The Man in the Mirror

I'm starting with the man in the mirror.

I'm asking him to change his ways.

And no message could have been any clearer.

If you want to make the world a better place,

Take a look at yourself, and

Then make a change.

                                                                        --Michael Jackson

            Struggling with some pretty heavy behavioral issues this past week, including mean-spirited bullying, lunch-line craziness, disrespect towards adults and an overall all sense of negativity in our classroom, my co-teacher and I have really been looking for simple pillars of community and virtue to rally our class behind. We decided it was time for a change in attitude in Room 206. Interestingly enough we found some hope in Michael Jackson’s song the “Man in the mirror.”

            The simple message of starting with yourself and changing your own attitude combined with the catchy song of an iconic legend is something that the students have responded to very positively. As the students walked into class to unpack each day this past week, we played the “Man in the Mirror” quietly in the background. On each wall of our class we posted the lyrics to the song. My co-teacher even came in on Thursday wearing a Michael-Jackson-style hat. The message seems to be spreading. On occasions I have heard students humming the song while going to the bathroom or while reading after school. 

            When 3^rd graders are confronted with metaphor, the response can often be quite entertaining. When one of my students, Jaden O, was off-task, drumming his pencil incessantly on his desk, I sternly reminded him to take a look at the man in the mirror. For a second Jaden gave me a puzzled look. Then he inquired, “but Mr. Miller, who is the man in the mirror?” I could help but smile as I explained the concept to him. Nonetheless, I believe that whether my 3^rd graders fully understand the idea or not, whether subconsciously or consciously, the use of more creative measures such as song or catch phrases to encourage behavior is both effective as a teaching mechanism and also fun for our classroom culture.    

Meet Sam L.

Today I’d like to talk about Sam L. I’ve been thinking a lot about Sam lately because he presents a unique challenge to my classroom. Sam is a very intelligent kid. He is reading slightly above grade level, picks up very quickly on our daily writing workshops and had one of the highest math scores in our class on the first unit test. He also plays the violin at home and is on a soccer team outside of school. He is a very respectful and well-intentioned boy who also really likes to volunteer to help with odd jobs around the classroom.

Yet Sam can also be very naughty at times. He talks incessantly when on the rug or at his desk, has a very difficult time staying in his seat and can’t keep his hands to himself. I’ve witnessed him untying other student’s shoe laces, scratching away at the wood on his desk destroying its polished lining, poking at my shoes with a pencil (he sits right in front of me on the carpet during mini-lessons and this has become his favorite mini-lesson past-time) and running around playing tag in the middle of independent practice when students are supposed to be seated in their chairs working silently. 

Of course there are very valid reasons for why Sam behaves this way—he has ADHD and struggles with Voices’ really long school days. The sad thing is that he is rarely ever ill intentioned. It seems to be largely out of his control—he simply has so much energy. The problem is that all this energy is infuriating for his teachers to deal with on a regular basis. Some days, my co-teacher and I have had to talk with him multiple times a day for multiple different behavior problems. I’ve seen him thrown out of music class, asked to sit in his chair because he can’t handle the rug in science class and forced to sit out recess because he gets to rowdy.

 
Because Sam is often asked to leave the classroom to cool-off, my concern is that he is missing out on social experiences and classroom activities that are crucial to his development as a 3^rd grader. I think one of the issues is that he is not getting enough physical exercise in school. There is currently no P.E. and the space at Voice is very limited (recess occurs in a small parking lot with no jungle gym and there are very few opportunities for the students to really burn off energy). I think I’m going to try giving Sam more opportunities to let out his energy. I’ve watched another teacher at my school take kids out and have them do jumping hacks, push-ups, hopping games and other such activities in the hallway to burn off some energy. I think I may try some of these strategies with Sam this week and see if that helps at all. I’m also going to start look into P.E. programs at other schools to see if we can get a more solid P.E. program going in my class. Hopefully, this combined with other strategies to keep Sam engaged and challenged will help him better make it through the day.      

Later,

Allen 

Meet Jaden M.

Room 206 is full of character and personality. Over the course of this year I will probably spend at least a few entries focusing just on one student at a time. Today, I’d like to talk about Jaden M. Jaden is the kind of kid who confuses most teachers. He can be very kind, considerate and gentle at times. I’ve noticed this past week that he has taken one of the shy and quiet kids, Shamin, under his wing (often offering his snack to him when Shamin doesn’t have one and helping him hang up his back pack in the closet when he can’t reach his rung). Yet at other times Jaden can be incredibly difficult. He often turns small problems into big ones, refuses to do the independent work he is supposed to do and occasionally resorts to giving me a defiant glare that says “I’m not going to do anything you say, so what are you going to do about it?” This week, however, I think I may have found something I can use to connect with him: Pokemon.

Jaden is absolutely obsessed with Pokemon. Everything he draws, writes, reads and talks to me about has to do with Pikachus, Bubasoars and Squirtles. His favorite Pokemon is Charizard, but he also seems to like Snorlax quite a bit. This past week, while Jaden was waiting for his father to come pick him up after school, he asked me, “Mr. Miller, what’s your favorite Pokemon?” Now I have to admit that when I was younger, I, along with millions of other little kids, jumped on the Pokemon bandwagon. I played the video games and collected the cards for a few months of my elementary school days, but that was over ten years ago. (Side note: isn’t it crazy that Pokemon is still around and popular years later). I can barely remember anything about the game.

Digging deep down into my memory, I said, “Hmm...I think my favorite Pokemon is Jigglypuff.” For a split second, I was scared that I had chosen a Teletubby instead of a Pokemon. But I was soon relieved when a huge smile spread across his face. He was elated that I liked Jigglypuff—it was in his top 10 most favorite Pokemon. The next day after school, Jaden presented me with a large drawing. Amid the clutter of the stick-figures and dialogue boxes I could make out a tall figure that was labeled Mr. Miller and another round figure labeled Jigglypuff. Even though, I had no idea what was going in the scene, I acted very excited and thanked Jaden for the present and told him that I was really happy that we was sharing his Pokemon stories with me. I think that simple acknowledgement and indication that I was interested and excited in something that he is really passionate about has helped me to connect better with Jaden. He seems happier during my mini-lessons and has even volunteered in class. I think the key with Jaden is to continue to show interest in things that he likes. And with that, I think it might be time to whip out the gameboy and do some comic book reading so I’m prepared for Monday.   

The C in CTT

At Voice Charter School, my 3^rd grade class is the only class that is taught using the Collaborative Team Teaching (CTT) model. When Mr. Headley, the principal at our school, notified me the weekend before the first day of school that I would be co-teaching with another first year teacher, I really didn’t know what to expect. I was originally going to be the special education intervention teacher for the entire 3^rd grade, splitting my time in both classrooms using push in/pull out strategies. With this new appointment I was to be the designated special education teacher in a single classroom—spending all my time with my 30 students. A third of these students have special needs and a high number have had to repeat a grade.

 

CTT classrooms are often created to strengthen the educational experience of students and provide a lower student to teacher ratio. This is particular true when there is a high quantity of students with special needs. In my classroom, certain students have IEPs that require them to be in a CTT classroom to receive certain services. This can be due to academic needs or behavioral needs. With two teachers, in the classroom the students definitely have more instruction and more help. Nonetheless, collaboration is really key and it can be challenging at times.

My co-teacher is a really great guy and has a hard-working but fun person to be around. We have somewhat different philosophies on teaching but have so far been able to communicate pretty effectively and compromise when needed. As with any relationship, however, we still have a lot to learn from one-another and a long way to go before we reach a point where we are maximizing our effectiveness. This was something our school principal mentioned in a recent meeting and something we have made a conscious effort to improve. 

  

I think one of the most important things the two of us have to figure out right now is how to manage the other adults who frequent our classroom throughout the day. On any given day we usually have an additional 3 adults come in. One of our students, Sarobi, has a para-professional who is with the student the whole day. We also have an assistant who is with us for much of the day. In addition, every so often we have another assistant who comes in to provide additional support. Because it is so early in the year, and we are focusing so much of our time on the students that we haven’t had much time to think about the adults who are there to support our students. I think that with some brainstorming and planning we will be able to collaborate and better use the team we have around us to help our students reach their goals.

Summer Updates

I know it's been a while since I last posted, so this blog post will be a little different from my others in that it will just be a quick summary of the last month. I wish I could have spent more time capturing the many funny and insightful moments that occurred over the course of the last month, but summer training at Teach For America and the transition to my fall placement took up so much of my time that I had to put updates on the back burner for the time being. Anyhow, here is a summary of Institute, my fall placement and what I've been doing as I transition into full time teaching in NYC.

Most of July I spent teaching 8th grade English Language Arts at M.S. 331 in the Bronx. My first month of teaching was challenging, exciting and an incredibly unique learning experience. Throughout the summer, I poured hours into lesson planning, discussing management with co-teachers, attending training sessions and brushing up on my ELA skills. And although there were some very trying times, including being sworn at, having to break up a fight, dealing with several extreme behavior problems and having some tough conversation with parents, I really enjoyed coming to school each day. Throughout the summer I witnessed my students really holding high expectations for themselves. Their reading and writing skills improved tremendously and they grew an average of 45 percentage points on the ELA portion of the NY state regents exam. They also made me laugh every week whether it was as they told me about their very serious 2-month-relationships or as they taught me how to "dougie" or as they learned symbolism by singing John Lennon's "Imagine" very expressively. And although the school administration has the final say, I believe that all of them will have reached their summer  goal of graduating 8th grade and going to high school.

During the last week of institute, I interviewed and was placed at Voice Charter School in Long Island City, Queens. This Fall I will be teaching Special Education on the intervention team at Voice. The school is a new school that opened in 2008 as K-1. Each year since then, they have added a year with the ultimate goal of reaching K-8. The school is now going into its 4th year and has grown to 250 students, 50+ staff and two buildings. I have just finished my first week of professional development at Voice and have two more to go before the students arrive. So far everyone I've met from the principal to the assistants to the other teachers, has been really awesome. I've been able to get a sense of the school culture and I really like what I see so far. Over the course of the next few weeks I'll try to discuss the culture at Voice in more detail.

Later days,

Allen

The First Week of Summer School

Thought of the Day

Tuesday July 5th I walked into Room 414 of M.S. 336 at 7:05am and looked around at the walls filled with colorful posters, desks arranged in neat rows and bookshelves filled with supplies. After months of the TFA application process, weeks of paperwork and surveys, days of training sessions and hours of classroom decorating I was finally "ready" to teach. And yet, somehow, I had no idea what I was doing nor what to expect when I went downstairs to pick up my students from the school cafeteria.

That was almost one week ago. As you may have guessed from my failure to post more recent updates, its been an incredibly intense and time consuming week. That first day of summer school is something I won't easily forget. Although I have obviously been through middle school and had the invaluable experience of interning with TFA last summer, somehow I had forgotten what it was like to be in middle school. The first day all the students had to take assessments so that we could gauge where they were and how to best prepare them for 9th grade. As you can imagine they were not thrilled to be doing this. My students averaged a 26% on their assessments. And yet, when I saw these results, I wasn't the least bit surprised. During the assessments, the students were constantly talking, asking to go to the bathroom, falling a sleep and showing a general apathy towards the tests. During one of the later assessments, two students even engaged in a rowdy shoving contest before it was broken up by one of my co-teachers.

The next day I returned to school with my work cut-out for me. And yet I approached that day with a zero-tolerance, no-messing-around attitude. I was determined to divide and conquer - to get my students focused and back on track to make it to 9th grade. I came in with a well thought out management plan and was ready to be stern and serious, only loosening up if my students demonstrated that they were going to stay focused and approach learning more enthusiastically. For the next two days, the class behaved better. I was excited by the improvement in behavior, especially amongst the more rambunctious individuals. Yet when I returned to school this morning - it was as though my students had forgotten how to behave over the weekend. We were back to the first day of school where talking out of turn, swearing, bickering and sleeping in class was acceptable. And while I was able to keep the class moving, I know that not everyone was on track. Bottom line, more than one student was left behind today.

Tomorrow, I hope to heighten my energy level and bring a strong management tone back to the classroom to keep everyone on track. With students, especially 8th graders, you can not afford to let your guard down. As a teacher sometimes the classroom is a battlefield. The key is to show them that you are on their side. You are there to help them conquer the academic challenges between them and high school. Learning can be fun and it can be rewarding. I want to instill this mindset into my students because I want every single one of my students to graduate and move on to high school. Hopefully tomorrow I can take a step closer to that goal.


Daily Round Up: Highs and Lows

• Low: 6 lesson plans due on one day. That's right, between my summer school lesson plans and an interview, I had six lesson plans due last Thursday.
• High: My Corp Member Adviser, Amber Shepherd, was incredibly willing to work with me and give me a small extension on some of these lesson plans
• Low: Monday Morning Misbehavior. I don't know what happens over the weekend, but my students were not focused this morning. Here's to hoping Tuesday is better.
• High: Working with a team of incredibly hard-working and intelligent people. In particular, my Collaborative (Rebeca Egler, Travis Price and Michelle Benjamin) as well as the other 8th grade ELA teachers at M.S. 331 (Carly Chittim, Jeff Tamburri, Analeise Pigg). These guys have been doing amazing things in such little time. Can't wait to see what they accomplish in 2 years. 

Teaching the Huck Finn Way

Thought of the Day

Anyone who has ever been a bit of a rebel as a youth seems to know Mark Twain's famous adage "don't ever let school get in the way of your education." From a young age this saying has always conjured images in my mind of Mark Twain's young protagonist, Huckleberry Finn, ditching the civilized life of school to explore the great outdoors while learning invaluable lessons from his good friend and run-away slave, Jim. This to me is American education at its finest - natural, untamed and free. Yet as insightful as this saying may be, I believe its inverse to be even more powerful. For teachers, it is often just as important to make sure that our education doesn't get in the way of school.

Here's what I mean by this. At TFA we are trained to approach teaching in a very focused, achievement-oriented way. This past week we spent hours discussing ways in which to invest our students in what they are learning, manage our classrooms effectively and track student progress in a data-oriented way. The approach, which is often summarized with the phrase "Teaching as Leadership (TAL)," is scientific, interdisciplinary and thorough. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the TAL method and know that there is much to be learned and internalized from what TFA has taught us this past week. I am incredibly fortunate to be receiving this training.

Yet, in a sense, I feel that there is so much more to teaching than the brief training and crash-course in terminology and methods that we are receiving here. This weekend I spent some time exploring the city with some of my fellow soon-to-be teachers (I'm including a few pictures of our adventure below). We took a stroll through Central Park, walked around Rockefeller center and made our way down to The Village where we had some great falafel and shwarma. But by far the coolest part of the trip was when we accidentally bumped into a rag-tag group of musicians at Washington Square - who were out there on a Saturday evening just playing and singing for fun. These guys were absolutely incredible. The impersonations of Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder along with several tap dancing routines left the audience applauding for more.

That got me thinking about my role as a teacher in the lives of my students - about how I wanted to empower my students to grow academically and succeed. But at the same time, I realized that I don't want to get so lost in all the acronyms, toolkits and growth goals that I lose sight of what it truly means to be a teacher. Being in New York, I want my kids to experience the Harlem Renaissance in Harlem. I want them to learn about 9/11 at Ground Zero. And I want them to know that musicians aren't always famous people you see on T.V., sometimes they're normal people that perform for a small group of people in a park. In short, I don't want my training to get in the way of their learning. Rather, I hope to always remember that there is a strong human component to teaching.


Daily Round Up: Highs and Lows

• High: Setting up my first classroom - Room 414 at M.S. 331 in the Bronx. Doing that was surreal.

• Low: Taking the school bus home from the Bronx to St. Johns. And I thought traffic in Los Angeles was bad.

• High: Exploring NYC. I could live here for years and barely tap into what this city has to offer. 

• Low: "The Plans." Investment plans, management plans, procedural plans, etc., I never thought that teachers would have to create so many plans.

• High: 4th of July. Even though we have to work in the morning as the first day of classes is the 5th, I can't wait to celebrate being American. 

Central Park

Stevie Wonder look-a-like at Washington Square

Restaurants at "The Village"