The bigger questions

Because of a slightly rash decision, I find myself spending my spring break in the great state of Pennsylvania. After a trying couple of weeks, I went online and bought myself a ticket back to college during one of my prep periods. So far the trip has been wonderful. To begin with, this is the first time I have been back since graduation so I am experiencing the slightly strange but overall positive feeling that this is not where my life is anymore. I like reminiscing, but I feel very proud and satisfied with the extent that I've moved on to a new part of life and left college behind. In addition to these personal revelations, I have had time this week to sit down with a few of the professors and administrators who were really influential last year. As always, these conversations have been enjoyable and challenging. A few of them have definitely given me different ideas to chew on as I head back to the classroom next week.

One of the first professors that I emailed after I booked my ticket was one of my econ professors. She is a young woman who I took a handful of classes from and worked for a number of semesters. She is of course intelligent and very passionate about issues of gender and non-mainstream measures of economic wealth such as human development and distribution of resources in the developing world. After going through a little bit of "catch up," she had a number of more serious questions for me. Why are all Dickinson students just focused on career? Do you think that's a representative statement? Why do we not have more students who are socially conscious and truly academically motivated?

As we began talking about careerism and the many different things that motivate students - then the effect these motivating factors have on a student's education - one thing became clear very quickly. This professor, who teaches at a very selective, private liberal arts college, has the same frustrations and concerns about her students' motives as I do teaching in a low-income, failing high school! How can this be possible?

There are very few actual similarities between the students that this woman has and the students that I have. Her students feel that education is important... some of mine don't. Her students have basic skills that allow them to explore different topics on more advanced levels... mine are still working on the beginning steps of that process. Because the students and the areas we teach in are so different, I look at the two of us. Is there something that we have in common that may cause our perceptions to be so similar? Yes, we are two intelligent people who have chosen to enter the field of education because we feel passionately about it. This passion must mean that we have higher expectations of what true education should actually look like. Neither of us feel that our expectations are being met though - leading me to the question, are our expectations reasonable? Is it fair to want all students to fall in love with the process of educating themselves as opposed to being focused on what they're going to get out of it? Even if an answer could be found for that question... would it ever be possible to separate the "ideal educational system" from the demands of the economy? Is education doomed to become simply a form of job training or... even worse... has it already become that??

I feel very strongly that education should be an ends in itself, but this belief is and should be challenged as I look around and see that I am clearly in the minority. I suppose right now I have other things to keep busy worrying about... lesson planning, covering standards, end of the year projects... but I'd like to remember a number of these underlying questions while going about the everyday work. I came out here in an effort to find explanations and solutions for many of these "big questions" that I stumbled on during my studies last year. It helps to be reminded of these in order to keep everything else in perspective.

Great success with Mistakes

Some of the best moments of the school year have been those during which I can stand back, watch my students, and actually see their curiosity, engagement, or determination while trying to solve a problem. These moments have definitely been few and far between, but in the last week I stumbled upon one of the best instances of this that I've seen all year.

I've been thinking for a while that I needed to incorporate some type of practice in my classroom involving "proofreading" math work. After all... editing paragraphs in English class is a very common lesson plan, why can't it work in Math? So, last week, bravely scheduled for the day that I was being observed by my Teach for America program director, I copied mistakes from the most recent quiz onto transparencies, made up a graphic organizer and proceeded full steam into a new classroom activity. It was a HUGE success! The lesson was not focused on simply correcting the mistakes, but identifying them, describing/analyzing them, and concluding each little mistake with a statement or rule that would prevent the students from doing the same thing in the future. At no point did we actually say "The answer should have been this..." That was implied by all of the other analysis. (If anybody is interested in the graphic organizer, I would be very excited to share it with you!)

During this lesson I saw the "problem-solving spark" that I have lamented the absence of all year. As I moved from one example to the next on the board, uncovering each on the overhead with a little played up fanfare, I didn't need to remind students to pay attention, keep their head up, or not talk to their neighbors. They were intent on finding the mistakes on their own. When I asked the analytical questions following this, instead of getting blank stares I got really thoughtful answers - some of which I had never thought of myself. These attitudes toward this mistake activity have continued to be positive this week as they have used the same organizer to analyze mistakes they were making on their own. "Ms. Breeden... I've been making the same mistake on all of these, I just need to remember this..." It's been great.

There are a couple of different things I can take from this experience... First, with the analysis of the mistakes I asked my students to move up Bloom's taxonomy and they responded amazingly. Why have I not been doing this all along?? Their previous boredom with the material is not necessarily a result something intrinsic, but a result of them not being pushed to the higher levels of understanding that inspire motivation and curiosity. The second realization comes from what I've seen this week... after being pushed to the higher level, almost every student has shown mastery of the topic this week. In addition to that, about half the students (much more than normal) have been successful at taking this knowledge and applying it to different, more challenging problems. (Problems that are even a step beyond NM state standards!) Maybe they're just a little smarter this week, maybe I did a great job of explaining something, but I think it's more an issue of them finally being challenged and pushed. My expectations have not been high enough so far, but maybe this experience will get me a little closer.

I can't take your attitude

As a very young female teacher, I worried a lot about getting respect. Some of my students are within a couple years of me; if I met them under different circumstances, they would be my peers. How am I supposed to act as an authority figure under those conditions? This thought has constantly come up throughout my first year of teaching. What I'm guessing, however, is that this like so many other negative attitudes within the classroom, this thought quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. If I think that for whatever reason I deserve or instantaneously gain less respect from the students than other teachers, that's exactly what's going to happen. Or at least, that better be the way it works because if I truly don't have any control over this situation, I'm just not sure what I'll do...

There have been a handful of situations this year, in which I have had difficult conflicts with older female students. These conflicts have inevitably included a lot of teenage attitude and have made me feel very uncomfortable. The first conflict came last semester when I had a very intelligent white girl in one of my classes who did not like me or respect the way I did things. I would try to address it by hearing her out, listening to her as I would listen to a peer or a colleague, and reasoning from there. That just seemed to fuel the fire and she convinced the administration to let her transfer out of my class by the end of the year. While I should be above the petty, "she doesn't like me... she thinks I'm a bad teacher" type of stuff, I'm not. This was, of course, the reason the situation was so challenging.

The current issue I'm having involves a handful of senior girls who do not like me in the classroom or at track practice. I tell them to do their throwing drills - they whine and complain disrespectfully then run to the head coach for support. I tell them that they can't be late to my class - they manipulate another teacher into writing them a pass to be late then whine and complain under their breath as I write them up anyway. It's definitely not an easy situation, but it is made worse by the fact that I let them bother me.

I let myself get caught up in the immature, irrational emotions of high schoolers. I let them make me feel uncomfortable in my classroom, the hallways, or at the track. As an educated adult woman who has a handful of significant accomplishments under her belt - especially at such a young age - I should be so far above this. Right now I just don't feel like I have enough distance to be truly above it though, and I don't know how to rationalize everything to get myself there without putting the students down. I need to balance a respect for where they are right now with the knowledge that I don't have to be a part of it. I guess working with these challenging personalities is not really that different than working with challenging people in any other professional setting. Sometimes though, it just feels like high school again. If anybody has any tips for me, please send them my way. Everyone remembers what 16 year old girls are like...

Things that make me grin

"So wait... multiplying by 1/2 is just the same as dividing by two, right?"



"Ms. Breeden, can you do an example of a trapezoid problem where we have to use trigonometry?"



"We were talking about the NMSBA [New Mexico Standard Based Assessment] today and I was thinking about all the things I don't understand. I never really got box and whisker plots, do you think you could explain that to us, Ms. Breeden?"



I kid you not, in a single, very magnificent day, all of these questions were asked by my students. When I asked for questions at the end of my lesson, these beautiful, inteligent kids actually raised their hands and said something other than, "Can I go to the bathroom?" (although there were of course still a few of those). While it's not exactly my style to sing and dance in front of the classroom, I sure felt like I could today.

Asking for help

We work in under resourced schools, no doubt. What I have been reminded of recently, however, is the amount that that can be addressed by simply asking for help.

First, I had a student's father come in for a very positive parent-teacher conference last week. The girl is wonderful to have in class, and meeting her father made it easy to see where she got it. At the end of our conference he looked at me and explained that their family had the resources to make donations to the school and would really be very glad to help wherever they could. Did I have anything that I needed? I took just a moment to think about this and responded honestly. I was having a hell of a time getting a classroom set of simple, four function calculators. He got visibly excited that I had actually said this and promised that I would have a set of 30 within the next week, as soon as he got into Albuquerque. At first I felt conflicted about letting this family make such a substantial donation, but when I was able to hand out calculators to all of my students today to work on trig ratios, I realized what a great thing this donation was. It was amazing that this family had volunteered and I felt good for doing my part and asking for help.

Second example, as I left the east coast last summer and put so many miles between myself and my family, they really wanted to support me and do their part to support this movement that I was joining. My dad asked me for ways that he could help this community. While I wasn't sure about how he could help in the classroom, I suggested that in this area athletic teams have little or no money to operate and the athletes might have a hard time buying equipment on their own. With all of his connections to the running community in New Hampshire and my new "Track Coach" title, my dad started a shoe drive. It has been incredibly successful. Within a week or so the Crownpoint Track teams will have 40 pairs of brand new spikes at their disposal, donated by the track community in Southern New Hampshire. Again, I'm overwhelmed by my dad's generosity and willingness to help out. I'm also excited though because all it took on my end was asking for help.

The schools in this area need a lot of help in a lot of different ways. While we can only do so much as teachers and corps members, there are a lot of other people out there, both in the community and from our home communities, who are eager and able to do their part. We need to do the best we can to ask for help and utilize these resources.

Another thing to be thankful for...

I just came across this online and because of my fascination with traveling I was, well, fascinated. I wonder how many of my students could say they've visited even a quarter of these states... (the ones in red represent the states that I have visited)





And... in addition... All the countries I have been fortunate enough to see...

Positive Changes

If I could go back to last August and change one thing... wait, any sentence that starts like that is a total lie. I would change a million things from last August, but recently, there has been one thing that I've really begun to appreciate. Positive reinforcement. I've been told from the beginning that it's important, but I guess I haven't used it regularly enough or in the right way. I've seen some great results in one of my classes where I have really been pouring on the praise and today I watched one girl just light up.

My student "Lisa" is an energetic and friendly sophomore who is involved in extracurriculars and always laughing or smiling. She's great to have around but tends to zone out during the period and performs in the lower half of her class. She can get down on herself very easily because of that. Today, as I was handing out progress reports and telling each student exactly what objectives they would be working on for the next few days. I realized that I had to tell Lisa that she was one of the few students who hadn't mastered any of the objectives from this unit and had a lot of work to do. I called her name and as she came to the back of the room and sat next to me for our conference. I decided to take a different approach and before even addressing her three mediocre/failing quiz grades, I took a minute and really told her how great her attendance and homework averages were, she did have an A in those two categories after all. As I looked her in the eye and told her she should be proud, she lit up. It was great. Following the good news, I did go on to tell her that she had three objectives to work on in the next few days; this would mean a lot of hard work. She didn't miss a beat upon hearing this, I had already given her the little extra confidence she needed. She spent the rest of the period working diligently with a friend to grasp the material she needed.

After 10 or so years of struggling through school, many students have zero confidence in their ability to be successful. This may be one of the biggest obstacles to overcome for both students and teachers alike. The lack of confidence is deeply ingrained, but taking just a minute to recognize success or remind students of their own strengths seems to make more of an impact than I ever thought it would. While I know this temporary boost of confidence will in no way make up for the many unsuccessful experiences so many students have grown accustomed to, at least it's something I can do on a daily basis.