized test scores, then everyday academics. I coached as well, but somehow cheerleading was different.

In most schools the jocks are in the popular crowd. It's like that for teachers as well. Jock-coach teachers are often the most popular among popular students (because their classes are easy), among parents (cause they give out a bunch of As), among other staff (because they throw great parties and buy rounds of beer at the bar after games) and among administrators (because they make the school look good for sports). They are not popular with people like me who see problems with all of this.

I'm NOT saying all teachers who coach are slackers or 'good ole boys', but after teaching in two different high schools (in two different states), this has been my experience. Every school district and school is different and unique, but I bet it's the case elsewhere as well.

Unless it's a Waldorf School...

Summer Vacation

Well, it's been a while. The last few weeks of school are hectic. Even on the last day of school, it's not really the last day for staff. The students clean out their lockers entirely, and I usually roam the halls after they've cleared out picking up pen(cils)s, notebooks that can be recycled, winter gloves, etc...basically anything that I could use to pass on to students again in the fall. Otherwise, all that stuff ends up in the trash. We have recycling bins, but truthfully, I saw a custodian dumping the contents of the paper bin into the trash, so who knows where these things wind up? Nonetheless, I've now got a desk full of school supplies to give to students next year when they need to borrow a writing utensil or need paper.

There were still final exams to grade coupled with the straggler student who comes in with his crumpled 27 missing assignments and wants me to take them so he won't get an F...my policy is that late work is 1/2 credit and after a while, the kids realize 1/2 credit is better than zeros. Some would argue with me that I shouldn't accept late work at all, but we have students in our school who literally show up to class without a book, a pencil, etc...and when they finally at the end of the semester actually do these assignments, I think granting them something, albeit 1/2 credit, is well warranted. Many of these students also have IEPs, and if I didn't accommodate them somehow, I could be at fault and subject to a lawsuit if any parents were all that concerned. (But this issue is altogether another area of concern, something that will appear in a later entry.)

We also tend to have inservices and meetings after school is out, simply because there's not always the time for such during the school calendar, we so have a bunch of half-days, inservices (with lunch sometimes provided) and after all of that, getting my room squared away for summer maintenance, after a week or so from the last day of school, I'm finally home. BUT, there is still cheerleading stuff to do and regular practices have since begun and fundraising (ugh). I've made it a point a few years ago to take the month of July off, to give me a break and to allow for family vacations that otherwise would conflict with obligatory fundarising events, practices and of course, the dreaded cheerleading camp.

So what does the teacher do in the summer? As for me, I like to get caught up on my fiction and nonfiction reading, work in the yard, maybe paint a room in the house. I usually make a few trips to visit friends and family. I stay up late to try and sleep in, but the rigor of getting up so early for work, tends to stick. In summers past I've taken courses or workshops for continuing ed. credits, these kinds of things, but there are always aspects of the job that stay on my mind all summer long. Thinking about how to teach X differently next year. Wondering if that awful kid you failed will be in your class again, wondering if maybe class sizes will be a bit smaller, wondering if your principal will finally retire. One thing is for sure: teachers for the most part, get a fresh start every fall, which is a neat thing (in my opinion). I don't know too many people in other careers who can say that.

Kids or Young Adults?

I found this picture online from the 1940s. High school students. Are they really the same age as our high school kids now? Is it me, or, considering kids today, they a) have prolonged adolescence phases (maybe going into someone's 20s and beyond) and b) mature sexually way too fast. The joke in the teacher's lunch room is that our students are having a lot more sex than we are. Some girls in the high school are now into other girls; basically, they've done everything else, so this is "the next thing" to try.

So we have sexually mature teens who cannot write complete sentences and cannot find the nation of Turkey on a world map. I often think of my grandfather, born in 1917. He only finished the 8th grade, it was the Depression, he went into the CCC and then straight to the army, was in the Pacific during WWII and worked in a machine shop after the war until he retired. For someone who only finished the 8th grade, he seemed to do alright in his day, given the nature of how the US economy was largely based at that time, manufacturing. Even with a one-room schoolhouse, 8th grade education, he could read and write better than a good number of my students today. That generation was unique, as every generation is. But they had to grow up a lot quicker than the rest of us and they most likely married the first person they slept with (can we imagine that?) And then I look out at our kids, could these kids today do what our granparents were doing at 14, 16, or 18? I really don't know. And then of course, tomorrow is Memorial Day, a national holiday, another day off of school. I wonder how many of our students think to acknowledge the significance of Memorial Day, or even know what it really is.

Counting Down The Days...

The last month of the school year is ...X. You can call it what you want. I have mixed feelings of course. Here are just a handful of events going on: the spring musical, honors night, county and state track meets, choir concerts, pizza parties, band concerts, cheerleading tryouts, dance team tryouts, pizza parties (oh, did I already mention that? Well, there are certainly more than one), ice-cream social, open house for middle schoolers, class and club picnics, field trips to amusement parks, day-camps, prom, senior all-night party, graduation. One would think that with graduation, events are over, but not necessarily if seniors graduate before the official last day of school. I hate to admit it, but at this point in the school year, VERY LITTLE learning is actually taking place. Besides the many events, teachers and students alike are burned-out. Students are working on "projects" whatever those may be at this point, something to keep them occupied and appeased. Sticking to a regular schedule is impossible with all of the assemblies, events--not to mention the number of students out each day for field trips and sporting events. Thus all of the empty desks.

Notes from Lunch Duty: Part One

Lunch duty is my least favorite duty (although I'd rather do lunch duty than gym duty for 30 minutes before school starts). My station is near the restrooms in the cafeteria. Another staff member is there (the baseball coach) so at least one of us needs to be near the restrooms at all times. We chat, or take turns "standing guard". Otherwise I walk around and talk to students. And I ALWAYS take note of what the students are eating. It's not good. There are a couple of boys whose lunch everyday consists of 2 orders of french fries, a jumbo Snickers bar and 2 Mt. Dews (one for lunch, one to drink on their way to class!).

I tease them a bit. "Where's your green vegetables? That's not a lunch! What would your grandma say if she saw you eating that?" Or, "I'll give you $5 if you eat a lunch I bring you tomorrow!, How about $10?"

They just laugh at me, but part of me is not kidding. I wonder if thier parents know? The worst part? After eating all that junk, these kids are supposed to go to class and learn...

Cardinal rule of thumb: the class you teach immediately after lunch will be your worst class of the day. Most definitely! There's nothing like a bunch of 15-16 year olds after they've had two plates of french fries, a jumbo Snickers and two Mt. Dews...

Schools, Security and Campus Community

Given the recent shootings at Virginia Tech, we are again confronted with the reality of such incidents. I was in my second year of teaching when Columbine occurred and that was indeed a frightening wake-up call for large suburban schools with "cliquey" student bodies. The high school where I worked at the time was about 1760+ students and growing. There were over 120 adult staff members. Prior to Columbine we had parking lot attendants and hall monitors on walkie-talkies with the assistant principal (for discipline) and after Columbine, all doors to the outside would be locked except for the very front entrance with with a security station. Students could not carry around backpacks or large purses, they could not wear jackets or coats to class. It took three years for the security staff to recognize me as a staff member and there were other teachers whom I barely said hello to in three years. My point is that when our schools get to be so large, we really lose a sense of community; students and staff alike unfortunately do not get the opportunity to become acquainted and develop (respectful) relationships. A friend of mine grew up in a small community in the upper midwest where his graduating class was only a couple dozen students. And that's small, most definitely. But he speaks very highly of his school system that had "a rural school complex" which, according to him, was why his school compensated students with huge tech grants (plenty of computers around), distance learning opportunities for AP courses and Latin, and many specific programs catered to the interests of the students. I think back to my high school graduation (367 students) and I remember kids walking across the stage and whispering to my neighbor, "who's that?". Even for someone like me who was on the yearbook staff, I still didn't recognize names and faces of students in my graduating class. It's too bad in a way. I also attended a Big 10 university and certainly had an excellent educational experience, but aside from a roomate and one other person, I have no contacts with any of the people I went to college with, while friends of mine who went to rather small schools get their alumni newsletter and know just about everyone featured in it from the time they attended. Again, it goes back to the idea of community and as I've gotten older and realized more and more how valuable community is, I wish that perhaps I had entertained the idea of going to a small college, even one without a recognizable name, if anything, to be a part of such a community later on in life. And of course when I got out of college, I quickly realized employers could care less as to where I went to school, but rather could I do the job and do it well and a Bachelor's diploma from a big university may not matter all that much, although some would disagree with me (I have a friend in business/banking and for him, it's all about the institution and diploma). At any rate, I think many out there would agree that community is important and that we need to value community on a number of levels. When I look at schools' mission statements using such language as "all students" or "all learners", I have to point out that when you have a school that is large, you cannot use "all" in a mission statement: it is false advertising. In large schools, we simply cannot accomodate "all" students, yet our schools claim that they do. With smaller schools, at least we could better attempt to accomodate "all" students and that goes for smaller classrooms as well, but that's a whole other issue I won't indulge in at the moment...

Confessions from a Cheer Coach: Part One

Disclaimer: it was never my career aspiration to become a cheerleading coach. Simply put, I was hired upon the contingency that I would “take over the cheerleading program and clean it up”; basically, the subtext was: if you want this job, you need to take on cheerleading, at least for a little while. So, okay, I’ll do [name] High School a favor. When I was in high school in the early 1990s, the cheerleading coaches were either someone’s mom or a rather recent alumnus from the high school. Most schools nowadays prefer a school district employee to coach, for it reduces liabilities (as a teacher you are insured by the school district and most often have a union safety net as well, such as a million dollar liability policy in case some crazy parent wants to sue you).

The athletic director, a 6’6 former tech teacher would shake his head, grin and say: “I know, every coach should be able to pick their own team. But cheerleading’s different.” It’s different, I tell you, because it’s somehow political. Why? Because of catty teenage girls and their mothers. Being a classroom teacher and if one of my students were to try out, I could be biased one way or another. I could play favorites (what coach out there doesn’t play favorites?). I could do a number of things. Well, in fact I do.

Getting Judges

I doubt people on the outside realize how difficult it is to ask judges to come in on their own time (unpaid) for several hours on a Thursday evening or a Saturday morning and listen to the school song, a sideline chant and a half-time cheer at least 80-100 times. Finding judges who do not know the girls trying out in the first place can be difficult if you are new to the area. One way is contact other coaches in the area and most coaches rely on other coaches to help out and vice versa. As you begin to meet other coaches at games, camps, workshops, etc… this process gets easier and coaches will even team up and coordinate their tryouts so there are no conflicting dates. If there is a college or university in the area, you can contact the cheer programs and ask if any of the college cheerleaders would like to judge. Each year I usually get at least one judge this way. Cheerleader alumni who are at least 5 years removed from the school could possibly serve as judges, but if they have younger siblings trying out, that’s a no go. It’s wise to have AT LEAST 3 judges (preferably 4-5 judges seem to be a good number to balance things out). I usually have another teacher or staff member friend come in to be my tabulator, that way if there are disputes over scores, I have someone to vouch for me. [*Note: as a cheerleading coach, no one trusts you; you are always a suspect, but that’s another entry.] But what happens when you can’t get enough judges or when (this happened to me one year!) all but one judge canceled due to pre-term labor, food poisoning and a death in the family. So what do you do at the last minute?

1. If you have any gay male friends, call them and they will call their friends. My best judge of all time was a drag queen whose mother used to coach cheerleading.

2. Ask a neighbor on the block who doesn’t have any kids at the high school. Even if she has no experience with cheerleading, the score sheets are explicit enough as to what to look for.

3. Ask your mom, aunt, cousin, friend, anybody—as long as they have no ties to the school and such that students do not know they are in anyway related to you, because again, you could turn your mom against some girl trying out.

So once you have the judges, you go shopping. If your judges are sitting there for several hours, you have to provide snacks and not just pretzels and diet coke. Good stuff, no need to go in further detail. Hopefully, the Athletic Department will kindly reimburse you for the $60-$100 you end up spending on tryouts, but that’s not always the case.

Judging

Every coach may do things differently, but one thing is for sure: most coaches, if not all, “influence” judging in a number of ways. I once judged at another school in the district where the coach (sitting at the end of the table) instructed all of us to note her signal: if she held her pencil with the eraser side down, tapping it lightly, this meant: “Score this girl lower”. For whatever reasons, I’m sure they were valid, so we didn’t ask questions. Here are some others things said or done at tryouts to influence judging:

“This next girl coming in was suspended twice this year for fighting.” (=This girl has disciplinary issues and I don’t need her).

“The next girl is from the [name] family and they are known for donating funds to their kids’ activities and we need new uniforms this year.” (=This girl may not be cut out for the squad, but we need the money.)

“If you see any belly rings, give her zeros for appearance and attitude!” (=This girl clearly doesn’t follow directions where on the tryout information it explicitly states: NO visible body piercings of any kind, except for single-stud earrings.)

“This girl was caught giving her boyfriend a blowjob up in the bleachers before school.” (=I can’t deal with sluts on the team; it’s bad PR for the program.)

Or, more direct: “I do not want this girl. She’s a bitch and her mother is even worse.”

There are more, but these are the ones that stick out most in my recent memory. Judges also like to judge similarly to each other; it’s not unusual to see judges peek at their neighbor while scoring. No one wants to be known as the one who scores the lowest or the highest. I also encourage judges to write comments as well in case of a tie for a spot or if a girl is borderline between JV and Varsity, sometimes comments can help make that distinction. Some judges are positive with comments, others can be vicious, really. I don’t always know the judges that show up at my tryouts and I’ve seen terrible comments such as, “fat ass” or “looks like a dyke” or “has no body” and usually these comments have nothing to do with a girl’s talent whatsoever, but rather appearance. I tell the girls at tryouts, that appearance and attitude are the easiest 10 points: if your hair is off your face, you have no nail polish or jewelry, your shoes/socks are clean and your make-up isn’t obnoxious and you SMILE, there is no reason for anyone not to earn the full points for those categories. Judges who make unnecessary cruel comments, I know not to ask them back next year.

FYI: State Standardized Tests & NCLB

Here are a few observations I've noted about state standardized testing:

Most states prior to NCLB had standardized tests to measure "school success". Sadly, many schools will spend the first 6 weeks in the fall PREPARING for such tests (usually grades 3,6,8,10 depending on the state). Kids are "prepared" by using classical BF Skinner bevahiorist methods and really, a) the kids usually don't learn a whole lot of content anyway, but rather HOW to take a test and give it their best "guess" and b) many kids simply don't care. After spending 6 weeks preparing for a test, they hate and resent the basic idea of the test itself (of course the kids whose parents said, "I'll give you $$ for doing well on the [name] test" will put forth their best effort). I've proctored such tests at the high school level in the last several years and have witnessed a good number of students simply pencil in fancy designs onto the bubble sheet without even opening the test booklet. Others will mark in a few answers randomly and then put their heads down to sleep or listen to their iPods. We need to think critically and carefully about all of this. Making teachers go to school longer isn't going to make a difference. Spending millions of taxpayer funds on testing will not help either. Teaching to the test isn't going to make a difference. I fear deep down that many kids, especially at the high school level, know that the system is not working for them, so why should they comply and make an effort? To quote a former student, when I asked him why he slept through the [name] test, his answer was: "Shit, what's that test got to do with me anyway?"

NCLB

(Taken from Wikipedia:)
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Public Law 107-110), commonly known as NCLB, is a United States federal law signed on January 8, 2002 that reauthorizes a number of federal programs aiming to improve the performance of U.S. primary and secondary schools by increasing the standards of accountability for states, school districts and schools, as well as providing parents more flexibility in choosing which schools their children will attend. Additionally, it promotes an increased focus on reading and re-authorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). NCLB is the latest federal legislation (another was Goals 2000) which enacts the theories of standards-based education reform, formerly known as outcome-based education which is based on the belief that high expectations and setting of goals will result in success for all students. The act also requires that the schools distribute the name, home phone number and address of every student enrolled to military recruiters.
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The last statement seriously bothers me: what in the world does NCLB have to do with military recruitment? Maybe because Bush knew all along that he would wage a war in the Middle East that will last for decades. Any thoughts?

Welcome to Lunch Duty and Other Tales

It is my hope that teachers all over the United States will comment and share their stories with me. We are unfortunately living in a time where our educational system is indeed under fire on a number of levels and fronts. Things I have to say are not always pretty or positive, but my wish is to "tell it like it is" and to let others out there know what kinds of things go on behind the scenes--things taxpayers, parents and legislators alike should know.

--Aimee