Updater

Wow... its been forever since I’ve written. I planned on writing a number of updates since I finished Summer School. Obviously that didn’t happen... when mid-August hit, my life as I knew it ended (until November/December.) Football owns my body and soul.

Now don’t get me wrong... I am loving coaching football. These kids are great and I am so proud of them.

See, last year, our team was in a sort of “scrub” division. We played the cupcakes and in a sense we too were cupcakes. A new coach took over (I’m the assistant) and turned the program around. Since last year we have a new head coach and we are now in the higher division. And to top that off, we are now 6 and 1. Last year we were 7 and 3 in the cupcake division! To be in the harder division and to have such a good record is unbelievable and you can see why I am so proud to be a part of this team.

The weird thing is that if you spend 10 minutes with these kids, all of a sudden you want to contribute to their success. Poor ghetto kids from the Bronx, etc. etc. etc.

Not to mention, people see the change in our school. The spirit of the school in general is on the rise. We had a homecoming game in late September. At the game was the band, the JROTC... and for the first time, cheerleaders... Not to mention, we had record attendance. The official from the School Athletic League, who stopped by for the game was so impressed, the notion of resurfacing our field was casually thrown out by said official. Nothing set in stone, but it was mentioned.

The other good thing that I am very proud of is we got our concession stand up and running. These are things you say, “Every high school football game should have a concession stand.” Again, this is my school we’re talking about and we are trying to make it as much of a “regular” school as we can.



I FRIGGING LOVE THIS PHOTO. The grace of our boys is just amazing. The astounding thing is that a good number of them have never played football in their lives. They come to my school, decide they want to play more than just street ball (of course they all want to be wide receivers... all want to be superstars... even the big boys) and when we start whipping them into shape, it's unbelievable what we find underneath. I hate to sound cliché, but we find they are truly diamonds in the rough.


SUMMER SCHOOL

Man summer school sucked. If you think going to summer school sucks, try teaching it. Every day is like the first day. Two classes which were TWO AND A HALF HOURS EACH! I had, at any given time, like 70 kids on my roster. My room holds 34. When you say, “You know, there are 70 kids on my roster...” You are met with, “Do they all show up?” No, but FORTY at a time would. It was madness. I had a kid show up for the first time to my class the LAST DAY OF SUMMER SCHOOL. What was he thinking? Why bother?

The reason I taught summer school? The money. It was 3 weeks of work, and a tidy sum. Except I had to wait til late August for the money. And it was devastated by taxes.

In essence it was blood-money. I totally whored myself out, so now my curiosity about what it’s like to be a whore has been satiated. With one exception... at least whores get paid up-front.

PARENT TEACHER NIGHT

Again, I’m writing this from my desk at Parent Teacher Night. Not many parents tonight, three so far, and of course, all good kids. What do you say to these parents? Well, you have a great kid... glad to have him/her in class. I always start off fooling around telling them how horrible their kid is in class. They know I’m kidding of course, the 90+ on their kid’s report card says otherwise.

I just finished speaking to a parent and this is one that stings. In my 10th grade English class, and you know my opinion on 10th graders... not human... and one kid who I genuinely like, he got a 65 in my class because he can act like a jackass. And this kid’s poor dad is just lost. It’s one thing when you have parents who just do not care, but when you have a parent who DOES care, it’s very sad.

This year I’m not only teaching English... I’m also teaching 3 media classes. That is what I love. Teaching the kids to edit digital video on the super-duper Macs we have in our recently renovated TV studio. It’s a great class because the kids want to be there. I don’t think I’ve ever had that before.

Trouble in the DOE

There was a recent item in the New York Times...

---

August 1, 2007

On Education

A Teacher Grows Disillusioned After a ‘Fail’ Becomes a ‘Pass’

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

Several weeks into his first year of teaching math at the High School of Arts and Technology in Manhattan, Austin Lampros received a copy of the school’s grading policy. He took particular note of the stipulation that a student who attended class even once during a semester, who did absolutely nothing else, was to be given 45 points on the 100-point scale, just 20 short of a passing mark.

Mr. Lampros’s introduction to the high school’s academic standards proved a fitting preamble to a disastrous year. It reached its low point in late June, when Arts and Technology’s principal, Anne Geiger, overruled Mr. Lampros and passed a senior whom he had failed in a required math course.

That student, Indira Fernandez, had missed dozens of class sessions and failed to turn in numerous homework assignments, according to Mr. Lampros’s meticulous records, which he provided to The New York Times. She had not even shown up to take the final exam. She did, however, attend the senior prom.

Through the intercession of Ms. Geiger, Miss Fernandez was permitted to retake the final after receiving two days of personal tutoring from another math teacher. Even though her score of 66 still left her with a failing grade for the course as a whole by Mr. Lampros’s calculations, Ms. Geiger gave the student a passing mark, which allowed her to graduate.

Ms. Geiger declined to be interviewed for this column and said that federal law forbade her to speak about a specific student’s performance. But in a written reply to questions, she characterized her actions as part of a “standard procedure” of “encouraging teachers to support students’ efforts to achieve academic success.”

The issue here is not a violation of rules or regulations. Ms. Geiger acted within the bounds of the teachers’ union’s contract with the city, by providing written notice to Mr. Lampros of her decision.

No, the issue is more what this episode may say about the Department of Education’s vaunted increase in graduation rates. It is possible, of course, that the confrontation over Miss Fernandez was an aberration. It is possible, too, that Mr. Lampros is the rare teacher willing to speak on the record about the pressures from administrators to pass marginal students, pressures that countless colleagues throughout the city privately grumble about but ultimately cave in to, fearful of losing their jobs if they object.

Mr. Lampros has resigned and returned to his home state, Michigan. The principal and officials in the Department of Education say that he missed 24 school days during the last year for illness and personal reasons. He missed two of the three sets of parent-teacher conferences. He also had conflicts with an assistant principal, Antonio Arocho, over teaching styles. Mr. Lampros said all of this was true.

Still, Mr. Lampros received a satisfactory rating five of the six times administrators formally observed him. He has master’s degrees in both statistics and math education and has won awards for his teaching at the college level.

“It’s almost as if you stick to your morals and your ethics, you’ll end up without a job,” Mr. Lampros said in an interview. “I don’t think every school is like that. But in my case, it was.”

The written record, in the form of the minutely detailed charts Mr. Lampros maintained to determine student grades, supports his account. Colleagues of his from the school — a counselor, a programmer, several fellow teachers — corroborated key elements of his version of events. They also describe a principal worried that the 2006 graduation rate of 72.5 percent would fall closer to 50 or 60 percent unless teachers came up with ways to pass more students.

After having failed to graduate with her class in June 2006, Miss Fernandez, who, through her mother, declined to be interviewed, returned to Arts and Technology last September for a fifth year. She was enrolled in Mr. Lampros’s class in intermediate algebra. Absent for more than two-thirds of the days, she failed, and that grade was left intact by administrators.

When second semester began, Miss Fernandez again took the intermediate algebra class, which fulfilled one of her graduation requirements. According to Mr. Lampros’s records, she missed one-third of the classes, arrived late for 20 sessions, turned in half the required homework assignments, failed 11 of 14 tests and quizzes, and never took the final exam.

Two days after the June 12 final, Miss Fernandez told Mr. Lampros that she had a doctor’s note excusing her from school on the day of the exam, he said. On June 18, she asked him if she had failed the class, and he told her she had. The next day, the principal summoned Mr. Lampros to a meeting with Miss Fernandez and her mother. He was ordered, he said, to let her retake the final.

Mr. Arocho, the assistant principal, wrote in a letter to Mr. Lampros that Miss Fernandez had a doctor’s note, issued March 15, permitting her to miss school whenever necessary in the spring. Mr. Arocho did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment.

There is such a note, issued by Dr. Jason Faller, but it excused absences “over the last three months” — that is, the period between mid-December and mid-March. In a recent interview, Dr. Faller said he saw Miss Fernandez only once, in March, and confirmed that his excuse note covered absences only before March 15.

For whatever reason, school administrators misinterpreted the note and told Mr. Lampros that Miss Fernandez would be allowed to retake the final — and to retake it after having two days of one-on-one tutoring by another math teacher, an advantage none of Mr. Lampros’s other students had, he said.

Mr. Lampros, disgusted, did not come to school the next two days. Miss Fernandez meanwhile took the test and scored a 66, which still left her far short of a 65 average for the semester. Nonetheless, Mr. Arocho tried to enter a passing mark for her. When he had to relent after objections by the teachers’ union representative, Mr. Lampros was allowed to put in the failing grade. Ms. Geiger promptly reversed it.

Samantha Fernandez, Indira’s mother, spoke on her behalf. “My daughter earned everything she got,” she said. Of Mr. Lampros, she said, “He needs to grow up and be a man.”

From Michigan, Mr. Lampros recalled one comment that Mrs. Fernandez made during their meeting about why it was important for Indira to graduate. She couldn’t afford to pay for her to attend another senior prom in another senior year.

The New York Times education section is always one that I keep bookmarked. They always seem to have something tasty about the lives of our public schools.

This is typical. Now I'm not saying that it ever happened to ME. It sucks that the teacher missed 24 days... and they are painting him as kind of a trouble maker... so it doesn't look that good for him. But if he had his "principles," then I'm sure he had run-ins with the higher-ups... and I'm sure he was miserable.

Just something horrible going on in the Department of Education.

Third Year Down

I’ve just finished my third year of teaching in New York City. Actually, I just finished teaching my first real summer school as well, but I’ll leave that for a later post.

So what do I feel after my third year? Well, the weird thing for me, this past year, I did more running around, was busier and was more stressed than my first two years without question. I thought as the years went on, in teaching, it was all supposed to get easier. That didn’t seem to be the case. I remember during my first year, I seemed to have so much free time. This year, any free period I had, I was running around like a nut.

This year, my schedule changed mid-year. Not a bad thing, I lost a good class but got another good class. My “lunch” period was taken away, so I now had lunch at like 10:00. This allowed me to get to know a teacher I wouldn’t normally have gotten to know as well – so that was good.

The main thing, I am worried about this younger crop of kids. I had sophomores last year, and they were rough. I thought it was a bad crop and moved on. Then I had THIS year’s kids. They made me long for last year’s.

I know what people will say, I know the standard response… but honestly so many times I feel like it is a losing battle. That these kids really, REALLY don’t care. Again though, these are sophomores, and they go through that magic transition from sophomore to junior year where they become human and as a result… bearable.

But is it too late? They have messed up for two years and now decide to get on track… when they do, I can’t believe they don’t feel totally overwhelmed by having to essentially make up for two years of jerking around.

One saving grace though… football.

Last year I was the assistant JV football coach and my God was it time consuming. I basically had no days off from September to the end of November. And it was a great season. Our JV won our division… and I couldn’t have been more proud. In a climate where everyone wants to be the stand out… the “superstar,” these kids pulled together as a team, and kicked ass. We lost one game last season… our first. They did not like the taste of losing. We won every single game after that – seven in a row.

This year, things are going to be a little different. First off, I am now the assistant VARSITY coach. My head coach was “promoted” to varsity, and he took me with him. The other thing that is going to be different (I hope) is that we are trying to make a PROGRAM at the school.

One of the major complaints is that my school has ZERO school spirit. Unfortunately, I agree with that sentiment. In every school I’ve been to, every school I’ve worked at, school spirit resides with how well your teams do. Hopefully with this new regime, our team will be more than just OK, and as a result, school spirit will increase.

It was embarrassing to see that more people would attend our JV games than would attend the varsity games. That isn’t saying much, either, we didn’t have stellar attendance, but your varsity is the main event. That’s where the people should be. Part of my job is to get butts in the stands. I am also recruiting every member of my family to work.

The last JV game last year, I had my mom and sister selling shirts, another sister taping the game, the Mrs. was shooting photos. This year, I plan on more of the same... including nephews and cousins - taking stats, being water boy, holding flags if necessary. It's going to be a family event.

Just a taste:

















So what did I learn this last year?

1) Be more prepared for the day. Free periods should be free.
2) Be a jackass early on. If you are nice at first, they take that as softness and from there it is an uphill battle.
3) Get parents involved more. When momma or papi knows that their kiddy is being rude or skipping or whatever, things do change.

I’m sure there are other things, but I haven’t had coffee yet and I wanted to update since I haven’t in forever.

Things to come in the next few days:

Summer School – Crappier than it Sounds

Students Using their Crappy Lives to Their Advantage

I Can’t Believe this Crappy Summer is Over Already

Graduation

So I graduated from Grad school. Yippee. It was both hard and not so hard at the same time, if that makes any kind of sense.

The school I went to was good, I had a good time, and for the most part, my professors were pretty decent, save for one who shall remain nameless.

When I was in high school, going to a SUNY (State University of New York) school was sort of looked down upon. If you were going to SUNY New Paltz, it was only because you couldn’t go anywhere else. You might have been going to a local SUNY school, but at least you weren’t a loser who was going to Orange County Community College... (which is actually where I went.)

Since a million years ago, when I graduated, things have changed. Used to be SUNY New Paltz would accept damn near anyone. Not anymore. In fact, a cousin of mine who I think is terribly smart, was NOT ACCEPTED to New Paltz. It’s just that selective now.
When I joined the Fellow’s program and moved back from Maine to New York, incoming Fellows were informed that we had two possible options for Grad school. Lehman College or Fordham. Of course I kept my fingers crossed for Fordham. Growing up in the Bronx, Fordham University might as well have been Harvard.

Of course I got Lehman, which is not even part of the SUNY system, its part of the CUNY system, which is the CITY University of New York. No big deal, if I wasn’t in the program, I wouldn’t be going to Grad school at all, so I didn’t mind going to Lehman.

But this was par for my course, all three colleges I went to, Orange County Community College (OCCC,) University of Southern Maine (USM) and Lehman College were all basically “we’ll take anybody” schools. I have nothing bad to say about any of these schools, but let’s be honest, Lehman College is not Fordham University.

Nowhere was this more obvious than at graduation.

A few years ago I went to the graduation at The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. The speakers talked about hope and success and all that they are going to accomplish in the future.

As you can imagine, the Lehman College graduation was QUITE different.

Lehman’s graduation was filled with accomplishments the graduates have already DONE - namely graduating college. These graduates had to claw and scrape and fight to graduate from college. A stark contrast to the themes at Holy Cross.

And I’m happier being with the Lehman grads. It was a struggle, and we were celebrating out there on the field, probably louder than our Holy Cross counterparts. But can you blame us?

It Stings

In my previous life I was a reporter/photographer for a small weekly newspaper. Mostly we covered schools – the philosophy being, the parents would buy 40 copies of the paper to give to grammy, grampy, Uncle Ned, Aunt Florence, etc. when junior was in it. As a result, I photographed a lot of science fairs.

This one time I was at a school photographing kids doing something, I forget what exactly. When I was at these events, I would shoot, shoot, shoot, and then bounce. You got paid a flat rate, and whether you spent an hour there or 10 minutes didn’t matter. Your time was yours. So you got there, you got your pictures and you got the hell out.

The thing I do remember about this event, however – and as I said, I was taking just random, candid photos – is when I was about to snap off a picture, the teacher present at this event, told me to wait on one picture, and she shoved a young black boy into my shot. I was seriously offended on several levels. First off, I was simply taking random shots – and this teacher’s “white guilt” led her to ruin a candid moment for her sense of “diversity.” It’s not like I was AVOIDING taking pictures of black kids…

So I told my kids this story… showing them how guilty white people (SOME white people) feel, etc.

At the end of class, one of my students came up to me and said, “Mister… aren’t you doing the same thing?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re a white teacher teaching at a black school… aren’t you ‘doing your time?’”

“Well I did grow up here in the Bronx… I did grow up really close to here, so I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. Are you asking if I am feeling guilty about something?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well at the very least you are questioning my motives, aren’t you?”

“I’m just asking WHY you are doing it.”

OUCH!

This has kind of bothered me since yesterday. First off, I don’t feel that I am “doing” any time. I am not treating my kids any differently than I would treat any kids anywhere. Second, I was really surprised at the sort of accusatory tone of this student.

Then I got to thinking, if I am doing my best to get them to question anything and everything, should I be surprised that turned that questioning on me?

Either way, it really stung me, partly because I was sort of offended at the question, and partly because in a way, maybe she’s right?

I didn’t want to tell her that the NYC Teaching Fellows puts inexperienced teachers in their classrooms. I didn’t want to tell her that I could be making a lot more money in the suburbs - but the administration is on your back constantly. I didn’t want to tell her that there is a reason teachers stay in this school for on average 3-4 years and then bounce. (Some only stay two years – BARELY.) I didn't want to tell her there are times that I feel like I am not wanted here - and those times are growing more frequent. I didn't want to tell her that sometimes I hate working here and consider packing it in and seeking employment elsewhere.

It’s all well and good when students question others, but man does it smart when they turn that questioning on you.

Make a big stink over a big stink?

I am troubled somewhat by something that happened inside and outside of my classroom the other day. Especially in light of what happened down in Virginia.

Someone asked whether my school has "a plan of action." Yes, we do. There is ONE entrance into the building for students and each student and his or her bag, purse, etc is searched, x-rayed and wanded down. That's the plan of action.

Last week, one of my students, a girl, S., was walking out of my room with her bag covered up. Definitely suspicious, but I wasn't worried - vis-à-vis my schools said plan of action.

Once the mob of sophomores left my room I heard a pop and then I heard yells and ultimately it hit me… the stench. She had popped a stink bomb.
















Now… on the one hand, this is just normal, teen-age mischief. I mean, in my juvenile mind, that kind of stuff is hilarious.

But its 2007. While I am not necessarily afraid of my kids, there are going to be people out there who are. ESPECIALLY considering what happened down in Virginia. People are very jumpy and they don't take kindly to the usual crap kids do anymore. If a kid even gives off a WHIFF of something which is similar to anything terrible that has happened.

(For example -

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=18437

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2007/04/maxs_mouth.php

I understand this is this kid's M.O. to drop these little verbal grenades and then watch the mayhem, but it proves how little tolerance school administration has these days.)

My concern is not necessarily for the "safety" of our building, although obviously I care about that since I work there.

My concern is for kids who spout DUMB ASS comments and then get hustled into the system as a result of their juvenile stupidity. Kids do DUMB ASS things, but now, as a result of the nation's tension, a kid breaking a stink bomb could possibly - and RIGHTFULLY SO - be viewed as a terrorist!

You say, how can a kid popping a stink bomb be viewed as a terrorist? Let's say that one person panics about the smell, then another, and should a riot ensue as a result of the smell is that not the definition of terrorism? Especially if someone gets hurt as a result of the mayhem.

The other thing, I guess I am not very "over-reactionary" kind of person, but there are teachers who can be. There are definitely teachers who are afraid for their safety and they would report anyone in a MINUTE because of their own fear. Then again, there are teachers who would feign that fear because they WANT to report her. Oh, believe me, there are teachers who LOVE getting kids in trouble.

So my dilemma is where do I fall as a "responsible" faculty member? I want to keep my building safe without question. A school is supposed to be a "safe place." But I also want to keep my students safe. I realize maybe reporting it and making a big "stink" about it might in the long run make her realize the weight of her actions, but it also might destroy her.

At the same time, are kids growing up too fast? Isn't this something we as adults are CONSTANTLY complaining about? Is this something we want to do? We say how kids are growing up too fast, well aren't we causing that to happen? If we are expecting them to act like adults, then they will, right?

More Fights

http://www.local6.com/news/11521240/detail.html

There was an article on Drudge today, I had to comment. The headline read, "Teacher Accused of Watching Students Fight." The article questioned why the teacher didn't do anything to break it up.

I'm going to be honest. It's not my job to break up a fight. For several reasons:

1) A teacher is not a security agent. That is agents' jobs as representatives of NYPD, they do the handling should the need arise.

2) If a teacher did get involved, he or she runs the risk of getting hurt for what?

3) God forbid a teacher accidentally harms a student while breaking up the scuffle. That's it. He or she is done. They will be told that breaking up fights isn't the teacher's job, and now because of that, the teacher is getting sued by little Jimmy who sprained his wrist when the teacher grabbed him.

Now I know I don't follow my own advice. I mean for God's sake, I have stupidly stepped in between to idiots going at it. I corralled one girl into my room because some other girl was after her.

But the question the reporters SHOULD be asking, "Why were these girls fighting in the first place?"

There was some loon politician a few months back who recommended arming teachers. I know at first glance that is an asinine thing to say, but his reasoning was actually kind of sound.

His reason was: violence happens in schools because these aggressors KNOW there will be little resistance. It is the one or two places that you can almost BANK will not have gun wielding resistors in the mix. You go to a mall, someone might be packing. A bank? Anywhere else… but not a school. Schools HAVE to play by the rules, and that is precisely why they are such easy targets.

That’s the key though – why the girls were fighting in the first place. There are no rules. There is no recourse to anything. Schools are powerless – unless they get the police involved. It seems like such a drastic measure, but that’s all they have. If a kid gets uppity, a security agent cuffs them. There is no in-between.

--------------------------------------------------------

ADDENDUM!!!

You know what, scratch that shit... HOW DARE that news channel show footage to two black, teenage girls fighting and then have the NERVE to question responsibility. As I was eating dinner at Chili's tonight... it hit me, they NEEDED some sort of valid reason to show that footage and what better way than to question WHAT WAS THE TEACHER DOING.

News shows need SHIT to get ratings. If you look at their site, this story is THE most popular story on their site right now. And why? Because they know perfectly well that showing a full on brawl among two young (and black) people would garner ratings. It's all bullshit.

Parent-Teacher night (maybe part I)

I’m sitting here in my classroom. Tonight is Parent-Teacher night. Always one of the bright spots of the year. We have about an hour left and I’ve only had 4 parents.

Some highlights of past Parent-Teacher nights: Having all of my top students’ parents come in for a visit, watching N.L. slowly move away from fear of being swatted by her mother while we were talking, being given permission to hit D.E.’s child if he got “out of line.” (I never would, but it was nice to know I could. I might get fired, but at least I wouldn’t get sued.)

Some low points: meeting parents at the end of their ropes with their children - which happens more than you think, meeting a mother whose son was on my roster but I never met because he never came and seeing another mother cry because her son was so out of control.

You see these kids in school, they act all tough... such a front. They all have families... they all are someone’s child. In some cases, sadly, the children are more mature and responsible than their parents.

One parent tonight, her son got pretty much a straight 65 average. He’s such a bright kid, but he can not keep his mouth shut to save his life.

Another one just walked in...

K.J.’s mother JUST NOW also threatened to smack the crap out of her daughter because I let it be known how rude she can be toward me at times.

It’s almost time to go home now. Back here in less than 12 hours to do it all over again.

Six parents tonight. Not a bad haul.

SHUT UP STEVE JOBS

You may have read the article about Steve Jobs where he criticized teachers' unions for the poor results of America's students.

Again... what right do businessmen have sticking their noses in issues of education? You've perhaps already heard my view on businesses meddling with education... In a word, they need to keep their mouths shut. Just because you run your company like a fascist dictator (A Wired editorial likened Jobs' reign to that of Mussolini...)

This same editorial points out that:

"In California, the most pressing problems are schools that are too big, too bureaucratic and chronically under-funded. Teachers are criminally low paid and under-trained. Education -- and school funding -- has become solely about test scores."

That about sums it up in any large city. The bureaucracy is too big to manage, especially in New York, especially in the Bronx... especially in my building. There is too much to manage efficiently - but poor teachers are not the problem at all, in fact, the teachers in my building are far from it. Granted there are a few here and there, after all, there are, for example, 25 English teachers alone... our faculty is huge... but the vast majority of teachers are extremely dedicated.

What's sadder is they are talking about consolidating even in Maine... by firing the nearly 200 local school superintendents and hiring back one tenth of them, each to oversee nearly 10 districts. That would be a Herculean task... and one step on the way to the mess that New York City is.

Schools are NOT businesses and should not be considered as such. Schools are supposed to be removed from the "market."

In my junior classes we are reading Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery. In the book, Mr. Washington explains how a good number of freed blacks after the Civil War became either "preachers or teachers" because they felt the work was "easy." He recalls one young person:

"I remember there came into our neighbourhood one of this class, who was in search of a school to teach, and the question arose while he was there as to the shape of the earth and how he would teach the children concerning this subject. He explained his position in the matter by saying that he was prepared to teach that the earth was either flat or round, according to the preference of a majority of his patrons."

Why does this sound like he was conducting his lessons like a business? He was appealing to the masses... and it was wrong 100 years ago in Booker T. Washington's eyes, and it is still wrong today.

Depressing

Every so often, I get pangs to move back to Maine. This is usually killed when I find out what the teachers' salaries are in Maine.

A recent e-mail from a HR person in Maine:

Dear Mr. XXXXXXX:

The starting pay for a teacher with a Master's Degree and 3 years
teaching experience would be $35,331 for the 2007-08 school year.

What's most depressing about this is that next year I will be making over 60,000 a year. As much as I love and miss Maine, it just seems like a hard pill to swallow taking a nearly 50% pay cut.

Been Spending Most Their Lives.....

There was a GREAT Op-Ed piece in the NYT about what it's really like to be a teacher in a New York City public school... and how very different it is from the movies. The writer forgot to mention Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds.

I guess the reason I enjoyed this piece, is because it shows how mundane really our job is, not that we all as teachers don't have our share of troubles, but most of the teachers that I know personally teach in fantastic buildings, not rundown, stereotypical crapholes... and as he mentions, when Hilary Swank raises her voice, they pipe down and listen... as if!

The one thing I do take issue with, and it's not Tom Moore's fault, but I believe he labels it somewhat incorrectly. Where I teach in the Bronx - as Mr. Moore calls it, "Teaching the post-desegregation urban poor," is absolute hornswaggle. Segregation my friends is quite alive and well in the Bronx. While Brown vs. the Board of Ed. made it illegal to mandate "Separate but equal," it is still thriving - and the 1.1% of white kids at my 3,000+ school might agree with that.

---

January 19, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Classroom Distinctions

By TOM MOORE

IN the past year or so I have seen Matthew Perry drink 30 cartons of milk, Ted Danson explain the difference between a rook and a pawn, and Hilary Swank remind us that white teachers still can’t dance or jive talk. In other words, I have been confronted by distorted images of my own profession — teaching. Teaching the post-desegregation urban poor, to be precise.

Although my friends and family (who should all know better) continue to ask me whether my job is similar to these movies, I find it hard to recognize myself or my students in them.

So what are these films really about? And what do they teach us about teachers? Are we heroes, villains, bullies, fools? The time has come to set the class record straight.

At the beginning of Ms. Swank’s new movie, “Freedom Writers,” her character, a teacher named Erin Gruwell, walks into her Long Beach, Calif., classroom, and the camera pans across the room to show us what we are supposed to believe is a terribly shabby learning environment. Any experienced educator will have already noted that not only does she have the right key to get into the room but, unlike the seventh-grade science teacher in my current school, she has a door to put the key into. The worst thing about Ms. Gruwell’s classroom seems to be graffiti on the desks, and crooked blinds.

I felt like shouting, Hey, at least you have blinds! My first classroom didn’t, but it did have a family of pigeons living next to the window, whose pane was a cracked piece of plastic. During the winter, snowflakes blew in. The pigeons competed with the mice and cockroaches for the students’ attention.

This is not to say that all schools in poor neighborhoods are a shambles, or that teaching in a real school is impossible. In fact, thousands of teachers in New York City somehow manage to teach every day, many of them in schools more underfinanced and chaotic than anything you’ve seen in movies or on television (except perhaps the most recent season of “The Wire”).

Ms. Gruwell’s students might backtalk, but first they listen to what she says. And when she raises her inflection just slightly, the class falls silent. Many of the students I’ve known won’t sit down unless they’re repeatedly asked to (maybe not even then), and they don’t listen just because the teacher is speaking; even “good teachers” are occasionally drowned out by the din of 30 students simultaneously using language that would easily earn a movie an NC-17 rating.

When a fight breaks out during an English lesson, Ms. Gruwell steps into the hallway and a security guard immediately materializes to break it up. Forget the teacher — this guy was the hero of the movie for me.

If I were to step out into the hallway during a fight, the only people I’d see would be some students who’d heard there was a fight in my room. I’d be wasting my time waiting for a security guard. The handful of guards where I work are responsible for the safety of five floors, six exits, two yards and four schools jammed into my building.

Although personal safety is at the top of both teachers’ and students’ lists of grievances, the people in charge of real schools don’t take it as seriously as the people in charge of movie schools seem to.

The great misconception of these films is not that actual schools are more chaotic and decrepit — many schools in poor neighborhoods are clean and orderly yet still don’t have enough teachers or money for supplies. No, the most dangerous message such films promote is that what schools really need are heroes. This is the Myth of the Great Teacher.

Films like “Freedom Writers” portray teachers more as missionaries than professionals, eager to give up their lives and comfort for the benefit of others, without need of compensation. Ms. Gruwell sacrifices money, time and even her marriage for her job.

Her behavior is not represented as obsessive or self-destructive, but driven — necessary, even. She is forced into making these sacrifices by the aggressive neglect of the school’s administrators, who won’t even let her take books from the bookroom. The film applauds Ms. Gruwell’s dedication, but also implies that she has no other choice. In order to be a good teacher, she has to be a hero.

“Freedom Writers,” like all teacher movies this side of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” is presented as a celebration of teaching, but its message is that poor students need only love, idealism and martyrdom.

I won’t argue the need for more of the first two, but I’m always surprised at how, once a Ms. Gruwell wins over a class with clowning, tears, rewards and motivational speeches, there is nothing those kids can’t do. It is as if all the previously insurmountable obstacles students face could be erased by a 10-minute pep talk or a fancy dinner. This trivializes not only the difficulties many real students must overcome, but also the hard-earned skill and tireless effort real teachers must use to help those students succeed.

Every year young people enter the teaching profession hoping to emulate the teachers they’ve seen in films. (Maybe in the back of my mind I felt that I could be an inspiring teacher like Howard Hesseman or Gabe Kaplan.) But when you’re confronted with the reality of teaching not just one class of misunderstood teenagers (the common television and movie conceit) but four or five every day, and dealing with parents, administrators, mentors, grades, attendance records, standardized tests and individual education plans for children with learning disabilities, not to mention multiple daily lesson plans — all without being able to count on the support of your superiors — it becomes harder to measure up to the heroic movie teachers you thought you might be.

It’s no surprise that half the teachers in poor urban schools, like Erin Gruwell herself, quit within five years. (Ms. Gruwell now heads a foundation.)

I don’t expect to be thought of as a hero for doing my job. I do expect to be respected, supported, trusted and paid. And while I don’t anticipate that Hollywood will stop producing movies about gold-hearted mavericks who play by their own rules and show the suits how to get the job done, I do hope that these movies will be kept in perspective.

While no one believes that hospitals are really like “ER” or that doctors are anything like “House,” no one blames doctors for the failure of the health care system. From No Child Left Behind to City Hall, teachers are accused of being incompetent and underqualified, while their appeals for better and safer workplaces are systematically ignored.

Every day teachers are blamed for what the system they’re just a part of doesn’t provide: safe, adequately staffed schools with the highest expectations for all students. But that’s not something one maverick teacher, no matter how idealistic, perky or self-sacrificing, can accomplish.

Tom Moore, a 10th-grade history teacher at a public school in the Bronx, is writing a book about his teaching experiences.