The Tunica River Park affords a host of opportunities for people who are seeking to understand the historical importance of the Mississippi River's usage from its beginnings with the Native Americans and conquistadors up through it's present-day significance as a major channel for transporting goods and individuals through the American midwest. In an ideal world my students would be able to visit the park and take advantage of the plethora of exhibits and time periods featured at the museum. However, structuring this time to maximize my students' learning must be undertaken carefully so that my students get the full effect of the academic experience of the Tunica River Park and do not simply view the excursion as pointless field trip.
Some of the before school activities that I could have my students complete are:
1) Completing a KWL chart to document students' knowledge prior to visiting the Tunic River Park
2) Researching the history of the Mississippi River and how it has been used in the past by disparate groups
3) Visiting a local river (i.e. the Yazoo River) and having students read about its historic regional significance
Some of the activities I could have my students complete while they are at the Tunic River Park are:
1) Creating a timeline to document the settling of the area around the Mississippi River
2) Describing the work of major figures who settles or worked along the Mississippi River
3) Formulating a schedule for other groups of students to complete a walking tour of the park on their own visit
Some of the activities I could have my students complete after their visit to the Tunica River Park include:
1) Finishing their KWL chart by filling in five things they learned from their visit to the Tunica River Park
2) Developing a community service project to spread the word throughout the Delta about the river's import
3) Writing a persuasive letter to a member of Congress urging them to allot money for sharing the river's history
When teaching in the districts that MTC places us in, tangible success is often hard to come by. Failure seems to be what is constantly in our face as we think of all the things that our students are doing besides learning, all the places that our students will likely end up besides college, and all the classroom management issues we face that make us want to roll over and call out sick. Every. Single. Day. Still, it's in the little things that teachers anywhere but especially in "critical needs" districts must focus on to maintain drive and focus and continue doing what too many others have deemed highly improbable or flatly impossible for centuries: educating poor Blacks.
In many of these districts MTC teachers teach in standardized tests are seen as foreboding signs of eminent doom and embarrassment. In these places, teaching "to the test" is often resorted to as the means through which educational salvation is reached. Teaching to the test is one thing but when you're in a school environment where, from day one, what's communicated to teachers is that teaching to the test is the ONLY thing, well then you're at KIPP. On some level this is understandable as testing determines so much at charter schools like KIPP from our enrollment to our ability to woo private funders to the very renewal of our charter with the state of Arkansas. However, I cannot help but shake my philosophical belief that I have more important life skills to teach my students than finding equivalent fractions and answering multiple choice items using process of elimination.
In any event, our big state test in Arkansas is called the ACTAAP or the Benchmark Exam. KIPP Delta in Helena has some of the highest test scores in the state at the middle school and high school levels. Last year, 94% of our 7th graders at KIPP Delta scored proficient or advanced on the mathematics Benchmark Exam compared to 66% of 7th graders statewide and only 33% of students in Helena-West Helena's regular public school system. What makes this even more remarkable to many is that our school is 99% Black, 99% free/reduced lunch, and in the heart of dilapidated downtown Helena close by local housing projects, gang territory, drugs, and prostitution. Last year's 7th grade math teacher who got these results was so successful that she has been given the green light to found her own school which will be opening in Blytheville, Arkansas in the fall of 2010 as a new KIPP middle school. She's only a year older than me. The venerable 7th grade math slot was thus available when I applied to KIPP this past spring and who teaches this course with the districtwide spotlight on it now?: me. The Black, hood guy from Harvard with two years of (social studies) teaching experience who's a few credits away from a master's degree in education.
Anyway, to my success story. In preparation for the end-of-the-year Benchmark Exam we take practice Benchmark Exams every month. We chart the progress of our students and use the practice Benchmark Exams to target particular students and skills for remediation and re-teaching. Results are scrutinized for hours on end at the individual, school, and district levels. It is highly nerve-wrecking to see where your students are at month-by-month and to know that the results will be known almost immediately by your peers and superiors and reflect your quality as a teacher. Lovely. In any event, the first practice Benchmark Exam we took was in late September. We took a second one two weeks ago in late October and although the success or failure of my students on the September exam could largely be attributed to what my students came into 7th grade knowing, my school director was clear in communicating that the October exam's results would be all my own.
Much to my surprise and the surprise of many a colleague, I'm sure, not only did my students' scores increase from the first to the second practice Benchmark Exam but these were the only scores that increased in any grade level, in any subject area at the entire school. Fifth, sixth, and eighth grade math scores went down. Fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade literacy scores went down. Fifth, sixth, seventh, and eight grade reading scores went down. Fifth and seventh grade science scores went down (we don't do sixth and eighth grade science testing). ONLY 7TH GRADE MATH SCORES WENT UP!!! I was elated when I saw the numbers displayed on the dry erase board at our faculty meeting the night we stayed at school until 10 p.m. grading exams and inputting results on our district network for more scrutiny. When looking at the individual students and their performances from the first to the second practice Benchmark Exam, I also noticed that most of the students whose scores increased were taught by me and not by the more experienced and better respected 8th grade math teacher who takes 15 of my 7th graders into his algebra class each day.
That's wassup. Right?
The blog article, "High Expectations? Not so fast," from (http://garyrubinstein.teachfor.us/2009/08/30/high-expectations-not-so-fast/) argues that while its good for first year teachers to have high expectations, one must be realistic as well. Specifically, the article argues that overly high standards can actually hurt students because they will constantly fail. As a second year teacher, I agree with the post completely. Yes, it is important to have high standards (and the article does not disagree with this), but if I have a classroom of students who are supposedly ready to be in Algebra II and they cannot graph a straight line, it will do no good to teach them the quadratic formula.
Have real expectations, but don't expect to be a miracle worker. A student who cannot read should not attempt to dive into Proust, it will just humiliate and discourage them. Start with Green Eggs and Ham and work your way up. However, when you do teach Green Eggs and Ham, ensure you have high expectations of the students work based of the book.
Is Mississippi a third world nation?
The Blog post, "Is Part of the United States in the Third World," (http://mapscroll.blogspot.com/2009/05/human-development-index-by-state.html) attempts to rank US states in line with the world nations in regards to their human development index (HDI) reading. In the blog, a list is presented with rankings of nations by their HDI mixed in with nations. Mississippi is listed at 76th, below Russia and Ecuador. At first glance, this seems terrible, an American state, down below the home of Siberia and a South American non-powerhouse. However, the blog is somewhat meaningless, and this is noted in the first paragraph of the post: "The US HDI is not at all comparable to the world HDI.." What this says is that you cannot directly compare the US state HDI to other nations HDI. This make the list irrelevant.
A quick google search paints a more rosy picture for Mississippi. Ecuador, with a normalized (ppp) GDP per capita of under $8k, is much poorer than Mississippi with a GDP (non normalized) of just under $27k, over three times greater than Ecuador's, and that non adjusted. It seems silly to state that Mississippi is a third world nation. Anyone who has been to a poor area of a third world country can easily attest to the abject poverty which makes Mississippi look good. Kids go hungry in Mississippi and attend shoddy schools. In third world nations, kids worry about starvation and school is a pipe dream. By claiming that Mississippi is at the same level as a third world nation unfairly cheapens the term and shows the authors naivety of what a third world country truly is.
To be honest, after a second perusal of Ruby Payne's A Framework for Understanding Poverty I'm not sure how I feel about it. Two years ago when I first blogged about the book I had this to say. Oh, the days when I was a fiery leftist blogger.... I still feel Payne overly generalizes a very large, exploited population whose absent voice in a book such as this speaks volumes. I still feel it is inherently absurd to think you can understand poverty, the lifestyles of many people in poverty, or other such deeply complex and malleable concepts by reading a book. I still feel that the myriad holes in Payne's argument makes it as useful as a two-dollar bill in the vending machines on the first floor of Guyton. However, I do hear more of what Payne was trying to get across after having taught for two years in one of the poorest places in the nation.
The research article that I read was "The 'Building Tasks' of Critical History: Structuring Social Studies for Social Justice" by Wayne Au. It was published in Social Studies Research and Practice in July of this year. In the article, Au looks at two case study lesson plans by social studies teachers who actively seek to raise the consciousness of their students around social justice issues. The author utilizes discourse analysis where people "use language to operationalize certain 'building tasks' in order to express meaning, ideology, values, and other aspects of our identities in a given situation." Au concluded that these lesson plans were quality classroom pedagogical devices due to their service as vehicles for students to critically question social relations historically and in the present-day context. In doing so, he dismissed the claims of some that lesson plans stifle the true learning process by assuming that the planning and executing instruction occurs in some sort of linear fashion to a "predetermined endpoint."
Classroom management, or how to keep the class focused and working, was an area I struggled with my first year, especially during my first semester. This year, my classroom management has been much improved Part of the change stems from the fact that I no longer teach Freshmen, but I've also gotten better at being a manager of the class. Detailed below are some changes I've made this year that have helped foster a more structured and effective learning environment:
1. Be Confident
As the teacher, you can win every argument. Better yet though, as a teacher, you should never have to enter into an argument with a student. If a student is doing something that is bothering you, warn them that they must modify their behavior, and if they don't, give them a consequence. If you do this unflinchingly, you will limit students questioning your actions. I gave out a detention last week because someone was tapping their pencil. I warned them first, and then followed through. The student was upset about this until one of his classmates turned and said something to the effect of you knew that would happen if continued your behavior.
2. Stick to your guns
This ties into number one, once you have made a decision, it is set in stone. If someone complains, tell them see me after class, if someone wont stop whining, give them another consequence. If you take back a consequence it sets a standard that consequences are negotiable, and this will be a grand mistake.
3. Grade
I'm going to reach out on a limb and say that not all of your kids are passing your class, and furthermore, the "bad" kids are often making the low marks. Just as important, your "good" kids are probably passing, and some may be doing quite well. Grade. If you grade papers and pass them back with some frequency, you are constantly letting the students with low mark know that they will fail if they continue to lack focus (the reason 75% of my kids fail), and you will be letting the top student know that their hard work is appreciated and has a positive effect on their grades. Although it will depend student to student, most students want to pass your class. Even the students who say they don't care still do some work for a reason, they would like to pass. If you never grade you will give the impression that work done in class has little or no bearing on the student passing, and this will lead to the students doing less work and at a lower quality.
"I should get one of those signs that says "One of these days I'm gonna get organezized"."
- Travis Bickle
Every two days I see in excess of 150 students and grade just as many papers. In nearly every class I have some sort of handout, in my ACT prep class (we don't have a book) I may give out three handouts. This constant stream of work creates a constant stream of papers going to me and back out to the students. In order to manage this stream, I've had to hone my organizational skills. Below are a few detailed points which have helped me become more organized:
1. Have a one class grading turnaround:
What this means is that if you turn in a quiz or test on Monday, the next time I see you (Wednesday) you will get the paper back with a grade on it. This prevents a backlog of grading which will drive you mad and wreak havoc on your organizational system.
2. Throw away papers you don't grade promptly:
This point ties into the first. If I don't grade it right away, its going to become an organizational problem, so I throw it away and give everyone a participation grade for doing the work (I do this very infrequently this year, in fact, only once so far).
3. Create electronic folders for every class:
Yeah, your computer will get messy as well. Create a system of folders and subfolders to stay on top of your game. To open todays lesson plan and resources (its an exam day!), I click on Murrah 2009, September AL 2, Twelve. This is especially good to do your first year, because if you have the same preps next year, you're golden.
4. Keep your classroom clean:
My roommates will attest that at times I am not the cleanest person. While teaching I often become covered in expo marker. However, my class is clean. In the back there are trays of grading with no more than one assignment inside. They will be passed back today to the students, and then the assignments will leave my class. I don't have piles of paper stacked about. If you get in the habit of putting everything in the proper place, you wont lose your handouts, your old exams, and so on. Once again, this ties into grading things promptly.
Overall, organization is important in many ways. My largest piece of advice is don't let grading stack up. Old papers will clutter your room, and not turning back papers promptly will lead to issues with classroom management, which is my next topic....
Part I:
Part II:
