urban annapurna

when i worked at the juvenile detention center, every room was equipped with at least one large, bright red button known as the panic! button. pushing that button would sound an alarm throughout the facility, the kids would drop to the ground with their hands behind their head, and the central office would put the place on immediate lockdown until whatever caused the button to be pressed could be sorted out. in my tenure at the detention center, i've hit the panic button once - with a stray basketball during our gym class. but right now, as the reality of becoming a teacher is starting to set in, i'm looking for my own personal panic! button.

it's not that i don't want to teach. it's not that i'm uncomfortable with my content knowledge. i'm not even all that worried about classroom management or my administration (although i do of course have some issues with the latter). i know i love teaching, i know i'm passionate about science, and on some basal level i know that this truly is a calling. but i can't help but want to yell to someone, anyone, "stop the ride - i want to get off!"

maybe it's the fear of actually following through with this career path and accepting the tremendous responsibility that is being a teacher. maybe.

but what it most likely is - and here's the kicker - is that some of my most fervent beliefs about what it means to be an excellent educator are slowly and systematically being chucked out the window by others. listen, i get that it's important for my students to pass the regents exam. and not just pass, but you know, improve upon their scores from last year, even though they didn't take the living environments regents, so really we're just comparing apples and trucks, but whatever. i knew all of this going in, but somehow believed that i could create a dynamic curriculum that was rich in accessible content that would help my students not only master the regents exam, but give them a skill set that they could apply to a variety of situations. i may not be a proponent of standardized testing driving decision making, but i thought i could make some peace with it. so i created what i thought was a logical, coherent curriculum which would accomplish all of my goals as well as the school's goals - and i created this curriculum because i was told that it was expected of me and that i had the flexibility and power to do so. and when i turned in my curriculum for final approval, i was told that it didn't teach to the test enough, and that i would be using a pre-designed, error-riddled curriculum in its place.

i spent all of yesterday learning about the new! and improved! data system i'm expected to start using to track my students, and it was a painful, painful process. call me old school, but i like a physical grade book coupled with some good old-fashioned rapport building. those two things combined have always been more powerful and effective in directing my instruction and improving student outcomes than a computerized program that is redundant, difficult to navigate, encourages me to make assumptions about my students, and produces pretty graphs.

but let me backtrack and tell you a little bit about myself. i'm a scientist by training, with more benchwork under my belt than i care to remember. i left the lab for a variety of reasons, but one of the reasons that i entered the lab to begin with was because i love data. LOVE data. but not just any data. no, you see, my data has to meet several criteria before we even start flirting with one another, and even if it meets those preliminary criteria, that data has to undergo several rounds of scrutiny from peers both inside and outside of my community before we actually hop between the sheets.

you see my friends, there's a difference between good, solid data and data that's really just sloppy seconds for data's sake.

good data comes after years of refining experimental procedures that have been field-tested before being applied to a high-stakes scenario. good data is objective and can be repeated by anyone with the knowledge and skills and equpiment - in fact, the reproduction of data is what lends scientific findings their credibility. good data stands up to scrutiny. good data is a solid platform from which to take the next step - it's not everything, but it's an important factor to consider. data is the little voice that makes well-informed suggestions and never says "i told you so" if you take a wrong turn.

but what we have going on now, with our data-driven decisions affecting educational policy, is nothing more than a disgrace to reason, to science, to math, and to the students and teachers expected to live and die by the data. i want nothing to do with messy data that isn't informative - i wouldn't even give it my phone number. and you've got to do more than just put this ugly data in a pretty dress - this data needs a full on character makeover.

so here's the thing - i would love to use data in my classroom to help me become a better educator. but don't give me ineffective data systems and then act all surprised when i rig the system to show incredible gains. instead, give me some battle-tested, statistically sound data analysis methods that use holistic inputs and not just test scores, and maybe i'll just warm up to your advances.

that's the noise that reverberated around the room in response to the question "what is an SSO and are all public schools required to have them?"

(the answer was "yes, all public schools must be affiliated with an SSO")

there was a pause as we all collected our thoughts and let it sink in that each and every public school in nyc must choose one SSO to be affiliated with. must. before the unspoken questions can be verbalized (questions such as "why?" "what does an SSO really DO for a school? etc etc ad nauseum) the topic of conversation was shifted towards something more innocuous.

but really, is this some kind of joke? i can't wrap my mind around how a school could possibly need an SSO when the money could instead go towards internal improvements that would more directly benefit students.

these are the days that i wonder what i have gotten myself into.

that's the noise that reverberated around the room in response to the question "what is an SSO and are all public schools required to have them?"

(the answer was "yes, all public schools must be affiliated with an SSO")

there was a pause as we all collected our thoughts and let it sink in that each and every public school in nyc must choose one SSO to be affiliated with. must. before the unspoken questions can be verbalized (questions such as "why?" "what does an SSO really DO for a school? etc etc ad nauseum) the topic of conversation was shifted towards something more innocuous.

but really, is this some kind of joke? i can't wrap my mind around how a school could possibly need an SSO when the money could instead go towards internal improvements that would more directly benefit students.

these are the days that i wonder what i have gotten myself into.

i recently spent some time talking to a colleague of mine, also in this fancy dancy alternative certification program, about our respective reasons for becoming public school teachers. well, i would have never thought i needed to add 'respective' in that last sentence, because didn't we all get into this gig because we love working with kids and we're passionate about our content area? and for some of us, it goes even deeper: we see the injustices of our current public education system and want to do something to help give more students access to the means of competition in today's society.

i mean, that pretty much sums it up, right? you become a teacher for one, if not all, of the above reasons. right? right?!?!

*sigh*

apparently not. as i waved my arms and got excited talking about why i became a public school teacher (and in the process clearly scared several people on the downtown-bound N -- sorry!) my colleague leaned in with a conspiratorial glint in his eye and softly said "i don't believe there is any value in a system of public education. public education is just an excuse for poor parenting." so i asked the most logical question "why did you become a public school teacher then?"

"meh, it's a job."

all of the issues raised with his reasoning aside, i've been thinking a lot about what makes a good teacher. i know, i know, according to the volumes of research, there's no strong correlation of factors that can predict whether or not someone will be a good teacher. but i think there is one defining trait that will at least give you some indication as to whether or not someone or not will make a good public school teacher: they have to give a shit.

Edit: Rick Santorum apparently agrees with my colleague regarding the role of schools in education.

i've heard the abundant criticisms of various educational programs, but had convinced myself that i could find the information that would help me succeed even if my university and program failed to. but damn, there's a lot of missing information.

let's start with my summer training. the general idea was that we would be prepared for the classroom by spending our summer working on imparting literacy skills to a small group of students in a low-stakes* setting. now, one would think that based on that last sentence that i have some background in building literacy skills with struggling readers. those of the more idealistic of you would be drastically wrong (although the cynics among us can hardly feign surprise.) i know little to nothing about teaching literacy. add to that the fact that i am certified to teach secondary science, and that should give you enough information about how prepared i was for this summer school program. oh, but wait! let my instructor ride in on a white horse and impart to me all of the knowledge that i could possibly need! *stifled laughter*

we started our course by being told how to teach higher order concepts such as inferencing, identifying cause and effect relationships, making predictions, and were quickly buried in piles upon piles of worksheets. sidebar: i have developed a severe distaste for "exit slips" and promise to only use them as punishment for my students. now, since no one in my class has any background in literacy instruction, we were happy to go along with all of this at first, because we didn't really know any better.

fast forward to the first day of summer school, where we all learned that our kids can't read. let me repeat that: my students cannot read. neither can the students of a majority of my colleagues. the students cannot read at their grade level, not at a level or two prior to where they are. on average, my students (and those of others) are 4+ years behind in their basic reading and reading comprehension skills.

so i walk back into my graduate class and say "hey, all of this higher order concept teaching is nice, but can you teach me some of the basics? like - how do i teach these kids to, you know, read?"

*instructor waves hands, blathers about how it's important to focus on these higher order skills because the rest will fall into place, pats me on the head and says "I have faith that you'll figure it out yourself."

so i'm working on it. i'm spending a lot of time on amazon and becoming fast friends with various books and informational texts that are helping me figure out not only how to work with struggling readers, but also how to work with struggling readers in the context of my subject area. and that's fine, i'm happy to do it, but the bigger question is "why isn't my educational certification program teaching me these things?" is it such an unreasonable expectation that my educational program should teach me something about teaching? 

* low-stakes in that the students weren't depending on our work to get them to pass the regents exam, and that any shortcomings we might have in our lessons would not have a direct impact on the students abilities to pass a course or master a subject.

i have a confession to make, and it's been weighing on my mind a lot these days as the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action is coming to fruition.

you see, i'm in the first year of an alternative certification program that has some heavy corporate reform backers. did i know this when i signed up? no, of course not. to me, the hardest part about becoming a teacher in an urban setting was simply making the decision as to whether or not i should finally couple the love of my subject with my passion for working with teenagers. i thought everything would fall into place once i had decided that this, right now, was the time to enter the teaching profession. the majority of my research into becoming a certified teacher focused on the differences between the alternative and traditional certification programs, and not the policy positions of each organization. to me, it was critical to choose an organization that would provide me with support and an opportunity to grow, and so when i received my acceptance from a certain organization, i accepted it without hesitation.

and that, my friends, was when the fun began...

i jumped headfirst into reading about school reform, charter schools, economic equity, and the myriad of issues that will affect me on a variety of levels. as it turns out, i don't hold the same policy views as my parent organization, and i'm going to have to own the fact that i made this decision without doing all of my homework. i could go on for days about school reform and what i think needs to be done, but really, my friends at the Save Our Schools March have me covered. while i am unable to join them this weekend, i am wishing them the best. i am so proud to be a part of a committed, vibrant, dedicated group of educators and education supporters who are willing to speak up about the disparities in our current public education system.