Sliding Scale

So, I've been working with a student teacher for a couple weeks now and I have to say...we just don't jive. I did when it was under my original teacher, but this student teacher her style is just well...structured. Maybe its because she comes from a SPED background, but its no wonder she always says she is so stressed out because she micromanages. Teaching Tip # 5: You can't micromanage your classroom because you will go crazy.

She started implementing a timer into all her transitions in order to become a well organized machine. Excuse me...but this is education, while you can try and oil the machine as much as you can, it doesn't mean it will work. Especially with a group of sixth graders, who are actually really great kids, but they aren't responding the way she wants them to and its upsetting her.

Maybe I shouldn't criticize her teaching because she means well, but sweet zombie Jesus, she is going to drive herself crazy, along with her kids. You can't control the masses through some kind of timed dog run, you have to do other things to build their trust. Maybe this is an inherent flaw with student teaching that when you enter the classroom you are an outsider. You have to build everything mid-stream. Well stream isn't the best word...flood would probably be correct. If I get either one of these jobs from the interviews this week, she may be left without the safety net that is good ol' dependable Brandon. Not to toot my own horn, but she probably needs a net. It's hard to walk across a canyon on a tight rope without a net. Jesus how many analogies can I fit into this damn thing.

Anyway, I've been trying to lock down my own classroom management skills. It's been awhile since I've commanded a classroom (excluding those times I taught at the collegial level, but meh...), but its been awhile. I think my approach is structured dictatorship with a side of humanity. Can those exist in a world...sure. Its important to set your standards high, but not too high, but also on a sliding scale.

The squeaky wheel gets the kick

Today was my normal Tuesday routine say for a few changes.

At my first middle school where I spend half of my days, I have noticed my Hispanic students playing a pretty terrible game with one another. One student will run up behind the other, grab their arm and twist it behind this back all while yelling"Policia! Let me see you Papers!" (I don't know what the specific name is, but here is a bunch of Chinese students showing various techniques in this YouTube video).

It seems pretty violent, especially in a crowed hallway, ramming into lockers and random students. I told one kid to knock it off and I didn't want to see him do it again. He seemed confused about my presence, but I saw the fear in his eyes. It might have just been today, because my sixth grade science class it seemed like someone had pumped pixie sticks through the ventilation system.

We had a sub today in sixth grade science class also, she...well...I don't know. Subs are just seem weird to me. I suppose they are the educational mercenaries of the school system. They get a class, they do the job, and they go home. Sometimes the job takes longer, sometimes its just a couple hours. Whatever the case she was different. It may have been her thigh high brown books, because those were oddly distracting to me.

I didn't have to deal with crazed drone UFO guy today, he torments the classes for the second half of the day. Those poor poor kids. Well at least they're learning something....that in the world there are some crazy bastards.

So I went to my other school and found out that my teacher was having guest speakers. Not a big deal, but she said if I wanted I could go help out in another social studies class room. I figured sure, it always interesting to see another teacher teach. I found the classroom, introduced myself to the teacher and firmly planted myself in the back corner.

He began the class with a quick writing exercise. Two Questions: What are some characteristics of population growth? And Why is Portland the most populated city in Oregon? Fairly simply, nothing too crazy.

He then launched into his lecture. These poor poor kids. Talk about the most boring power point presentation ever. I hope he doesn't do this for all his classes. I think the kids were engaged, maybe not. He would ask questions and most where too busy writing down the massive amount of text from the slides. He would only talk about the beginning portion of the slide, but nothing really else. For example, he put up the definitions for urban and rural. He essentially copied everything from the text book, paragraph description. He would then ask the kids, whats a urban place and whats a rural place. Just not my style.

Oh...one thing, he made a comment about the Soviet Union's Virgin Land Campaign that was completely false. He didn't call it the Virgin Lands Campaign, but I was giddy with excitement  Us, Soviet Historians don't have much to be excited about, except when someone slips up and doesn't know what they are talking about.

The first glaring error was he said the Virgin Lands Campaign was under Stalin, while Stalin did have a type of campaign, it was much more "banging shoe at United Nations" Khrushchev's policy. He also said peasants where forced or bribed to move to the frontier regions of the Soviet Union. It was much more of a youth movement, showing the great socialist adventure that is Soviet agricultural farming.

I guess these are not earth shattering, but they are just some errors.


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I originally titled this entry "The squeaky wheel gets the kick" (by the way if you can name the game this phrase comes from, I will give you a long distance high-five), because we were discussing something in class last night.

My professor described this idea that we never really look at the quite student, because we are always paying attention to the student the requires our immediate attention. The loud student, who demands something right away takes away from the quite student who is silently working through their stuff. Its a sad but true fact. We associate quite students with being the good students, the smart students. This isn't always the case, these student often need just as much help as their louder more flamboyant counter-parts. I was one of these quite students, just keeping my head down so I could get the hell out of there everyday. I could have always used the attention or extra support.

Just something to remember.

The drones are after me

Now, before you start questioning the title of this post, don't worry. I'll explain it later, but first I have to sum everything from the past two days.

Wednesday:

Wednesdays are my longest days. It is because I work at a local high school which starts class at 7:15AM. I try not to get coffee before this because it upsets my stomach. Actually anything in the morning just destroys me, its a weird thing.

I have the pleasure of being put into math classrooms. These poor kids. I have the mathematics ability of...well, I don't know. I can do anything with a calculator, but somewhere along the lines my own education shafted me in some areas, math being one of them.

Today was learning about congruency of Triangles. FML. Throw up my hands and walk out of the room. I have no idea. I know the symbols they use and some equations, but I don't have any idea.  I was able to help most by muddling through it and getting help from the smarter students. Its a shame to be 27 and needing help at my job, but I told my district...don't put me in a math classroom. But they did anyway. I have probably learned a lot while being in this class, but I can't help at all.

However...

When it comes to stats and probability, I am a god. The way I can command data is amazing. Give me numbers and I'll make you the best graph possible with all the stats you would ever need. My kids appreciate this because they teacher doesn't really care for this class. I guess he considers it his"lower" math class compared to his others. But if Gandalf was a math wizard, I would be his equal in stats.

The last class was a newly combined class of 56 students...I kid you not, 56 students. Not just any students...Freshmen. My Wednesday afternoons now consist of helping wrangle 56 freshman in a tutorial fashion. Since this class is an "elective", they can justify the class size because gym classes can run that big. Its actually not too bad. Its still early, I expect by the end of the year to have it disintegrate into an dictatorship based around students who have the most hats (I'll explain this sometime later).

So that was my Wednesday, long, hectic and could have been terrible.

Thursday:

My Thursdays aren't bad.  Its the exact same as my Tuesdays. Today however I was greeted with the task of having a shadow. Evidently they hired someone new and they wanted him to shadow me in class (I go to a different school at the middle of the day and they want him to take my place when I'm not there).

So, I meet the guy and he isn't bad. A little off, but whatever, everyone is to some degree. He sits down next to me and we engage in ideal chit chat. What I thought was a normal conversation suddenly turns weird. He begins with saying " You know I shouldn't tell you this...". Never a good sign. Why say that? Because simply by telling me you have implemented me. He goes on to say, "You know Obama has high altitude drones flying over the United States at all times right? I think they are over my house because I know stuff about the government."

WTF? How do you follow this up? How do you carry on a conversation with someone that says this? So, quick thinking Brandon says..."What things do you know?"

He says "About UFOs and other stuff."

Really? Your big secrete is that you know about UFOs? I wanted to ask him if he has just been replaying Art Bell's Coast to Coast AM when he once broad casted from an unknown location in the Nevada desert. But in any case, I hope this guy is harmless. I don't know if we want this type of crazy around students, but whatever I guess. 

At my other school is was fine. Nothing really exciting. I might be trying to pick up more shifts or starting subbing in a couple weeks. Lets hope so.

Hispanic Superheros breaking down structures

Today was a fairly uneventful day. It being the second day of the semester and the students where still adjusting into their new grooves (or something like that).  Since science is a year long class, nothing really changed. Well the student teacher took over.

Now, I can appreciate her teaching style. Maybe it is how her mind works, but she seems to be overly organized. Which, altogether is not a bad thing, it just regiments everything. Maybe I hate structure. It's probably that I hate other people's structures. But almost every time someone tries to interject a structure on myself, I want to Kool-Aid man the hell out it. Now, that's not to say that I do not respect some structures...just some of them I find redundant. I think many of my students feel this same way about the new student teacher. She also runs a tight ship. This is something I can respect, because while I usually opt for a more fun learning environment, I still run a tight ship. No funny business with Mr. Shaffer or you're put into a dingy behind the USS Edumacation. Its always interesting watching new teachers, I hope everything turns out okay for her.

What was interesting today was, today was the first day for my Batman tie clip. Not a big deal in itself, but while I have decided to maintain a much more formal attire within the classroom, I needed something that was both stylish and served a purpose. Evidently having a Batman tie clip instantly made me the most popular educator in both of my schools today. Many students where like "Oh wow Mr. Shaffer you're so cool" or like "I didn't know you like Batman.". Excluding the fact that Batman is a mentally deranged vigilante with billions of dollars and hangs around children, yes I do enjoy Batman. Its a symbol that all children know and understand (well context) thanks to the magical world of comic books. One of my students, the same one from last week that brought up the comment about how "Mexicans can't play hockey", asked why there aren't any Mexican superheroes. Ah ha! Today I came prepared.

I told him that within the Ultimate Universe, after Peter Parker is savagely beaten by Green Goblin, that Miles Morales (a half African-American, half Latino) takes up the mantel of Spider-man. Sligshot, is also one, recruited by the crazed one-eyed bandit Nick Furry to fight against the Skrull. Green Lantern...kind of (1994 version). I also mentioned Jackie Estacado from The Darkness. These are the only ones I could rattle off (sometimes you have to dust off the cob-weds of useless knowledge). But after doing a primary search I found many Latin/Hispanic/Spanish individuals within comics have been portrayed as villains. While Comics are still very much a white washed dominated media, they have come a long way. Its sad that it was once like this, but at least we are slowly moving forward. After searching, I forgot about one villain, which I had completely forgotten about, "El Papagayo" or The Parrot.

This is an old image of him, try to ignore the glaring stereotypes, he is much different in the modern comics. Anyway, I use this situation as an example. It can probably be applied to many different minority cultures. We within the Caucasian classification have a wide degree of heroes to look up to. Can this often be said for children from various other cultures? In the past, not really. But as we move forward we are becoming more culturally aware. We are realizing the importance of inclusion of all people and the removal of stereotypes. We just need to keep working towards it, because we have a long way to go. 

Anyway, this was kind of an odd tangent to go off on. But I think its an important thing within education. This idea of cultural awareness. Maybe its something that we jam too much down our students throats or maybe not enough. But simply being aware and helping implement it into the classroom is really important.

These are just to show the difference and how far we've come. 

 (1977)

(2011)

Personal Note: 

At my one school, they have replaced my chair with a stool. Why? I don't know. I am not a big fan of stools. I feel like when I sit on them, I am constantly at the ready. Like some kind of Educational Pigeon perched on a statue of John Dewy. I like chairs. I don't like to think about balancing when I sit down. 

An Education Utopia

I want to preface this post with that, I typed this on my little Nexus 7 tablet. It took me about an hour (or as long as it did to get my tires rotated). After I had typed it, my hands felt like I had typed a small chapter books worth of information. Turns out, it was like three paragraphs. Thanks perspective. Anyway...

So my school district didn't have school today, since it was a grading day for teachers. This left me with very little to do,well plenty to do, just not the will to accomplish it. Anyway on my way home last night I stopped by an eatery I frequent from time to time. As I walked in the man who operates the restaurant asks me "why do I always come in so late?" I essentially told him I work in education and I work late nights. He starts off by telling me about this place where teachers are respected. He says they never cut education and teachers are always paid really well.

Where is this education utopia? Japan evidently.

But why is this? I wasn't too terribly shocked by this notion. What I find most shocking is that more places in the world aren't like Japan when it comes to education. It pretty much seems like the rest of the world follows Japans model of education (or whatever model that is) But in America where we have an inflated idea of our education system. Well some people do. Our American education system just kind of limps along picking up some band aids as it goes along. Sometimes instead of a fix, we get another shot in the leg (looking at you NCLB). But regardless, it hasn't degraded into anarchy yet.

I know education reform is always something to talk about. But I'm not going to pretend I have the answers. I'll leave that to the much more smarter people than I.  All I can say is looking at the world (which there are good examples and bad), the US education system needs a little help. I don't know what that is or what needs to happen. Certainly within Oregon we could use a boost. We often tout ourselves as being "great" educational wise. I think if anything, Oregon represents a lot of good ideas that have gone bad. 

I mean look at this: http://www.edweek.org/ew/qc/2013/state_report_cards.html?intc=EW-QC13-EWH

Teaching as profession has a D. That's pretty sad. Now this isn't meant to start some kind of inner-state educational warfare, but I think these stats should be a wake up call. Our K-12 achievement is pretty abysmal. And our overall success is average...so basically, kids will either succeed or fail. Is this something we should be looking at?  One could make the argument that "we need an uneducated workforce for manual labor jobs", but those people are elitist dicks. But at a whole are these numbers we should be proud of? I don't think so, we should probably be looking at a lot of things and trying to fix stuff. 

I know this a fairly generic argument. Its like having a dart board with different issues and blindly throwing an argument dart and landing on education. I certainly don't have any say in what should happen. I know if my model of education was a reality people would probably hate it. Well maybe... I think one day I'll map our my perfect educational system, I mean its all just fantasy anyway. 

Thursday 1/31: The End of the Beginning

It seems odd to title the first post the "End of the Beginning", but the reason I did that was today was the end of the semester for my local school district. This week has been rather difficult for many of them.  You could quite honestly see the worried and stressed expressions on their faces this week. I find this different because when I was in school, ages ago, we didn't have finals like this (certainly not at the middle school). Or maybe we did and I didn't remember them or I didn't care. With everything moving towards standardized testing, these test scores are a big deal. Anyway, no more did I notice this in my fourth period science class, my sixth graders.


Fourth Period:

Class started as usual, nothing too exciting. I have the privilege to work with a really amazing teacher. I wish I would have had someone as amazing as him when I was taking science. The way he can command a classroom, yet make things fun and engaging is really great to watch. He recently received a student teacher from Willamette. She is very nice, but quite the contradiction from his style. She made the comment today, when she officially takes over his classes next week, she won't be any ones friend. I suppose if you are a student teacher you need to command this type authority. If you don't the chances are the students won't respect you and then you've lost the class. Two things that are almost impossible to get back after you've lost them to a band of roving hormones, that is middle school. Anyway, I'm sure she will be fine, it will just be interesting to watch the dichotomy between the two.

So within this class, I have a little girl that is quite fond of me. She constantly wants to touch me and hug me. The other day I was walking down the hall with my hands in my pockets, she proceeded to run up behind me and put her arm in between my arm and my body. Its hard to describe, but essentially where it could have been construed that we were walking arm-in-arm.  I quickly removed my hand from my pocket and proceeded on my way. Today in class she wanted to give me a hug. I told her no, I'm not really the hugging type. She asked why don't I like hugs. I told her because of the legality of it all. While, I'm fine with high fives or a pat on the back, hugs are a whole other mess of red tape mumbo jumbo. She seemed confused by this statement, but took it as it was.

She is a sweet girl. Really smart for a sixth grader. She was telling me about her home situation, which doesn't sound great. Something about how she has switched rooms like four times, evidently one time she was living in a garage. I don't know her whole story, I may have to ask my teacher about it so I can get a better picture. Regardless, Mr. Brandon is a no touching zone.

Sixth and Seventh Period:

Different school then my morning shift. Yay for being moved around like some kind of educational gypsy. Anyway, these periods where not very exciting. It was mainly baby sitting as I like to put it. But hey when you're getting paid to watch kids watch themselves, I suppose I can't complain too much. These are my seventh and eighth grade students. They seemed less worried them other students. I don't know why, maybe, because it was the end of the day and they had gotten over all the nonsense of the tests. There is one kid in my eighth grade class who is brilliant. I don't know if he is just a super hard worker or what, but he is going to do something big one day. He is very concerned about his grades (all straight A's), I almost wish I could tell him not to worry so much. I mean grades aren't everything. This coming from a person who if he received anything less than an A in a college course would take it over again. Anyway, he says he wants to be a lawyer. I wish I could steer him down a different path, but hey, maybe we need better trial attorneys.

So, today was pretty uneventful. I hate to see my middle schoolers so occupied and worried about tests. Its sad that we base everything on "quantifiable" data to see if our kids are learning and succeeding. But every school is becoming like this. I guess our role as educators is try to prepare them as well as we can and to help them bare the burden that has been laid upon them.


Personal Note:

I don't want to give the names of the schools, teachers, or students I work with. I feel like this is a privacy issue and I can try my best to protect the innocent (or the guilty).


Side Notes:

One of my sixth graders today asked me what would it take to be a professional soccer player (as Tim would say "Football"). I told him I have no idea. I told him probably practicing a lot, eating right, and maybe college. I have to confess I know nothing about soccer and I really don't have any interest in it. I know we have the Timbers in Portland, but other than that...no idea. Evidently there are tons of different positions and plays switch all the time. I told him, I'm not really a sports guy, but I do enjoy the occasional hockey game. He told me "Mexican's can't skate so we don't play hockey." I felt terrible that he said this and wish I could come up with some Hispanic Hockey players. Thanks to Wikipedia now I know.

Scott Gomez (Montreal Canadians)
Al Montoya (New York Islanders)
Raffi Torres (Phoenix Coyotes)