There's a thing going around Facebook where you list 25 things about yourself. So I'm double posting it here.
1) I have lived my entire life in Nashville. I was born in the old Saint Thomas hospital and have lived my entire life in the southern and eastern part of Nashville. I love this city, the size, the general feel of the people here, just about everything about it. And as a result I've never really wanted to move. I think I could live in a big city and were I younger, I might give New York City a shot, but as it is, I love living here.
2) I have attended Otter Creek Church of Christ for 31 of my 37 years of life. Except for 6 years where I either didn't attend church or attended Belmont Church, I've gone to Otter Creek the entire time. One of the things that I really love about it is the sense of tradition that I have from going there. My great-grandfather was the first preacher in the Granny White building and my grandparents went there, as well as my parents for a time. I love how we honor tradition while still pushing the envelopes of what it means to be Church of Christ and a Christian.
3) I taught high school English for 6 years at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School for the Health Sciences and Engineering. I loved this job. I got to teach some of the best kids in one of the best schools in the city. We talked about literature, of course, but talking about that led us into discussions of race and life and politics and religion and all that other stuff you're not supposed to talk to your students about, but that's what they want to talk about. I had a great time doing it (except for grading papers) and miss it on occasion.
4) I'm married to my best friend. I know that sounds cliched but the honest truth is that Sheryl is the person that I want to spend most of my time with/person with whom I want to spend most of my time. When something good or bad happens, she's the first one I want to talk with about it. We were friends before we dated and that blossomed into the love we share today. I don't find myself missing the fluttery feelings of first love because as important as those are at the beginning of a relationship, they fade. And if that's what we lock into as love, then we're just fooling ourselves. So I love being married to my best friend.
5) I have a bad temper. When I was a teenager and adolescent, I used to lose my temper all the time. Got into fights, argued, all that stuff. As I got older, that fuse became longer and longer, but I find that it gotten shorter with my kids as I have pretty high expectations for them and their behavior. I'm working on controlling it as much as I can, but some days it's very, very hard.
6) My parents are divorced. When I was 11, my parents got divorced and 6 months later, my mom remarried. Now, my mom and dad's relationship had been over a long time before the divorce was finalized, but that was obviously a difficult time. As a result, my mom was also disfellowshipped from Otter Creek, because the divorce was not Scriptural (because of marital infidelity on my dad's part).
7) After leaving teaching, I was a technical writer. What that really means is that I helped write frequently asked questions for websites, as well as help files and such. It was a great way to get into the business world and honestly it was a place where my experience as a teacher gave me a great amount of credibility. It was also something I didn't like a lot, because it was very formalized in the writing and grammar, things that I really didn't like even when I was teaching.
8) My technical writing led to my work now as a usability engineer/user interface designer. One of the things you do as a technical writer is look for problems that people might have with software and anticipate the problems they'll have with it and write solutions around it. What I do now is design the software to not have those problems in the first place. It's a great job that feeds both my creative side and geeky side. Plus, I'm pretty good at it and enjoy it, both of which are nice bonuses.
9) I've been out of the US 3 times. Once to Canada on a brief business trip, and twice to Great Britain. The first time was in 2000 when Sheryl and I decided that we were going to do a trip like this before we had kids and just had a blast doing it. We spent 2 weeks going from London to Dover/Canterbury to Oxford to Edinburgh (Scotland) to Aberdeen (Scotland) to Inverness (Scotland) and back to London. It is literally in the top 5 memories of my entire life, behind our wedding and the births of our kids. The 2nd time to England was on a mission trip to Loughborough in 2004. We took Kinsey with us to go work with a church there, and Connor came along too, but he was in utero. This was also good, but very different in feel obviously. Through it, we came to know many people that are very close friends with us today and who are in our Life group/small group.
10) I love Jesus. Again, I know that's a cliche kind of thing to say, but I really do. Not just because of the salvation aspects in which I firmly believe, but also the example of his life. Too often it's easy for us to focus on the sacrificial atoning nature of his death and resurrection and the cute "golden fleece diapers" aspect of his birth, and forgetting that there was a life of 33 years in between those two where Jesus said some really important things. I love how Jesus tweaked the noses of the established authority while still loving people and still getting frustrated as all heck with them.
11) My favorite Old Testament verse is 1 Samuel 6:7 "But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." I had this one read at my baptism and it was a theme verse for me. I had horrible self-esteem as a child, and so it gave me comfort that God didn't look at my unattractive outside, but what was inside.
12) My favorite New Testament verses are Philippians 2:5-11: 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
6 Who, being in very nature [a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature [b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
13) Sheryl and I have lived in the same house for the last 12 years. We moved in just before our first anniversary and rented from my parents for the first year, then bought. Several times, I've really wanted to move and get something with just a bit more space, particularly in the master bedroom and master bath area, but it's not too bad right now.
14) I can quote about 90% of the original Star Wars movie and probably 75% of the Princess Bride. My movie-going childhood was defined by Star Wars and the original trilogy. I also had an LP called the Story of Star Wars that had most of the dialogue, music, and sound effects and I listened to that over and over. My quotability of the Princess Bride comes just from loving that movie and loving the complete over the top cheesiness of it being done with complete seriousness. "Let me esplain.... No, there is too much, let me sum up."
15) My ability to hold vast amounts of useless knowledge in my brain makes me very annoying at trivia games. I don't have a photographic memory, but I can hold weird bits of knowledge in my head for a long time. Like, I can remember that John McTiernan was the director of Die Hard 1 & 3 and the directory of Predator, while Renny Harlin directed Die Hard 2, the Long Kiss Goodnight, and Cutthroat Island, the latter two starred his wife Geena Davis with Samuel Jackson and Matthew Modine (respectively). I don't know why I know that. But I do and when I play trivia games, it can be annoying, but my competitive drive makes me want to win every time. Hence, I don't play trivia games that often.
16) I'm a gadget/electronics nut. I love grown up toys. I love the cool iPhones and big screen TVs and the whiz bag things that we can do with gadgets now that would have seemed like science fiction 20 years ago. I like those things, but that can also get expensive so I try not to indulge that often, but on occasion I'm weak and give in.
17) I love snowboarding. For the last several years, I've gone out to Colorado with my parents and Kinsey to go skiing, but 2 years ago, I was introduced to snowboarding and I don't see myself returning to skiing anytime soon. For one the boots are much more comfortable. Secondly, it's an amazing amount of fun. I was never a skateboarder, but snowboarding is an incredible amount of fun. I never had to take formal lessons. My mom and dad showed me how to heel and toe turns, but beyond that, it's just been really natural for me. And I'm looking forward to going back soon.
18) I've always wanted to write fiction. Blogging and design work feeds a certain part of my creativity, but from a very early age I wanted to write fiction. The problem again goes back to my self-esteem about what I can do. A lot of the fiction that I've written has felt trite and pedestrian and so I haven't really devoted much time or effort to it. It's a confidence issue, as well as pushing past the crap that I would have to write before I get to something that might be decent.
19) I do tech/audio-visual work at Otter Creek and occasionally for the Zoe Group. About 6 and a half years ago, I started to doing tech work for Otter Creek as a part time job. It's something that I mostly enjoy, but I get a little tired of it sometimes. It can be a little more stressful than I would like it to be, but that's because I hold myself to such a high standard when it comes to mistakes. I coordinate and run both the sound board and the MediaShout (visual) work for Otter Creek. Honestly, while I'm good at both, I enjoy running MediaShout more than sound. Running sound can still occasionally feel like I'm in someone else's shoes, while I feel right at home running MediaShout, behind a computer doing visuals.
20) I've run sound at the Ryman Auditorium. A few years back, the Zoe Group partnered with the Temple Church praise team to do a Thanksgiving service at the Ryman Auditorium and because Brandon Scott Thomas felt comfortable with me, I ended up running the sound for the night. It was a very scary, but really cool experience.
21) My favorite literature writer is William Faulkner. I discovered Faulkner in 10th grade English when we read As I Lay Dying which I didn't understand at all. Stream of consciousness... point of view... perspective... My mother is a fish... None of it made sense. Then we read The Unvanquished in 11th grade and I got him quite a bit more. Then in 12th grade, I read Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, and Absalom, Absalom, as well as many of his short stories, and I discovered someone who finally didn't make me feel like an idiot for claiming to be a Southern. He was honest about the racism, and unflinching in his depiction, while also not condone it, but recognized it as a part of the Southern Heritage, never to be re-enacted. As a result, I had my students read him too.
22) I love video games, particularly shooters and driving games, and most especially, music games. When I got my Xbox, I made a pact that I wouldn't play while the kids were awake. I've gotten a little bit away from that and I'll play some driving games with them, and especially Rock Band where Kinsey and Sheryl will play drums and bass as well. It's incredibly fun. Plus we play it when our Life group comes over, after we get done with the Bible study and prayer time.
23) I do the laundry in our household. When Sheryl and I got married, we divided up the household chores. I took the outside of the house (excluding the garden) and she took the inside (excluding the laundry). Now you might think, "Why the laundry, Phil?" Because I can sit on my butt and watch TV while I fold clothes. It was a pretty easy decision. Now, that of course is not to say that I don't help out with cleaning the house, or Sheryl doesn't help with the laundry, but that's where the responsibilities tend to lay.
24) I would like to preach one sermon at Otter Creek. It sounds dumb, but I almost feel this "genetic" imperative to preach a sermon at Otter Creek, because of my great-grandfather preaching there. Now, I of course would like to be asked to speak on my own merits and not as a "pity" preacher, so it's not likely to happen, but I think it would be really neat to do that.
25) I don't know for certain what the afterlife will bring. I'm placing my faith that what Jesus said is true and that my desire to be as much like him as I can will put me in a place to be with him in eternity, saved by his grace. I don't know what that means for everyone else in the world, past, present, and future. But I feel like my calling is to show love to others and allow myself to be loved by them and by God. If I can somehow pull that off here on earth, perhaps God can show a little bit through me to them.
So that's 25 things. If you've lasted this long, I'd buy you a drink (non-alcoholic) but with the economy the way it is... well, you'll just have to be happy with a hearty congratulations.
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Teaching Strategies: The Pan Dance and a Bloody Leg
Once again, through the magic of Facebook, I've been reconnecting with some former students who have been reminding me about some of my more innovative strategies in teaching them. Innovative meaning that I didn't know what the crap I was doing, because it was my first year.
For instance, the Pan dance.
I love Greek mythology. I have since elementary school. I loved reading the stories from Robert Graves' Greek Gods and Heroes. And one of the units I taught to the 9th graders that first year was on Greek mythology. But I didn't want to lecture them. I didn't want it to bore them to tears. So I made it storytime, much like the ancient Greeks would have had. I told them the stories of the gods and their interaction with the humans. Nothing on the board, just pulling out a chair and telling them. The kids loved the stories about Zeus doing whatever he could to get with a human woman, because they were 9th graders and they're hormones on legs. But one god they could never get their heads around was Pan. Even when I described him as a half goat half man who danced around with Pan pipes, there was still difficulty. So in a flash of genius and/or lack of pride, I jumped up out of my chair and putting my fingers to my head like horns, proceeded to leap about my classroom, making what can only be described as noises like a dying goat in an imitation of pan pipes. I think the kids understood, even if they could never get the image of Mr. Wilson's Pan Dance out of their heads.
One more first year teacher first day story. As a first year teacher, you have NO idea how long it will take to say something and generally when I'm nervous I talk really fast. So my first day of teaching, I have what's called a creative writing rotation for 7th graders and then 8th graders. In an attempt to round out their education as much as possible the kids went to certain classes for 4 or 6 weeks and then moved to another one; hence rotation. In my school day I had 7th grade first, then 8th grade. Well, for the 7th grade, I gave my opening schpeil and we had about 5 minutes left in the period, so I could let them talk quietly, which 7th graders are so scared out of their minds that first day that they're almost petrified. 8th graders are not. They've been at MLK for a year and they know the ropes and they can get at young teachers. Add to that that the rotation period was longer and there were more of them than the 7th graders and it was a recipe for disaster. I finished my opening schpeil with them and there were 15 MINUTES left in the period. Oh crap what now... Well, since this was a creative writing class, I could have them write, but what? What could I do?
So in another flash of desperation I went to a standup cabinet that the previous teacher had left, looking for anything that would inspire me. And in it were a worn down leather basketball, a rusty steak knife, and what must have been an old mannequin leg with fake blood and a sock on it (I later learned it had been used in a drunk driving set up the previous year). And so, I brought them out and said over the rising cacophony, "OK, get out a piece of paper. For the rest of the time today, you are to write a story and this rusty steak knife, beat up basketball, and bloody leg must appear in it somewhere." As you might imagine, some of the stories that came out of that session were very... um, interesting, and creative. Sometimes the leg stayed a mannequin's leg, sometimes it was real. Sometimes it had a life of its own. And with that, another legend was born. I must have heard about that basketball, steak knife, and leg until I quit teaching, and I think Sheryl and I gave that leg as a Dirty Santa gift at some point.
For instance, the Pan dance.
I love Greek mythology. I have since elementary school. I loved reading the stories from Robert Graves' Greek Gods and Heroes. And one of the units I taught to the 9th graders that first year was on Greek mythology. But I didn't want to lecture them. I didn't want it to bore them to tears. So I made it storytime, much like the ancient Greeks would have had. I told them the stories of the gods and their interaction with the humans. Nothing on the board, just pulling out a chair and telling them. The kids loved the stories about Zeus doing whatever he could to get with a human woman, because they were 9th graders and they're hormones on legs. But one god they could never get their heads around was Pan. Even when I described him as a half goat half man who danced around with Pan pipes, there was still difficulty. So in a flash of genius and/or lack of pride, I jumped up out of my chair and putting my fingers to my head like horns, proceeded to leap about my classroom, making what can only be described as noises like a dying goat in an imitation of pan pipes. I think the kids understood, even if they could never get the image of Mr. Wilson's Pan Dance out of their heads.
One more first year teacher first day story. As a first year teacher, you have NO idea how long it will take to say something and generally when I'm nervous I talk really fast. So my first day of teaching, I have what's called a creative writing rotation for 7th graders and then 8th graders. In an attempt to round out their education as much as possible the kids went to certain classes for 4 or 6 weeks and then moved to another one; hence rotation. In my school day I had 7th grade first, then 8th grade. Well, for the 7th grade, I gave my opening schpeil and we had about 5 minutes left in the period, so I could let them talk quietly, which 7th graders are so scared out of their minds that first day that they're almost petrified. 8th graders are not. They've been at MLK for a year and they know the ropes and they can get at young teachers. Add to that that the rotation period was longer and there were more of them than the 7th graders and it was a recipe for disaster. I finished my opening schpeil with them and there were 15 MINUTES left in the period. Oh crap what now... Well, since this was a creative writing class, I could have them write, but what? What could I do?
So in another flash of desperation I went to a standup cabinet that the previous teacher had left, looking for anything that would inspire me. And in it were a worn down leather basketball, a rusty steak knife, and what must have been an old mannequin leg with fake blood and a sock on it (I later learned it had been used in a drunk driving set up the previous year). And so, I brought them out and said over the rising cacophony, "OK, get out a piece of paper. For the rest of the time today, you are to write a story and this rusty steak knife, beat up basketball, and bloody leg must appear in it somewhere." As you might imagine, some of the stories that came out of that session were very... um, interesting, and creative. Sometimes the leg stayed a mannequin's leg, sometimes it was real. Sometimes it had a life of its own. And with that, another legend was born. I must have heard about that basketball, steak knife, and leg until I quit teaching, and I think Sheryl and I gave that leg as a Dirty Santa gift at some point.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Graduation: A Teaching Story
I haven't done a teaching post in a while and I got thinking about it some last night.
My second year of teaching was the first year I taught seniors. Considering that in my first year I had taught 7th, 8th, and 9th grades so this was a considerable change. I was way off my game that whole year due to a lot of things... we were moving into a new section of the building, I got engaged to Sheryl, just a lot of stuff happening. I liked the kids that I taught but never felt a "real" connection with them, plus it was only one class.
The next year, my third, I had 4 classes of seniors. This is the group I talked about a couple of years ago. It was tough, but it was also some of the most rewarding times I had as teacher. And the best part of it was graduation. Having taught over 100 of these students, I was asked to be on stage and to help read their names, and it was an incredible honor. These were kids that I had worked with and struggled with and laughed with. To call the names of students that I had helped tutor and even ones that had given me a hard time just brought such a sense of closure to the whole thing. It was a senior class where two kids failed my English class and didn't graduate (on one hand, a terrible shame; on the other, it showed later senior classes that we were serious about the grades and no one was passing just to pass [they failed because they never came in a made up their work]). It included a girl with a 1 year old daughter who I had made a promise to at the beginning of the year. If she worked hard, I would help her in any way I could to make sure she would graduate. And she did. And I made sure I read her name as she walked across the dias and I stopped reading names to give her a hug because I was so incredibly proud of her.
As much hard work as graduation was to put together (renting the place, setting up, getting the right flowers, etc), seeing the whole group of seniors together was just a very rewarding experience. And it was like I told the seniors in the class of 2000 (my last year of teaching, even though I wasn't sure of it at the time), "Look around. This is the last time all of you will be together like this. Even at class reunions, not everyone will be there. So give hugs and remember yourselves as this group."
And it's crazy, because I'm not in regular contact with just about anyone I graduated with from Hume-Fogg, but I remember most of the names (of course with only 83 people in the graduating class, it's easier to do that than with 2,000). I remember the people that I hung with and even though that's literally half a lifetime ago, I still have great memories of it and I hope the kids I taught have some of those same memories too.
My second year of teaching was the first year I taught seniors. Considering that in my first year I had taught 7th, 8th, and 9th grades so this was a considerable change. I was way off my game that whole year due to a lot of things... we were moving into a new section of the building, I got engaged to Sheryl, just a lot of stuff happening. I liked the kids that I taught but never felt a "real" connection with them, plus it was only one class.
The next year, my third, I had 4 classes of seniors. This is the group I talked about a couple of years ago. It was tough, but it was also some of the most rewarding times I had as teacher. And the best part of it was graduation. Having taught over 100 of these students, I was asked to be on stage and to help read their names, and it was an incredible honor. These were kids that I had worked with and struggled with and laughed with. To call the names of students that I had helped tutor and even ones that had given me a hard time just brought such a sense of closure to the whole thing. It was a senior class where two kids failed my English class and didn't graduate (on one hand, a terrible shame; on the other, it showed later senior classes that we were serious about the grades and no one was passing just to pass [they failed because they never came in a made up their work]). It included a girl with a 1 year old daughter who I had made a promise to at the beginning of the year. If she worked hard, I would help her in any way I could to make sure she would graduate. And she did. And I made sure I read her name as she walked across the dias and I stopped reading names to give her a hug because I was so incredibly proud of her.
As much hard work as graduation was to put together (renting the place, setting up, getting the right flowers, etc), seeing the whole group of seniors together was just a very rewarding experience. And it was like I told the seniors in the class of 2000 (my last year of teaching, even though I wasn't sure of it at the time), "Look around. This is the last time all of you will be together like this. Even at class reunions, not everyone will be there. So give hugs and remember yourselves as this group."
And it's crazy, because I'm not in regular contact with just about anyone I graduated with from Hume-Fogg, but I remember most of the names (of course with only 83 people in the graduating class, it's easier to do that than with 2,000). I remember the people that I hung with and even though that's literally half a lifetime ago, I still have great memories of it and I hope the kids I taught have some of those same memories too.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
YouTube Thursday: Taylor Mali
My buddy Gavin linked to this video the other day by a Slam Poet known as Taylor Mali...
And I think that one is brilliant. Just freaking brilliant. But this next one almost makes me want to go back into teaching...
Almost. You can find Taylor Mali at www.taylormali.com
And I think that one is brilliant. Just freaking brilliant. But this next one almost makes me want to go back into teaching...
Almost. You can find Taylor Mali at www.taylormali.com
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Grades
Kinsey's first first grade report card came out yesterday and Sheryl and I are very happy with her. She's doing well and really enjoying it. She's really good in math, which I never was, and is doing really well in her reading.
It's interesting about how my attitude about grades has changed from when I was in school until now. When I was teaching, grades were often that deadline that I didn't look forward to doing. either because I wasn't completely ready or I knew that some kids were going to be very disappointed. My other feeling was that was WAY too much importance put on grades. Grades are supposed to be indicators of how much the students had learned in the class. Did it always properly reflect that? Well, in my classes, I hope that it did. But when we started putting such import on the grades and rather than the actual knowledge gained from a class... that's when cheating becomes rampant. When the focus is put on the number score on a piece of paper, rather than the actual knowledge gained, that's when we've gotten all screwed up. And that's the school's fault and the parent's fault and the college's fault. And it's a slippery slope that we all get caught up in, because we want the best for our kids and we put so much import on their future that we make them uber-competitive with each other. And that doesn't help them either.
So, for Kinsey, grades are important and we want her to make good grades, but we want her to learn and do her best at everything she tries. And we also want her to know that we will never judge her worth based on those grades. We're happy when she makes does well in school, but that's not where her worth comes from.
It's interesting about how my attitude about grades has changed from when I was in school until now. When I was teaching, grades were often that deadline that I didn't look forward to doing. either because I wasn't completely ready or I knew that some kids were going to be very disappointed. My other feeling was that was WAY too much importance put on grades. Grades are supposed to be indicators of how much the students had learned in the class. Did it always properly reflect that? Well, in my classes, I hope that it did. But when we started putting such import on the grades and rather than the actual knowledge gained from a class... that's when cheating becomes rampant. When the focus is put on the number score on a piece of paper, rather than the actual knowledge gained, that's when we've gotten all screwed up. And that's the school's fault and the parent's fault and the college's fault. And it's a slippery slope that we all get caught up in, because we want the best for our kids and we put so much import on their future that we make them uber-competitive with each other. And that doesn't help them either.
So, for Kinsey, grades are important and we want her to make good grades, but we want her to learn and do her best at everything she tries. And we also want her to know that we will never judge her worth based on those grades. We're happy when she makes does well in school, but that's not where her worth comes from.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Deseg and Reseg: How it affects us
Kinsey is going to have to move schools. We're being rezoned. That's how it affects us. We haven't told her yet, because what good will it do? She can't do anything about it and it would just be a distraction from her school work.
Now for the real fun.
The other way that it affects us is that many of the inner city kids will not be a part of her life. Some might consider this a good thing, but honestly, I don't. Here's why. I went to high school at an academic magnet school downtown and then taught at one close by where at least 30% of the population had to be African-American. That's why MAGNET schools were created to draw white students to the inner city. One of the happy things that came out of that was an exposure to other races and ideologies that I would not necessarily have been exposed to. In high school, my circle of friends included a Korean, an Indian (subcontinental), a couple of white thrashers, and an African American. And we all just kind of hung out together and didn't worry about race.
What I worry about this is that our kids will not be exposed to different cultures to the extent that they were before. Are neighborhood schools a good thing? Yes, I think they are. And hopefully, in the inner city, they will encourage more parent involvement in the schools, but they also are de facto resegregation. And maybe we've been moving toward this for a while. Most private schools are de facto resegregation (and unfortunately, if you look at when most private and/or Christian schools were started here in Nashville, you'll see a sad correlation to when the desegregation court order was passed and enforced). When I was teaching and we had assemblies where kids could sit where they wanted, it was like the Red Sea parting: African Americans on one side, Caucasians on another. I don't think it was intentional racism; it was simply cultural affinity and comfort within that setting.
What I'm afraid that this rezoning will do is remove an excuse for people to have to interact with those different than themselves. I know that I'm a more rounded person because of my exposure to different cultures and races. And hopefully, we can help Kinsey and Connor do it outside of their school educational experience.
Now for the real fun.
The other way that it affects us is that many of the inner city kids will not be a part of her life. Some might consider this a good thing, but honestly, I don't. Here's why. I went to high school at an academic magnet school downtown and then taught at one close by where at least 30% of the population had to be African-American. That's why MAGNET schools were created to draw white students to the inner city. One of the happy things that came out of that was an exposure to other races and ideologies that I would not necessarily have been exposed to. In high school, my circle of friends included a Korean, an Indian (subcontinental), a couple of white thrashers, and an African American. And we all just kind of hung out together and didn't worry about race.
What I worry about this is that our kids will not be exposed to different cultures to the extent that they were before. Are neighborhood schools a good thing? Yes, I think they are. And hopefully, in the inner city, they will encourage more parent involvement in the schools, but they also are de facto resegregation. And maybe we've been moving toward this for a while. Most private schools are de facto resegregation (and unfortunately, if you look at when most private and/or Christian schools were started here in Nashville, you'll see a sad correlation to when the desegregation court order was passed and enforced). When I was teaching and we had assemblies where kids could sit where they wanted, it was like the Red Sea parting: African Americans on one side, Caucasians on another. I don't think it was intentional racism; it was simply cultural affinity and comfort within that setting.
What I'm afraid that this rezoning will do is remove an excuse for people to have to interact with those different than themselves. I know that I'm a more rounded person because of my exposure to different cultures and races. And hopefully, we can help Kinsey and Connor do it outside of their school educational experience.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Education Continued
Last week's conversation was really good and I enjoyed hearing everyone's thoughts on it. Education is a huge topic and just gets more personal when you're talking about your progeny. Many others gave some of their schooling background, so here's my context.
For first and second grade, I went to Eakin Elementary. It's the age I was when I filmed this. Because I was young and not as socially adept, I did second grade again at Woodmont Elementary (there's a park there now). We then moved to the Green Hills area and I went to Glendale Elementary from third to sixth grade. I then went to JT Moore Middle for two weeks and then transfered to Caldwell Middle Magnet (now Meigs). And for high school, Hume Fogg Academic.
I then wanted a fairly small college and one that had a Christian orientation (and honestly, I thought God wanted me to show all the Pharisaical hypocrites in the Church of Christ how to be a real Christian), so I went to Lipscomb University. And on one hand, I really pitied people that I called K through Life, people that went from Kindergarten through college. My feeling was that when "they" got out into the "real world," they were in for a terrible shock. This is also another reason that I'm not thrilled with the idea of the kids in a private school.
Now the consideration could be made that I wasn't either. Not only did I go to academic magnet schools from 7-12 grades, I went to a private school for college, and then taught in an academic magnet school for six years. I never really experienced "real life" until I got into the business world. And honestly, I think Sheryl and I would be very, very happy with our kids in a magnet school setting. I got a lot out of it myself.
Well, that's a lot more rambling, and perhaps more than you wanted to know about my educational background. Hopefully some video next week of Connor taking some steps...
For first and second grade, I went to Eakin Elementary. It's the age I was when I filmed this. Because I was young and not as socially adept, I did second grade again at Woodmont Elementary (there's a park there now). We then moved to the Green Hills area and I went to Glendale Elementary from third to sixth grade. I then went to JT Moore Middle for two weeks and then transfered to Caldwell Middle Magnet (now Meigs). And for high school, Hume Fogg Academic.
I then wanted a fairly small college and one that had a Christian orientation (and honestly, I thought God wanted me to show all the Pharisaical hypocrites in the Church of Christ how to be a real Christian), so I went to Lipscomb University. And on one hand, I really pitied people that I called K through Life, people that went from Kindergarten through college. My feeling was that when "they" got out into the "real world," they were in for a terrible shock. This is also another reason that I'm not thrilled with the idea of the kids in a private school.
Now the consideration could be made that I wasn't either. Not only did I go to academic magnet schools from 7-12 grades, I went to a private school for college, and then taught in an academic magnet school for six years. I never really experienced "real life" until I got into the business world. And honestly, I think Sheryl and I would be very, very happy with our kids in a magnet school setting. I got a lot out of it myself.
Well, that's a lot more rambling, and perhaps more than you wanted to know about my educational background. Hopefully some video next week of Connor taking some steps...
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Phil Wilson, AP English Teacher
It's weird how some things happen. In the space of the last several days, I've run into or been in contact with several of my former students from MLK, where I taught from 1994 to 2000. That student teacher bond is a strange one that can last for years and years. But here's the story of how I lived one of my teaching dreams. Warning: this will be a pretty long post.
After the 1996-1997 school year, the then-current Advanced Placement (AP) English at MLK moved to another school for reasons I won't go into here. At that point, I'd only been teaching for four years and thought that I might be considered a bit young to teach AP, but I thought that I would go to the administration and express my desire to take on the class. I was surprised when they said that they thought I would be a great teacher and lined me up to take some training on how to teach AP English. The training I got was EXCELLENT and it really prepared me to take on the class.
You see, I thought I was uniquely qualified to teach the course, because I'd taken AP English as a Senior at Hume-Fogg Academic, another magnet school here in Nashville. I was also considered a borderline student, a "project" if you will. And Mr. Kaplan, the AP teacher at HFA, told me as much. He told me that he wasn't sure that I could handle the workload, but he was willing to take a chance on me, and I was glad he did, as I got a 4 out of 5 on the exam (3 is passing) and it got me out of my complete freshman year of English at Lipscomb. Knowing that I was a borderline student, I knew that I could help encourage similar students at MLK and hopefully bring them up as well.
Now, MLK was going through a sea-change in its attitudes toward AP courses. In previous years, anyone who wanted to take an AP class could and in fact, before I started teaching AP, I had several students drop my Honors Senior class into AP, because they thought it was easier, and in some ways, it was. However, even if you took the class, you weren't required to take the AP test, a philosophy I disagreed with. I thought that if you took the class, you should take the test, otherwise, why take the class? The flip side of that coin was the idea of giving the student the experience of taking a college level class without the pressure of the exam. MLK was switching to the mindset of "if you take the class, you take the exam." I liked this and told my kids the first day of class that if they had no intention of taking the class, they needed to drop it right then, because we were focusing on preparing for the test in May. In fact, that first day, I put a countdown on my white board of the # of days until the test, just to remind the students of it.
In the first week of class, I gave the students a practice AP English exam. I'd gotten several from the training I took, which were invaluable. The AP English exam consists of two parts, or did back then: 1 section of multiple choice over several pieces of short literature, prose and poetry, and 1 section of 3 essays to be written in 2 hours. One essay was over a short poem, one was over a short prose piece (neither of which the students would have been likely to see before), and one "open-ended" where the students could use a book or books they'd read to answer a question. I knew most of my kids wouldn't have written that much before, so they needed to be trained to write an essay in 40 minutes, so we worked on that, a lot. And after we scored the preliminary essays, I told the kids that my goal for the year was to get them one score higher than where they were at the beginning of the year. So if they scored a 2 on the practice test, they should be able to get a 3 on the real one in the spring. And if they scored a 5 on it, then they should be very happy with themselves and not bother me too much.
Some people might complain that I was "teaching to the test," and that's true to some extent. But in a world where teachers are judged by what their children score on the tests they take, I was surely going to make sure they did well. We naturally covered a lot of literature, did some prerequisite vocabulary, and even did some fun stuff at several points in the year, like having the kids act out different Canterbury Tales (not the dirty ones, although we did read the Miller's Tale out loud in class). We read Macbeth and A Streetcar Named Desire, among other plays. They read Grendel and Catcher in the Rye, among many other novels. Every six weeks, we'd do a practice AP exam and score it and then go over the answers and why they put what they did. We covered the beauty of poetry, and unfortunately had to break it into parts to understand it for the test, although I think some of the kids started to see some of the beauty of it. For those three classes in those two years, they probably read and wrote more than they had in most of their lives. In February, we did a live practice test on a Saturday. They weren't required, but it was highly recommended. They took a multiple choice section for an hour, they took a break, and then they wrote three essays in two hours, their first real exposure to the rigors of an AP English test. And I had to score all of them. Every single one, plus their book journals, and their spring research papers.
But I loved it. I was teaching some of the smartest kids in Nashville about some of the greatest works of literature in the world. And it led to wonderful discussions. All of those things they told us in teacher orientation not to talk about, we talked about: sex, religion, politics, race. Because, guess what? That's what 18 year olds are interested in talking about! They were discussion where wide and varying viewpoints were brought out, and the kids were exposed to ideas that stretched beyond their own.
The other thing I loved what that, unlike my Honors classes, I didn't feel like it was me against the kids. They weren't trying to get through me to get to graduation. In my AP classes, it was us against the test. And I was the coach. They knew that I didn't want them to fail. That I didn't want them to be humiliated. So I was going to do everything I could to take care of them. To encourage them. To kick them in the butt if they needed that.
And at the end of that first year, 83% of my kids passed the AP English Exam. And at the end of the second year, 77% passed. Only one time in my teaching career was I prouder, but that's another story for another day.
And when my kids walked across the stage at TSU to get their diplomas, I was as proud as their parents were. I was watching kids I'd known since the eighth ('99) and seventh ('00) grade take a step toward adulthood.
Like I said, it's weird how things happen. I got an email from a former student telling me that I was responsible for her love of literature and writing. That's one of those irreplaceable feelings for me. That knowledge of sparking a love for literature. It's just... amazing.
Teaching is a special time of my life and honestly, it's hard to believe that I've been NOT teaching longer than I actually taught. In some ways, I still feel like that 28 year old guy when I get a hankering to pull a Faulkner book off the shelf, or want to take a dive into Henry IV, Part 1, even if I'm seven years beyond that now. Getting out of teaching has afforded me the opportunity for Sheryl to be home and be the primary caregiver to our kids. It's allowed me to expand my horizons beyond English into interface design and coding, but it's also shortened those horizons some too. I don't get to look into the eyes of the 18 year olds that I've taught and see the future. To see lives being formed. To see options and dreams and the wonder of life unbroken against experience. I see it in Kinsey some, but that's different too.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is Thank you. If you were one of my students, AP or not, thank you. Thank you for six incredible years. Thank you for being a part of my life every day of those years. And thanks for saying hi to me when you see me around town. It reminds me that "Yeah. I really was a pretty good teacher," and you all were some pretty great kids.
Thanks.
After the 1996-1997 school year, the then-current Advanced Placement (AP) English at MLK moved to another school for reasons I won't go into here. At that point, I'd only been teaching for four years and thought that I might be considered a bit young to teach AP, but I thought that I would go to the administration and express my desire to take on the class. I was surprised when they said that they thought I would be a great teacher and lined me up to take some training on how to teach AP English. The training I got was EXCELLENT and it really prepared me to take on the class.
You see, I thought I was uniquely qualified to teach the course, because I'd taken AP English as a Senior at Hume-Fogg Academic, another magnet school here in Nashville. I was also considered a borderline student, a "project" if you will. And Mr. Kaplan, the AP teacher at HFA, told me as much. He told me that he wasn't sure that I could handle the workload, but he was willing to take a chance on me, and I was glad he did, as I got a 4 out of 5 on the exam (3 is passing) and it got me out of my complete freshman year of English at Lipscomb. Knowing that I was a borderline student, I knew that I could help encourage similar students at MLK and hopefully bring them up as well.
Now, MLK was going through a sea-change in its attitudes toward AP courses. In previous years, anyone who wanted to take an AP class could and in fact, before I started teaching AP, I had several students drop my Honors Senior class into AP, because they thought it was easier, and in some ways, it was. However, even if you took the class, you weren't required to take the AP test, a philosophy I disagreed with. I thought that if you took the class, you should take the test, otherwise, why take the class? The flip side of that coin was the idea of giving the student the experience of taking a college level class without the pressure of the exam. MLK was switching to the mindset of "if you take the class, you take the exam." I liked this and told my kids the first day of class that if they had no intention of taking the class, they needed to drop it right then, because we were focusing on preparing for the test in May. In fact, that first day, I put a countdown on my white board of the # of days until the test, just to remind the students of it.
In the first week of class, I gave the students a practice AP English exam. I'd gotten several from the training I took, which were invaluable. The AP English exam consists of two parts, or did back then: 1 section of multiple choice over several pieces of short literature, prose and poetry, and 1 section of 3 essays to be written in 2 hours. One essay was over a short poem, one was over a short prose piece (neither of which the students would have been likely to see before), and one "open-ended" where the students could use a book or books they'd read to answer a question. I knew most of my kids wouldn't have written that much before, so they needed to be trained to write an essay in 40 minutes, so we worked on that, a lot. And after we scored the preliminary essays, I told the kids that my goal for the year was to get them one score higher than where they were at the beginning of the year. So if they scored a 2 on the practice test, they should be able to get a 3 on the real one in the spring. And if they scored a 5 on it, then they should be very happy with themselves and not bother me too much.
Some people might complain that I was "teaching to the test," and that's true to some extent. But in a world where teachers are judged by what their children score on the tests they take, I was surely going to make sure they did well. We naturally covered a lot of literature, did some prerequisite vocabulary, and even did some fun stuff at several points in the year, like having the kids act out different Canterbury Tales (not the dirty ones, although we did read the Miller's Tale out loud in class). We read Macbeth and A Streetcar Named Desire, among other plays. They read Grendel and Catcher in the Rye, among many other novels. Every six weeks, we'd do a practice AP exam and score it and then go over the answers and why they put what they did. We covered the beauty of poetry, and unfortunately had to break it into parts to understand it for the test, although I think some of the kids started to see some of the beauty of it. For those three classes in those two years, they probably read and wrote more than they had in most of their lives. In February, we did a live practice test on a Saturday. They weren't required, but it was highly recommended. They took a multiple choice section for an hour, they took a break, and then they wrote three essays in two hours, their first real exposure to the rigors of an AP English test. And I had to score all of them. Every single one, plus their book journals, and their spring research papers.
But I loved it. I was teaching some of the smartest kids in Nashville about some of the greatest works of literature in the world. And it led to wonderful discussions. All of those things they told us in teacher orientation not to talk about, we talked about: sex, religion, politics, race. Because, guess what? That's what 18 year olds are interested in talking about! They were discussion where wide and varying viewpoints were brought out, and the kids were exposed to ideas that stretched beyond their own.
The other thing I loved what that, unlike my Honors classes, I didn't feel like it was me against the kids. They weren't trying to get through me to get to graduation. In my AP classes, it was us against the test. And I was the coach. They knew that I didn't want them to fail. That I didn't want them to be humiliated. So I was going to do everything I could to take care of them. To encourage them. To kick them in the butt if they needed that.
And at the end of that first year, 83% of my kids passed the AP English Exam. And at the end of the second year, 77% passed. Only one time in my teaching career was I prouder, but that's another story for another day.
And when my kids walked across the stage at TSU to get their diplomas, I was as proud as their parents were. I was watching kids I'd known since the eighth ('99) and seventh ('00) grade take a step toward adulthood.
Like I said, it's weird how things happen. I got an email from a former student telling me that I was responsible for her love of literature and writing. That's one of those irreplaceable feelings for me. That knowledge of sparking a love for literature. It's just... amazing.
Teaching is a special time of my life and honestly, it's hard to believe that I've been NOT teaching longer than I actually taught. In some ways, I still feel like that 28 year old guy when I get a hankering to pull a Faulkner book off the shelf, or want to take a dive into Henry IV, Part 1, even if I'm seven years beyond that now. Getting out of teaching has afforded me the opportunity for Sheryl to be home and be the primary caregiver to our kids. It's allowed me to expand my horizons beyond English into interface design and coding, but it's also shortened those horizons some too. I don't get to look into the eyes of the 18 year olds that I've taught and see the future. To see lives being formed. To see options and dreams and the wonder of life unbroken against experience. I see it in Kinsey some, but that's different too.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is Thank you. If you were one of my students, AP or not, thank you. Thank you for six incredible years. Thank you for being a part of my life every day of those years. And thanks for saying hi to me when you see me around town. It reminds me that "Yeah. I really was a pretty good teacher," and you all were some pretty great kids.
Thanks.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
How to Have Fun As a Teacher (and Really Mess With Your Kids' Heads)
I've talked previously about some of my less than usual experiences as a teacher here and here and here. Here's another one.
I remember very distinctly being a senior in high school while taking an English test and thinking, "If I ever thought about becoming a teacher, I would make a true-false test where all the answers but one was true. Or a multiple choice test where all the answers are C." I had no idea at that point that I would actually teach for six years but there you go. Never actually did that, but what I did was a bit craftier.
One of my policies in my Honors Senior English class was that there was one outside book read every six weeks period. I can't remember all of them now, and I was pretty naive when it came to being a teacher, but fairly early, I realized that the last six weeks of the school year was going to be pretty hard to get things done. Seniors still had to pass me to graduate, but their motivation was a bit harder to bring to the surface.
When the book was due, I gave the kids a multiple choice/true-false objective test about facts in the book, what happened in the story, who characters were, that kind of stuff. Then we'd talk about the book in class for a couple of days and then they'd write a paper on a certain topic. Well, in the final six weeks, I chose George Eliot's Silas Marner, a fairly short book. However, after the first year, I realized most of the kids weren't reading it; they were reading the ever famous Cliff's Notes. Now, I didn't mind if they read those, but along with the book, so the next year, I devised a plan.
Throughout the test in the multiple choice questions, I sprinkled incorrect answers about a golden ring. I probably mentioned references to this ring in about four different places. A ring that never once appeared in the book. However, the students that hadn't actually read the book didn't know that. So, as I watched them take the test, I could see confused looks on kids' faces as they went back and forth on the different questions, noticing that the ring was mentioned a couple of times, and being pretty good test takers (it is indeed possible to pass a test without ever having cracked open the book), I knew I'd got them. I also hoped that the kids that actually read the book wouldn't get tripped up on it, and try to remember the ring.
Of course, once I graded the tests and handed them back, I told them what I had done and made it a cautionary tale about actually reading the assigned material, but we actually enjoyed a good laugh about it.
Sometimes I miss being able to mess with people with impunity, but I guess that's why God lets us have children.
Just kidding, future Kinsey and Connor. Any way that I mess you up is purely by accident... as far as you know. And really, it's not raining because you disappointed God and He's crying.
I remember very distinctly being a senior in high school while taking an English test and thinking, "If I ever thought about becoming a teacher, I would make a true-false test where all the answers but one was true. Or a multiple choice test where all the answers are C." I had no idea at that point that I would actually teach for six years but there you go. Never actually did that, but what I did was a bit craftier.
One of my policies in my Honors Senior English class was that there was one outside book read every six weeks period. I can't remember all of them now, and I was pretty naive when it came to being a teacher, but fairly early, I realized that the last six weeks of the school year was going to be pretty hard to get things done. Seniors still had to pass me to graduate, but their motivation was a bit harder to bring to the surface.
When the book was due, I gave the kids a multiple choice/true-false objective test about facts in the book, what happened in the story, who characters were, that kind of stuff. Then we'd talk about the book in class for a couple of days and then they'd write a paper on a certain topic. Well, in the final six weeks, I chose George Eliot's Silas Marner, a fairly short book. However, after the first year, I realized most of the kids weren't reading it; they were reading the ever famous Cliff's Notes. Now, I didn't mind if they read those, but along with the book, so the next year, I devised a plan.
Throughout the test in the multiple choice questions, I sprinkled incorrect answers about a golden ring. I probably mentioned references to this ring in about four different places. A ring that never once appeared in the book. However, the students that hadn't actually read the book didn't know that. So, as I watched them take the test, I could see confused looks on kids' faces as they went back and forth on the different questions, noticing that the ring was mentioned a couple of times, and being pretty good test takers (it is indeed possible to pass a test without ever having cracked open the book), I knew I'd got them. I also hoped that the kids that actually read the book wouldn't get tripped up on it, and try to remember the ring.
Of course, once I graded the tests and handed them back, I told them what I had done and made it a cautionary tale about actually reading the assigned material, but we actually enjoyed a good laugh about it.
Sometimes I miss being able to mess with people with impunity, but I guess that's why God lets us have children.
Just kidding, future Kinsey and Connor. Any way that I mess you up is purely by accident... as far as you know. And really, it's not raining because you disappointed God and He's crying.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
The Fake Test Key
A couple of weeks ago, I told the story of how I called a misbehaving kid's mom in class and had him tell her what he'd done. Today, the story of the fake test key.
One thing I told my kids on the first day of class was that I really liked all of them (almost true), but that I only trusted them as far as I could see them and sometimes not that far. You see, what American educational culture has done is put a focus and emphasis on the grades made as representative of the learning. Hence, an A is supposed to designate that you've mastered 93 to 100% of the material and so on down the line.
Well, what kids have figured out is that colleges don't really care about the knowledge as much as they care about the grades, so if your grade is an A, but you really only know 75% of the stuff, it's the A that matters. Hence, cheating, or slightly worse, studying only for the test and then immediately forgetting the material (much as I did in my year of French in college [sorry, Dr. Prill]).
I saw one of my jobs as a teacher to try and fight this tendency as much as possible, so I did everything I could to stop cheating. All books had to be in the bags at test and quiz time. I was not a teacher that graded papers or read the paper while the kids were testing; I watched those kids while they tested. They used cover sheets. I called the names of kids whose eyes I saw wandering (even though I knew that they, like me, might just be seeing where their neighbors were on the test compared to themselves [although I had a bit of the wandering eye for cheating in high school too]). I even tried to make my tests as nonobjective as possible. In other words, not multiple choice, matching, or the like. Most of mine were essay or short answer. However, I did have to do those multiple choice questions sometimes and here's where the story starts.
I knew I had some people in a class that would cheat at most opportunities. So, one day I devised a scheme. We had a multiple choice test on a certain topic and before the class came in, I made out my key as usual. And then I hit on the idea. So I made a fake key. Now, making a fake key is not easy. You can't miss the obvious questions, unless the kids are simply looking at the answers. So I probably missed 12 out of the 20 questions on the test. I then set it beside my desk and carefully stepped on it. I wanted it to look like it had dropped off my desk and I had stepped on it on my way out without noticing it.
When I came time for class to start, I was deliberately a couple of minutes late, and as I came up to the door, I heard, "There he is!" "Hurry" and I knew it had worked.
Well, the kids worked through the test and since all of them were there that day, we checked it in class. As I started giving the answers, I could see confusion on the faces of some of the kids. The answers weren't coming out like they thought they were. At the end, I told the kids what I had done and while they were initially a bit upset, when I explained that the point of the exercise was to show them the importance of studying and that if they had studied, they would have recognized those answers were wrong, I think they understood.
Next time: how I invented a nonexistent plot line in a test about a novel.
One thing I told my kids on the first day of class was that I really liked all of them (almost true), but that I only trusted them as far as I could see them and sometimes not that far. You see, what American educational culture has done is put a focus and emphasis on the grades made as representative of the learning. Hence, an A is supposed to designate that you've mastered 93 to 100% of the material and so on down the line.
Well, what kids have figured out is that colleges don't really care about the knowledge as much as they care about the grades, so if your grade is an A, but you really only know 75% of the stuff, it's the A that matters. Hence, cheating, or slightly worse, studying only for the test and then immediately forgetting the material (much as I did in my year of French in college [sorry, Dr. Prill]).
I saw one of my jobs as a teacher to try and fight this tendency as much as possible, so I did everything I could to stop cheating. All books had to be in the bags at test and quiz time. I was not a teacher that graded papers or read the paper while the kids were testing; I watched those kids while they tested. They used cover sheets. I called the names of kids whose eyes I saw wandering (even though I knew that they, like me, might just be seeing where their neighbors were on the test compared to themselves [although I had a bit of the wandering eye for cheating in high school too]). I even tried to make my tests as nonobjective as possible. In other words, not multiple choice, matching, or the like. Most of mine were essay or short answer. However, I did have to do those multiple choice questions sometimes and here's where the story starts.
I knew I had some people in a class that would cheat at most opportunities. So, one day I devised a scheme. We had a multiple choice test on a certain topic and before the class came in, I made out my key as usual. And then I hit on the idea. So I made a fake key. Now, making a fake key is not easy. You can't miss the obvious questions, unless the kids are simply looking at the answers. So I probably missed 12 out of the 20 questions on the test. I then set it beside my desk and carefully stepped on it. I wanted it to look like it had dropped off my desk and I had stepped on it on my way out without noticing it.
When I came time for class to start, I was deliberately a couple of minutes late, and as I came up to the door, I heard, "There he is!" "Hurry" and I knew it had worked.
Well, the kids worked through the test and since all of them were there that day, we checked it in class. As I started giving the answers, I could see confusion on the faces of some of the kids. The answers weren't coming out like they thought they were. At the end, I told the kids what I had done and while they were initially a bit upset, when I explained that the point of the exercise was to show them the importance of studying and that if they had studied, they would have recognized those answers were wrong, I think they understood.
Next time: how I invented a nonexistent plot line in a test about a novel.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
A Teaching Story
I talked a few weeks back about a story from my years teaching English at MLK here in Nashville, so I thought I'd share some of that with you guys.
I was very fortunate to get a teaching job right out of college and even luckier to get one at an academic magnet school. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a magnet school, the idea is that something about the school draws kids from the suburbs into the inner city areas. In MLK's and Hume-Fogg's cases, it's academics. It's all a part of the desegregation plan from 1972 and then re-upped in 1983.
The nice thing about getting into a magnet school was that I had gone to Hume-Fogg for high school, another academic magnet, so I knew the mindset of a lot of these kids. Pretty high test scores, a lot of things academically had come easy to them and this was going to be some of the first real challenges that some of them had faced and they would react in different ways. Some would rise to the challenge, some would continue their "class clown" ways to avoid dealing with the idea that they might not be the smartest kid in class now, and some were really good testers but not great students.
So, in my second year (I'll talk about the first year one of these days; therapy is really helping ;-)), I got two classes of 8th grade history, in addition to my 1 class of Senior English and two Creative Writing rotations. The second History class was the final period of the day and so kids (and teachers) were punchy any way. Add to this that the class was 14 kids: 12 boys and two girls. And one of the girls was, shall we say, an early developer. And all the boys were fascinated with her. Now, 8th grade boys are hormones who happen to have legs. So they would do crazy stuff to get her attention. Straws up their noses, pencils in the ceiling, yelling out random cuss words in class, crazy stuff.
Well, I would rant and rave to get their attention and keep it in class, but I could usually only hold it for 10 minutes or so, or if we were talking about a war, sometimes the whole class. Finally I had had enough and I decided to use a strategy I had heard about from another teacher. One kid in particular had been giving me a lot of trouble and on this day it was the last straw. I actually forget what he did, but I'm sure I'd told him not to do it before. Nothing had worked before. However, I knew there was one thing that 13 year old boys hate more than anything else: embarassment in front of their friends.
So, I went to my desk and got out his personal information sheet. I got out my cell phone and in front of the class, I called his mom at work. I told her who I was and said that her son wanted to tell her something. I handed him the phone and he told her what he'd done. She talked for a couple of minutesthen he handed the phone back to me with tears in his eyes, apologized, and went back to his seat. His mom told me he shouldn't be a problem anymore and that if he was, to please call her back.
He, in fact, wasn't a problem anymore and that class got much, much better from then on. And while my relationship with him was strained for a couple of days, he got much better behaved and became a pretty good kid.
This is also the class where I developed my "fake test key on the ground next to my desk" gambit, but I'll tell that story another day.
I was very fortunate to get a teaching job right out of college and even luckier to get one at an academic magnet school. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a magnet school, the idea is that something about the school draws kids from the suburbs into the inner city areas. In MLK's and Hume-Fogg's cases, it's academics. It's all a part of the desegregation plan from 1972 and then re-upped in 1983.
The nice thing about getting into a magnet school was that I had gone to Hume-Fogg for high school, another academic magnet, so I knew the mindset of a lot of these kids. Pretty high test scores, a lot of things academically had come easy to them and this was going to be some of the first real challenges that some of them had faced and they would react in different ways. Some would rise to the challenge, some would continue their "class clown" ways to avoid dealing with the idea that they might not be the smartest kid in class now, and some were really good testers but not great students.
So, in my second year (I'll talk about the first year one of these days; therapy is really helping ;-)), I got two classes of 8th grade history, in addition to my 1 class of Senior English and two Creative Writing rotations. The second History class was the final period of the day and so kids (and teachers) were punchy any way. Add to this that the class was 14 kids: 12 boys and two girls. And one of the girls was, shall we say, an early developer. And all the boys were fascinated with her. Now, 8th grade boys are hormones who happen to have legs. So they would do crazy stuff to get her attention. Straws up their noses, pencils in the ceiling, yelling out random cuss words in class, crazy stuff.
Well, I would rant and rave to get their attention and keep it in class, but I could usually only hold it for 10 minutes or so, or if we were talking about a war, sometimes the whole class. Finally I had had enough and I decided to use a strategy I had heard about from another teacher. One kid in particular had been giving me a lot of trouble and on this day it was the last straw. I actually forget what he did, but I'm sure I'd told him not to do it before. Nothing had worked before. However, I knew there was one thing that 13 year old boys hate more than anything else: embarassment in front of their friends.
So, I went to my desk and got out his personal information sheet. I got out my cell phone and in front of the class, I called his mom at work. I told her who I was and said that her son wanted to tell her something. I handed him the phone and he told her what he'd done. She talked for a couple of minutesthen he handed the phone back to me with tears in his eyes, apologized, and went back to his seat. His mom told me he shouldn't be a problem anymore and that if he was, to please call her back.
He, in fact, wasn't a problem anymore and that class got much, much better from then on. And while my relationship with him was strained for a couple of days, he got much better behaved and became a pretty good kid.
This is also the class where I developed my "fake test key on the ground next to my desk" gambit, but I'll tell that story another day.
Friday, January 27, 2006
A Return
Some of you know that from 1994 to 2000, I taught high school English at Martin Luther King Junior Academic Magnet High School for the Health Sciences and Engineering (yes, that is its full name). In the 1996-7 school year, I was teaching a majority of the seniors in my Honor English classes and one class in particular, my 6th period, was pretty problematic. The kids liked to push limits with their behaviors and really try to elicit reactions from me. They would write names on my white board (Oliver Clothesoff is probably the only one I can put here), say things in class that were right on the border of inappropriateness, and generally push my buttons.
Well, one day I came in and my nameplate was missing. Some of you might say, "Big deal." However, this was a special to me. The teacher that I had worked with during my student teaching (Mrs. Tune at Hillsboro High School) had given to me when I finished. It was really symbolic of what I was trying to be as a teacher. Now I knew that I couldn't show these kids how upset I was about this or some other things might disappear (I'm honestly kind of surprised that my desk didn't disappear at some point). I asked about it and no one fessed up, so I left it alone.
That year $1000 for the Senior trip was also stolen from my desk.
I learned a lot from that year. I learned that I had to be a teacher and not a friend to the kids. I could be friendly, but when push came to shove, I was the teacher. Plus, I was 25 and they were 18. Why did I care whether they liked me or not? I learned that kids feed off reactions. If they do something and you react in a way that amuses them, they will do it again and again. There was a particular teacher that they did this too and I was determined to not be as ridiculed (to my face anyway) as that teacher was. And again. I learned to keep things as interesting in the class as possible, but remember that they had to pass my class to graduate.
Wednesday night at 9:30. I get a phone call at home. "Is this the Phil Wilson that taught English at MLK?" I answered yes. He told me who he was (we'll call him Bill) and asked me if I remembered that nameplate. I of course answered yes. He confessed that he had been the one that had taken it. He had been going through some stuff and found it. He lives here in town and wanted to return it. So I gave him directions to my office and yesterday, he returned it to me. We caught up some and reminisced about how he and I acted during those times, some of the struggles we had, one of the conversations we had. I thanked him for bringing it back to me and he thanked me for taking it back.
It was a great reminder to me that there's a lot of growing up that happens between 18 and 27 and that people can change a great deal in that time. It was also a great reminder of those days when I was teaching and I might have to write about that some more.
Addendum: A sad addendum to this story is that the student who did this died in a motorcycle accident less than six month later.
Well, one day I came in and my nameplate was missing. Some of you might say, "Big deal." However, this was a special to me. The teacher that I had worked with during my student teaching (Mrs. Tune at Hillsboro High School) had given to me when I finished. It was really symbolic of what I was trying to be as a teacher. Now I knew that I couldn't show these kids how upset I was about this or some other things might disappear (I'm honestly kind of surprised that my desk didn't disappear at some point). I asked about it and no one fessed up, so I left it alone.
That year $1000 for the Senior trip was also stolen from my desk.
I learned a lot from that year. I learned that I had to be a teacher and not a friend to the kids. I could be friendly, but when push came to shove, I was the teacher. Plus, I was 25 and they were 18. Why did I care whether they liked me or not? I learned that kids feed off reactions. If they do something and you react in a way that amuses them, they will do it again and again. There was a particular teacher that they did this too and I was determined to not be as ridiculed (to my face anyway) as that teacher was. And again. I learned to keep things as interesting in the class as possible, but remember that they had to pass my class to graduate.
Wednesday night at 9:30. I get a phone call at home. "Is this the Phil Wilson that taught English at MLK?" I answered yes. He told me who he was (we'll call him Bill) and asked me if I remembered that nameplate. I of course answered yes. He confessed that he had been the one that had taken it. He had been going through some stuff and found it. He lives here in town and wanted to return it. So I gave him directions to my office and yesterday, he returned it to me. We caught up some and reminisced about how he and I acted during those times, some of the struggles we had, one of the conversations we had. I thanked him for bringing it back to me and he thanked me for taking it back.
It was a great reminder to me that there's a lot of growing up that happens between 18 and 27 and that people can change a great deal in that time. It was also a great reminder of those days when I was teaching and I might have to write about that some more.
Addendum: A sad addendum to this story is that the student who did this died in a motorcycle accident less than six month later.
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