Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Abbreviated Notes from Pondering while Wondering

I felt inspired to post today. It may be that I'm just avoiding an assignment that I must do for a training tomorrow, but nevertheless a post is a post. There a many issues in the past month that have crossed my mind as I have been working my summer job. This summer I am working for mosquito abatement, which entails driving around looking for mosquito larvae and killing it during the day, and driving backroads at 10 mph with the fogger on at night to kill fliers. All that driving, searching, and swamping gives me plenty of time to let my mind wonder. The topics I've been thinking of include:

  • A documentary about all the weird summer jobs teachers have
  • The definition of marriage 
  • A theory I came up with four years ago explaining how an influx in popularity of far-right groups   could cause the Republican party to lose elections that it should easily bag...in Idaho......and that theory's pertinence to the situation on the national stage today
  • Said theory's ominous raincloud over the Romney campaign
  • The need for campaign finance reform--ugh
  • The need for a paradigm shift in education reform--We just aren't providing a sufficient free, appropriate, public education any more. How is it that a college degree is the new high school diploma when the cost of secondary education only rises and students graduate with a lifetime's worth of debt? How is that the American dream? Speaking of which:
  • The American Dream: Does it really exist? Can it only exist with a mountain of debt?
  • Next year I really need to find a college research job or something
  • The European financial crisis--how different are we and what are we doing to avoid it?
  • The Affordable Care Act--again, what are we doing to avoid a government bankruptcy?
  • The Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act--if the quick, sly fox is Chief Justice Roberts, is the lazy dog Clarence Thomas? And how can we get past this chalk party line on the bench? I mean, I learned in high school that there are two ways to read the constitution (liberal and conservative); is there any way past this?
  • Baseball-I think the Giants and Nats will make a good NLCS and Rangers and Angels will make an even better ALCS.
  • Entertainment-I wish GI Joe would have opened on its expected date
  • More education reform-When will I have time to work on preparing for next year's classes? Why are teachers expected to improve without being paid to work towards improvement when they don't have to worry about teaching classes? What's the idea here? Does anyone have a plan for professional development?
  • Recreation: Will I ever regularly run again? When will I make enough money to go golfing? To go camping for a week with my family?
  • Basketball-Did Lebron finally make 'the jump'?
  • Money-How will I pay for a doctorate?
  • Money-How will I pay for another vehicle to hold more family?
  • Money-How will I pay for hospital bills when we expand the family?
  • Money-How will I pay to visit the family we love that live so far away?
  • Money-How will I pay for whatever it takes to make my lawn turn green again?
  • Oh yeah, working mosquito abatement over the summer will help
  • Man I hope I find a better job next year
I someday I'll address these topics, but for the most part I spend what time I'm not at work, with my family and what time I'm not with my family or at work working on my master degree. 

Monday, May 28, 2012

A lot can change in one year...


One year ago I was relentlessly applying for teaching jobs and receiving a constant flow of rejection emails. Yesterday I finished my first year of teaching. And while I wish I could actually be paid to work for another few weeks so I could work out some kinks in my instructional scheduling and prepare for the new curriculum I'll be teaching in the fall, paying teachers to do so is not as important to everybody, although it certainly should be. (Great idea note: most experienced teachers, while they will deny actually needing this, probably need to take time to reflect the past year and make necessary changes to their instruction just like young teachers. All teachers should be allotted contract time for this and should be held accountable for the process of refining their teaching skills, and there is really no better time to do so than right after the school year.)
What new curriculum? Well, I applied for a district job in the district and got transferred to the high school where I'll be teaching three periods math and three language arts. While I feel comfortable teaching the same math I have been this year, I need quite a bit of prep time for my new language arts course. Here are some reasons this is more difficult than it might seem at first:
1. The Common Core Curriculum: Our district began teaching the nationally accepted Common Core Curriculum this year. I am up to date on my math, aligned with the junior high courses being taught (the math department at RJHS helped me out a ton on this) but the high school English department is not exactly on the same page concerning how to teach this new curriculum (or whether or not they want to, I think). So it will be difficult closing the gap when I'm unsure of what mark I'm trying to catch up to. Speaking of which:
2. IEP Goals: Previously, I had written very specific IEP goals for the kids at Thompsen, but I was told this week that there are no specific academic goals for students at the high school, just that they pass all their classes and are preparing for graduation, and a behavior goal or two if they need it. This is wrong on so many levels (on a legal level, first of all, but also on educational, organizational, professional, and caring-about-the-kids-you-teach levels, to name a few). It's not like I'm incredibly anal about not being in compliance with special education law (well, I am, actually), but these goals are there not only for students to work towards something and the parents to hold the school accountable for trying to catch their children up to the mainstream curriculum, but also to guide instruction. So I can't really plan what I teach unless I know what they need to learn. Urgh. Frustrating.
3. Other Special Education LA teachers: There is another special ed teacher who teaches 5 periods of language arts. If I had the time to collaborate with him we could streamline the department's LA curriculum in order to curb the amount of students who will undoubtedly try to switch classes when they find out one of us is harder/easier than the other. (Disclaimer: The district does provide two paid days before the school year to prepare for things, but that usually includes at least half a day of in-service. Special education teachers also get a couple of extra paid days to review their new IEP files.) This likely will happen, but not to the extent that I would like it to happen.
4. Differentiating Instruction: This means providing challenging learning opportunities for every student despite what level they’re actually on. I’ve developed a program to do this in math, but I’m not so sure of how I’ll do it in English. It’s a vital part of special education instruction because in my classroom students will have goals on all sorts of different levels (well, not yet, maybe; see 2. IEP Goals), so to meet all of them I need to give them all specific instruction towards what they need. This hasn’t been happening in math, nor has it been happening in language arts, so I need to do that to, which is a problem because…
5. I don’t do language arts: Or at least I never have before. No one ever taught me how to teach someone to read or write. Mainly that’s because I’m still working on my masters in special education and my two undergrad degrees were political science and health education. So I don’t really know what I’m doing anyways, but I’m sure I can give it a pretty good shot.
So that’s what I’m doing. I feel fairly confident in half of the new job I’ll be doing, and a little wary on the other half, but I’m excited to be a part of some big changes.