End of the Year Reflection

It feels a bit awkward calling this post an "end of the year" reflection. After all, as most schools around the capitol are letting out this week or have already let out, my school is still in session, and far from coasting in. This week, we are taking final exams, and have another week of instruction next week before a final "spirit week" that includes a graduation & gate ceremony for our 8th graders who are going on to high school next year. Regardless, I have a bit of time to write today, as I am not proctoring an exam, and decided that now would be as good of a time as any to wrap up my first year of teaching.

People tell first-year teachers that they will probably hate their job the first year. In fact, I have been told, many of the best teachers around the country had terrible first years, to the point of walking out on their job in the middle of the day -- no two weeks notice, no goodbyes, just a staunch "I'm done." While this has not been my reality, I can't say that my first year of teaching has been an enjoyable one. Much of the optimism I had towards teaching at the beginning of the year has been replaced with a tired attitude towards the profession; an excited attitude to stand in front of the classroom to mold minds is now instead replaced by feelings of dread and anxiousness as I hit my alarm clock in the morning and prepare to head into the lead role of my classroom.

It's very possible that a variety of factors may have played into what I'm currently feeling. Firstly, the school I teach at is at on an extended school year. While other schools around the country are winding down and looking towards the end of May and June with excitement, we instead continue to push our scholars hard towards "higher levels of mastery" and "getting ahead" of their peers across the city. While this is certainly being accomplished, it's at a certain point where you have to ask yourself if it is worth it. I walked into this school this year surrounded by some of the most positive, joyful teachers that I have ever encountered, many of whom have been at this school or in urban education for multiple years. This gave me hope that teaching in "tough areas" wasn't really that bad, and that it was a bit overrated. However, in June, I now see tired faces, joy replaced with exhaustion and a desire for the year just to be over. There's also the fact that the school day runs on an extended time (starts at 7 AM, ends at 4 PM, I leave around 5-6 on a normal day), many of the children we teach go home every day to incredibly difficult situations (many do not have a father, all live in poverty), I wasn't entirely sure what to expect coming into this situation -- the list continues. What is for certain, though, is that the feelings I have about teaching now are certainly not what I had hoped them to be in August.

I will be back next year, but my mentality coming into it will not be the same. I will admit that coming into this year, I was extremely naive, and saw myself having the impact on the scale of a "Dead Poets Society" or "Freedom Writers" level. Robin Williams just made it look so damn easy.

People told me that teaching would push me to a level that I could not possibly prepare myself for, but I scoffed at that. "They don't think like I do," I told myself. "I'll be different."

What I now know is that the truth about teaching, especially in urban areas, is that there's only about one good day a week, if you're lucky. More realistically, there's about one good day every two weeks, and if you're really lucky, you get a great day once every month or two. In order to survive, you need to find that day and keep it in your heart. Because on those other bad days -- and they get really bad -- you need to remind yourself what that looks like.

For me, that looks like a scholar named Kiersten making "Century Club" for one week of the year, which denotes scholars who perform the best behaviorally in a given week at my school. Every other week of the year, Kiersten was at the lead of the class in detention and out-of-class referral numbers, but for one week of the year, she behaved well, she was a leader, AND she was happy.

That looks like a scholar named Tykivis, who, after by far the toughest day of my short-lived teaching career (I pretty much snapped and looked like this while in the middle of class and looked like this walking out of work) came up to me at the end of the day and as opposed to going to hang out with his friends, decided to tell me how great he thought I was and how happy he was to have an opportunity to get me as a teacher. How lucky am I to receive that, I thought, after I had for so long loved so many of my teachers but had been too timid to tell any of them how much they meant to me.

But that's the truth within teaching. It's a largely thankless job. I just got done reading Tony Danza's book, "I'd Like To Apologize to Every Teacher I've Ever Had" in which he chronicles his one year teaching one class at a low-performing high school in the middle of Philadelphia. While Mr. Danza certainly did not have an accurate representation of what it's like to be a full-time teacher, he did bring up a few really good points about the profession. My favorite scene of the book is when he made an analogy between teaching and boxing (The Boss' profession before becoming an actor). Teaching, Danza says, is a lot like boxing, in the way that you have to bring it every single time you step in the ring. You have to prepare yourself for anything that can and inevitably will happen, and when it does happen, you can't lose your composure.

The difference between boxing and teaching is that in boxing, you're allowed to hit back. In teaching, you have to take the punches day after day, week after week, and month after month -- and then try to keep a positive attitude. On top of that, you aren't thanked for taking the punches, but are merely viewed as someone who is filling their role in the system, much like a punching bag. But what makes the best teachers are the ones who are able to step away from that idea, which is truthfully very much a reality of teaching in urban education. You have to remember the bright spots, even if they are only a spot which is surrounded by a coat of darkness and negativity that this profession seems to surround many of us on a daily basis.

As I go into my second year of teaching, and my first full-year of being a lead teacher in the classroom, I will remember Kiersten's Century Club Week. I will remember Tykivis' selflessness. I will remember the smallest of interactions with these children which tell me, even if it isn't with words, that they appreciate, or at least have a slight amount of respect, for what I'm trying to do here. I will remember also the deeds of others inside and outside of this building that tell me that success in urban education is possible, and that maintaining a healthy state of mind in such a stressful environment is realistic. Finally, I will remember the stories of all the teachers who had absolutely miserable first years -- filled with tears, screaming and hopelessness -- who came back and made a promise not to be a great teacher, but only to get better. Day by day, week by week, month by month.

That is my promise to myself going forward. In my mind, I'm not a great teacher today, I won't be a great teacher tomorrow, and I probably won't be a great teacher at this time next year. But if I make a commitment to myself to keep getting better, in the face of all the adversity that being a teacher brings, maybe one day I will be -- and if I'm lucky, maybe even a couple of the students I teach will think I'm as influential as John Keating.

Carpe (every) Diem.

-BD

Thoughts on the Strongsville Teachers' Strike

First off, before this gets going: familiarize yourself with the teachers' strike in my hometown of Strongsville, Ohio. If you don't know what's going on there, this will just be an angry rambling about a subject you have no informed opinion about, and no one really wants to read that. Some good articles surrounding the strike can be found here, here and here.

Also, the picture below does a pretty good job of summarizing where we are at with negotiations right now.

The strike started March 4. For those are you who are not good at math -- that's totally fine, I'm a math teacher and google is a great resource. Scoring at home, today (April 23) is the 50th day that the Strongsville teachers have been on strike. That's 50 days where high school students, especially those in higher-level AP classes (which the district prides itself on) have not been receiving the type of high-quality instruction necessary to get them ready for college, and in a more short-term perspective, their AP tests, which could potentially save them time and money in college and allow them to go straight into the courses that are in their main line of study, as opposed to taking general ed classes.

Meanwhile, guys like this are being left in control, as opposed to teachers who are trained and, as someone who went through the system, are damn good at their job.

Now, before this gets to where it's going to get to, let me just say that when this started, I really wanted to be on the side of the teachers. Really, I did. As a fellow teacher, and a biased blogger, I feel that teachers are generally very under appreciated in society today. People in the US like to complain about the quality of teachers, lack of difficulty to enter the profession and our low test scores compared to other industrialized nations, but no one wants to realize why that is the case. If you look at other countries that have top-notch education systems such as South Korea and Finland, you will find fundamental differences in the way that education is viewed. In these countries, teachers are valued along the same lines as doctors, and are paid like it, too. Teachers that go to Finland leave saying that the degree of respect and trust that are given to teachers is nothing like what they see in the US (source). Parents in these countries understand the value of school, from its academic to its moral purpose (source) and do not see it simply as a place where kids go while you're at work.

However, like doctors in this country, it is not easy to become a teacher in countries like South Korea and Finland. Before this gets any more off topic, the bottom line is that for education to change for the better in the United States, we need better teachers and we also need society to do a better job of giving teachers the benefit of the doubt. So, in short: respect teachers, pay them like you respect them, and then you'll see better applicants enter the field.

This is ultimately why I wanted to side with the Strongsville teachers. "Let's give them some respect!" I said. "Higher wages need to be our first step!" I said. "This is going to leave an incredibly positive impact on education for years to come," I said.

But then this happened.

This, too.

And this.

And this.

Teachers posted signs like the one below in the neighborhoods of substitute teachers who had come in to Strongsville City Schools during the strike.

Teacher behavior during the strike has even spurred on political cartoons like the one shown below.

Come onnnnnnnnn, you guys!

This was such a big moment! We were going to make such a big change with how education is viewed in society! All you had to do was shut up and let the public speak!!

Watch the first three minutes of the video, Strongsville teachers. Listen to the parent. She WANTED to trust you. She tried to trust you.

You blew it.

So now, I can't trust the teachers. I also can't trust the board, who has refused to make any sort of concessions in their proposal to get the teachers back in the classroom. However, this post isn't about the Board.

This is about the teachers of Strongsville, Ohio, who blew it. You blew it. YOU. BLEW. IT.

The subs are openly under-qualified for the subjects they are teaching. The board has always had a bad rep in Strongsville. Everything was looking up for the teachers. But then, as opposed to taking the high road and likely getting what they wanted in the end, Strongsville's teachers decided to go against the moral lessons they teach (explicitly or subliminally) every day that bullying is bad, we should be good to each other and that in times of adversity, violence in not the answer in any form.

To be fair, this does not represent every teacher in Strongsville. Actually, those teachers who are bullying the substitutes are in the vast minority compared to the teachers who are doing what the need to do by being quiet and letting the process play itself out.

Unfortunately, this is not what the public will remember. The public will remember the teachers who bullied the subs by cursing and yelling in their faces (literally) as subs came into the city to try to work.

I will too. I will remember these teachers more than the majority of teachers who were doing the right thing, and that really is a shame.

To the teachers who bullied and acted more immature than the students and continue to do so throughout this process: how can you legitimize yourself as an educator, or even as a person? How can you go to bed at night feeling that the decisions you've made that day are for the benefit of society? Namely, how does yelling and cursing at a human being who is trying to go in and teach children make you a good person? Sure, the subs aren't doing as good of a job as you probably think you could. But they're trying. That should, and does count for something. How can you expect children in your classroom to behave with class, maturity and respect for each other when you cannot model those things yourself? This next statement is coming from an educator and more importantly, a human being: you should be ashamed of yourself.

The whole situation is disgusting. While I never claimed that Strongsville was my favorite place in the world, I had a certain amount of respect for the place, and for the teachers that had given me an opportunity to go out into the world and pursue whatever career path that I'd like.

It has been incredibly disheartening to see many of these same people who I looked up to throughout the course of my youth turn around do exactly the things that they told me not to do. Hypocrisy at its finest.

 However, if there is a metaphoric diamond in the rough of all this, it is the students of Strongsville. I have read multiple articles like this one which detail the students' refusal to stoop to their teachers' level and continue to work hard in the face of all this.

The Strongsville teachers strike had an opportunity to become a huge win not only for the teachers of Strongsville, but for teachers everywhere. Instead, the events that have occurred in Strongsville in the past month and a half (and however longer they might continue to occur) will leave scars on the community for years or maybe even decades to come. It also puts a huge dent into the fight many teachers are facing here in the US for the respect and dignity that is necessary for higher levels of educational quality.

It is hard to imagine a scenario in which the teachers and BOE come out of this with any sort of respect from the community -- parents and children alike. The teachers in Strongsville have turned a golden opportunity into one of shame, and for that they cannot be forgiven.


Sincerely,
Brad DeFauw
Class of 2008

Looking Up From the Bottom

It feels good to write again. I really wish I had more time to, but my schedule really doesn't allow it. And I'm not saying that my schedule doesn't allow it as someone who can sit around and play video games while not "making time" to write. I actually just don't have enough time to write. Ever. The only reason this is even getting done now is because I'd rather do this than go home and deal with my roommate's cat, who seems to think that everything but the scratching post I bought her is actually that scratching post. So here I am.

People who know me know that I (used to) really like working out. I think it's a great way to relieve stress and promotes a ton of self-confidence. In college, I used to work out 4-6 days a week. Now, I am lucky if I get 2 days in, and it's usually the weekends.

The schedule that I am running on right now asks for a minimum of eleven hour days, with thirteen hour days hardly an abnormality. There are many days when I come in an hour before the sun comes up, and leave much after it has gone down. Since coming back in January, my average weekly hours hover around 60. That wouldn't be so bad (well, it might) if I were getting compensated for those hours in overtime or even some sort of baseline salary. However, here I type, working on $0 income this year. I know that a Master's Degree is getting paid for, but I'm not anywhere close to reaping those rewards yet. It's been a bit overwhelming at times.

So, here is what I learned: teaching is hard. I think I've said this before. Actually, I know I have. Sorry for being repetitive. But, it needs to be said. What makes teaching unique is that it isn't hard in the way that you have to adjust to it and then it gets a little easier. If that is the case, I definitely am not anywhere close to reaching it. Teaching is hard in its daily tasks -- creating lessons, calling parents, creating homework, and then all the other things that a job asks you to do. I never imagined teaching would be this demanding. After hearing that my program was experiencing a fair number of dropouts halfway through the first year, one of my co-workers said to me, "Teaching is not a profession for the weak." You really have to be committed to this thing if it's going to work for you. Really, really committed.

I think that these pressures really took their toll on me in the first half of the year, as evidenced by my less-than-cheery end of the year post back in December. Since then, however, things have changed a bit. Admittedly, I hope that things couldn't get too much worse than they were, but still, improvement is improvement. Following the same format of my venting post, here's an update on things that I have been doing in the past month and a half or so.

School
Here's the thing about working in education: nothing is ever going to be perfect. Here's the thing about working in urban education: it is rare that things are ever going to be going well. It's understandable why working in urban education has such a huge burnout rate, with long hours, lower salaries and so on. Now that I have come to grips with that, I am better able to do my job.

When I wrote last, I wasn't happy that I wasn't being given any real responsibility at the school. That has changed massively. I now work by myself with a small group of children, all of whom were failing. I've been having a lot of success with them, as many of them ended up pulling up their grades in the course by the end of the quarter. Behavior is a completely different issue -- many of them think that they don't need the class and would rather be taking history -- but that issue will remain a separate issue because this is a post about positivity. Hooray, passing grades!

I have also been asked to substitute teach on a couple occasions when teachers have been sick, which is a bigger deal than you might think. Again, this means I am in a classroom completely by myself. Also, the classes that I was asked to sub for are some of the poorest scoring (behaviorally and sometimes academically) in the school. So, substitute teaching was ridiculously hard, especially because I didn't know any of them by name. Still, I was asked to do it, which is a big confidence boost for me about what my superiors think I am capable of handling at this point.

DC/Social
I am going to merge these two together since they really are dependent on each other. I realized that a lot of the reasons I initially didn't like DC at first is because of the social life I carried here. It wasn't like Ohio State, where I had a plethora of people that I could turn to when I just wanted to get a little stupid and kick back after a tough day/week/whatever. While DC has not magically transformed into Columbus and probably never will, from a social standpoint, I have begun to appreciate little things about DC more.

While I maintain that DC is overrated as a major city, the fact of the matter is that it is still a major city. That means that there are people in it. This cannot be overstated. I know so many people that work in some city I've never heard of, where (it can be assumed) there are not a large amount of people around to partake in fun stuff with. While there is a ton of room for activities in these areas, there are not any people to share these activities with, which kind of defeats the purpose entirely.

I've done a much better job of getting involved out here. I joined a couple social sports leagues, flag football (big shout out to the Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies) and basketball (more subdued shout out to Free Agent Team A) and have met a lot of really awesome people through these. They've been a blast and I can't recommend social sports leagues enough to people who feel like they don't know enough people in a new city. I also went to sports bars for the teams who hold my sports allegiances, including the Browns and OSU, and had a great time with that as well. While going to a bar completely by myself was admittedly a bit awkward at first and a new experience, I am very happy that I did it and will definitely continue it once football is back in the fall.

An interesting trend I've noticed since stepping out of my comfort zone and going "out there" socially is that I have a lot less animosity towards DC ever since then. What I've realized is that it's not really at all about the city that you're in, so long as the people that you're in it with are people you enjoy being around. No matter where I've been in my life, as long as I'm surrounded by good company I can't complain. So, although these leagues are a bit pricy and I always spend too much money going to the Browns Backers Bar (insert Cleveland drinking joke here), I have every intention of continuing these trends going forward.

Last Words
Wait, that's it?

Who knows, maybe I will look back on my first semester of teaching and realize that it was my version of a quarter-life crisis. My hope now is that it's in the rear view mirror, gone forever in the smoke of bad vibes.

Teaching still is and will remain to be incredibly, incredibly difficult. What will make it enjoyable, though, is how I handle myself when I'm not teaching. This holds true for everything in life, not just teaching. When you're in a bad mental place going into work, you're more likely to stay in that bad place, and it's just a spiral of negativity. What I need to do from here is find a time that is just for me, and guard that time. It is arguably just as important as anything I do in class.

In order for me to give the children I teach the best version of myself as a teacher, I need to give that best version to myself in the form of a positive mental state. Or something like that. I'm not sure. Either way, while things out here are still not ideal, they are getting better. At the end of the day, positive momentum is all you can really ask for.

BD

Great Thought From Someone Who Is Not Me

I'm not writing today (although I plan on writing again soon), but I wanted to pass along something that I read today anyway. The following excerpt comes from a fellow (more acclaimed) blogger named Dan Meyer, who has been leading nation-wide discussions on education reform, particularly in math classrooms. Dan actually quotes another blogger, Shawn Cornally (INCEPTION!) in a post he made today. As someone who just started out in teaching, I thought it was particularly relevant to what I'm experiencing now and what I am planning on doing with the rest of my life. Dan writes:

Twin Pressures On Good Novice Teachers

February 11th, 2013 by Dan Meyer

Shawn Cornally:

Hence, the argument for higher teacher pay: we’ll stay in the classroom longer, rather than jumping ship when our salary schedule is incremented less than inflation (i.e. making less the older I get, like my second year of teaching). In other words, it’s not student achievement you’re directly paying for, it’s avoiding turnover.

“Maybe that’s not a bad thing?” you say. “Some of my best teachers were young and excitable.” you opine.

So here's the rock: there are certain teachers who thrill a great deal more to the challenge of good teaching than to any missional obligation to care for children. (See: McMatherson, Mathy; Nowak, Kate; Pershan, Michael.) As teaching gets easier, these teachers are forced to impose tougher and tougher challenges on themselves (because teaching itself doesn't offer that kind of differentiation) just so they can stay interested in the field.

And then there's the hard place: the demands of good teaching, particularly in charter systems, are often unmanageable for anybody but the young, single, and childless — long hours, comparatively low pay, and only a thin veil of separation between you and your work.

Without even glancing at a census table, it's possible for us to see that the rock and the hard place close in on good novice teachers at almost exactly the same time. The job becomes untenable at about the same time that it becomes unchallenging.

If you like Dan's blog (I would highly recommend it to any math teacher), you can read it here.

Winter Break - I Made It!!

Here I sit, at the conclusion of a much needed winter break in beautiful Akron, Ohio. I never really thought I'd miss the cold, snow and pains of a winter in Cleveland, but it's funny how half a year away from your home can do that to you. I had a two week break, and now sit at an airport ready to fly back and start off the second half of the school year tomorrow. I really do hope that things go better in the second half.

Going into teaching, everyone told me that the first year would be hard. I took this advice in stride, but told myself that I would be different. Looking back, I was so naive. I thought teaching would be busy, but not mentally exhausting in the way that  it has been so far. The first half of my year in teaching has been so much more than I ever imagined it would be, and I am not even all the way into it yet.

Now that I have half of a year under my belt, I think that I'm ready to go. I have been a bit hardened up with the experience so far, but who wouldn't be? The challenge now will be to find the medium between being a controller and a nurturer, which is much easier said than done (trust me). However, I think I'm in a much better position to do that now than I was at the beginning of the year. With the way my program is set up, I won't have full control of my own classroom until next fall. So, ideally, I will be even more prepared when that comes around. People in my program like to complain a lot about things that could be going better, but I think we often fail to recognize how fortunate we are to be in a position where we can mess up a little bit and not feel the full repercussions. The idea is constant progress (oh hey, Pat Shurmur), and that's something I'm going to be working towards every day until the end of the year in late June.

With all that being said, I know that I wrote a lot of negative things in my last post about the situation that I'm in and how things aren't going well. While some of what I said was true, what's also true is that I need to stop bitching and buckle up. This was never going to be an easy experience in any way, and although things haven't played out like I've expected them to, there's no reason why I should stay unhappy out here.

For the next six months, in addition to becoming a better teacher, I also need to become a better person. That means taking advantage of all the opportunities that I have at my disposal out here in Washington. While I maintain that DC is overrated as a major city and it has not lived up to the lofty expectations I set for it, it is by no means a hell hole. On the contrary, the city has a lot of positives that I just haven't explored yet. One thing the city does offer as a major positive is the fact that it is huge. Although I don't know anyone else here right now, the fact that the city is so big makes it easy for me to join sports leagues or join other groups that share similar interests with me. With that in mind, I have signed up for two "social sports leagues" this winter -- football and basketball. Like any other city, DC is one that you just kind of have to make your own. While I haven't done that yet, my view of this city is much more clear with regard to what I'm getting into. I'm ready to jump into the deep end that is social life, in the water of complete strangers. Here we go.

In my last post I also complained a bit about my school. While I do wish that I had more things to do, I also need to be a bit more introspective and realize that a lack of control was one of the first things I consciously admitted I would probably be frustrated by...in June. As I move into January, I'm really excited to be taking over part of a "results" group and a pull-out math group. For non-education people, what this means is that I will have large control over lessons directed towards children who are really having a tough time. So, what I complained about less than a month ago was already solved. Related: I need to work on my patience. Anyway, working with these groups will allow me to have an incredible opportunity to make such a huge impact here, and I can't wait. Really, it's all I ever wanted all along.

It's also really important just to keep a sense of positivity even on the worst days. Working in a school, as a teacher, is a hard job. Naturally. However, what I need to do a much better job of is realizing how much worse it could be. That just doesn't apply to me, either -- pretty much everyone in my program and even my school needs to do better at this as well. Going off what I wrote in the past, it's kind of a natural tendency of humans to complain about things that aren't going well, as opposed to taking the same energy and breath to recognize what is. While I did vent and complain about things that I wanted to be different, what I have to realize is how much worse off I could have it. I am in an environment that supports its teachers, posts amazing test scores and gives children every opportunity to be successful and pursue their dreams, in a city where an idea like that holds as much life as Pat Shurmur's coaching career in Cleveland (OK, I'll stop). Meanwhile, in so many other schools across DC (which, by the way, has the lowest high school graduation rate in the country) teachers are not supported, there is no structure, and it's chaos. I could just have easily been placed in one of these schools, but instead I ended up at the #1 Public Charter school in the city. I am extremely fortunate to have gotten my winter break to be reflective and realize that, because I was admittedly getting very beaten down towards the end of the first half of the year.

Tl;dr -- This is not a worst-case scenario, by any means. I had a dreamy, blissful image of my time out in DC before I got here, and when it didn't play out like that, I got frustrated and whined. I am so excited for the second half of the year because I know exactly what I'm getting into now. There will definitely be bad days (who would have guessed?) and I'm ready for them. I have an opportunity to stop being a hermit, if I please (and I do) so that will alleviate many of the social/city problems I have here now. And I have an entire half of a year under my belt as a teacher. I made it to winter break. That's not something every first year teacher can say.

This job, and this experience, was and will continue to be very real. That's a statement that I might have uttered at the beginning of the year, but didn't really understand. I know now what this job entails, what I need to accomplish in school and what I need to do out of it in order to become the best person, role model and teacher that I can be. We start classes again tomorrow, and I am being given every opportunity to be successful and happy in the world I live in.

All I can do now is provide the same to these children.

-BD