I was never them. I can’t relate.

I was looking online for something related to my school, and I came across a LiveJournal by a student (from my school way before I came). He writes sporadically about his senior year (sometimes writing from class)!

Some things he says:

• I just did absolutely awful on my bio test and I am really disappointed in myself. Weinsieder just farted and I’m in Stats… this is great. Another wonderful beginning to a day in the best school on earth….
• Last night was pretty fun now that I think about it. Smokin a fatty and then going to Wo Hop then the Knicks game, sounds like a decent night. The problem was… marijuana is not the drug for the Knicks game. I was about to pass out right in the seat.
• F*** YOU… I can’t believe you. I can’t believe how you can ruin me in 2 minutes of conversation. I don’t know how you can live with yourself, with just killing me repeatedly… I can’t even describe how I feel and how much I want to punch something but I’m not going to, I don’t want any more scars on my hand and I don’t want any more scars period.
• Weird a** night. Went to the party… threw up..drank a lot… broke my knuckle…went to Vegas on Smith St… met some girls… went to their crib…
• I was just thinking about going to Europe and how it is going to be amazing. I hope I survive and don’t go to jail and don’t get poisoned. I’m going to be rebellious and get an ear-ring before I go. My parents can’t rip my ear off if I’m in another continent. I have also been thinking about prom and how I really hope it is somewhat okay.
• Well hmm I dont know what to say. Today I did a lot of loitering, not knowing what to do with myself…. trying to pretend to sleep. I realized that I have to start playing basketball again because 2 years ago I was pretty good and now I can be better if I get my act together. School is wwwiiiiiiiiiiinddddinnnng down and I am getting more and more aburrido.

In what two ways will your male teenage students spend their free time and disposable cash this weekend? How much does it matter if you don’t know?

Disclaimer: I don’t intend this blog to be centered about whining. I want this blog to be about practice, about ideas, about improvement and reflection and archiving my first years of teaching. That being said, this post is written by someone (me) who is temporarily frustrated. The good thing about me is that after frustration, I usually come out on the other side stronger. I try to turn my frustration into something productive. That all said, onto the whining!

Here I am, about halfway through our fourth and final quarter, and I’m teaching a gaggle of tenth and eleventh graders about trigonometry. And we’ve been working with radians and reference angles for a long time now. They should be second nature.

They aren’t. I am so fed up with trying to use this book to teach trigonometry that I might just scrap it and design my own homework, and organize it my own way [1]. Heck, I’ll just write my own little book on trigonometry for my students, focusing on the skills that I need them to know.

It’s clear that the students have lost the big picture for trying to memorize procedures without knowing the concepts behind these procedures.

The hard part about being a teacher is that even though I may sometimes decry my students in a moment of panic, I blame myself. I assume every student is working hard at home (if they tell me they are) and then I have no one else to look at, except in a mirror. And I know, I know what you’re going to say: “Thinking in terms of blame doesn’t do anyone any good.”

But it’s my way of keeping myself on my toes, always trying to do better, and figure out what I did wrong. It’s also highly depressing, and leads me to periodically question if I’m a good teacher. Ahhh, to be blessed with the endemic uncertainties that comprise a first year teacher…

It gets hard, though, when I feel like I am on an uphill battle, given a Sisyphean task.

The catalyst for this post? All of this stems from a whole bunch of students in my Algebra II class who asked today why I claimed . And then a whole bunch of others who didn’t realize is the same as .

The really frustrating thing about this is that I saw fractions were a problem when we started trig, so I gave a review worksheet on fractions early on in our trig unit. Clearly, I am going to have to start earlier and come up with a different plan of attack than just a worksheet.

Did I mention that I wanted to go “AAAARGH!”?

[1] I did a bit of rearranging and lo and behold, my students did extremely well on that assessment. It could be that the topic is easy for them, but I don’t think that’s it.

I’m a newbie to teaching. When meeting new people, it quickly comes up in conversation. I’ve noticed that a lot of people — not teachers — like to share with me their opinion of teaching. Their responses almost always fall into one of two categories:

I could never be a teacher. It’s so hard, to have to deal with all those kids all the time.

or

You are doing something so noble day in and day out. Thanks.

When they say those things, I disabuse them of the notion that I’m working harder than people in other professions (I have friends in med school, lawyers, professors) or that I’m a self-sacrificing hero working day in and day out for the betterment of mankind.

Not to say that I don’t work hard, or that I don’t think I’m impacting my students.

But those aren’t the reasons I went into teaching, or that I continue to work hard at it.

When it comes down to it, I teach for two reasons. First, I love love love my subject matter and I want to show others why it’s so great. As reasons go, it’s mundane and expected. Also, it’s selfish. I get a rush from the thought that I could be setting my students’ brains on fire, like my math teachers did to my brain when I was their age. Second, I love the challenges that teaching presents. I like creating projects for myself, learning new things, trying something or another thing out. It feels good to have something that I can say “I did” whether it be creating a paint chip wallet or have student X successfully learn to apply the law of cosines. These are small mountains I like to conquer.

I don’t do it for others. It’s nice that others might benefit, but — at least for me, now — I do it for myself.

Recently in the edusphere, there has been a conversation about the nobility of the teaching profession, partially prompted by the US News and World Report that stated teaching was “overrated.” (See here and here to get familiar with the arguments.) Much of the writing deals with tenure, the concept of “profession,” merit, and salary.

As I’m teaching in a private school which doesn’t have many of the problems that many of those blogging write about, I don’t have much of substance to add to the conversation above. But I’m still going to throw out a few cents.

In my experience, teachers don’t rely on the rhetoric of “nobility” when they talk with each other. (Mainly I’ve found non-teachers speak in those terms.) We commiserate with each other on the problems that adolescents pose for us, we complain about the late nights, we gripe about the higher salaries our friends in the financial sector are making [1], but at least among my young teacher friends (even those in the NY Teaching Fellows), we don’t ever talk about the nobility of what we do.

I’m not saying that my teacher friends went into teaching for the same reasons that I did, or even think of it in a similar way to me. They might even see themselves as working in the “greatest calling of all.” But I think when it comes to our actions from 7:30 – 3:10 (and after), nobility has very little to do with the task at hand.

[1] I too gripe about wanting more money (living in NYC, one always needs more money). But I don’t wrap myself in the clothing of a martyr, seeing myself as sacrificing the money in the financial sector for the more modestly paid teaching work. I chose teaching.

Sometimes I forget that my students are people. Not like I treat them badly, or anything. That’s not what I mean. And I do try to think of them as more than only students. But there are times that I get so wrapped up in lesson planning and grading that I forget. Today I got reminded in two very striking ways that my students are not just math students.

First, we had advising conferences, and just looking at the schedules of my advisees jolted me back into reality. These students are taking a lot more classes than just math, and when I mentally think “why didn’t you just learn the material the night I presented it?”, I sometimes forget that these students are juggling with a lot of teachers all of whom are probably saying the same thing. Not that what we assign them is unmanagable. But it’s not an easy life for them. It’s much easier from our side of the teacher’s desk, looking through the spectacles on the edge of our noses, muttering “when I was your age…”

But it was hard for us then too. We just have had the luxury of forgetting.

Second, today was opening night for the school musical. It was HAIR and it was risque and long and clearly took a lot of preparation to stage. The students in it have worked their tails off to pull off another successful production. And a fair number of my students are involved with the musical. I was impressed by the amount of effort that the kids put into the production, yes, but it was also great to see students outside of the math room context. And outside of the hallway context. And in the theater. For many, the stage is their context, and I’m on their turf. It’s nice to see a student who generally struggles in my class get out on stage, grab the microphone, and belt out a tune.

My students are people.

We really do know it. We just need to remember not to forget it.

In my last hastily written post, I wrote about the process of interviewing from the side of the interviewers. That’s because I’ve been heavily immersed in it for the past few weeks. But it wasn’t so long ago that I was on the job market myself, writing personal statements, meeting myriad people, and giving my demo lessons. And as a first time teacher, I had no idea what to do or expect. I mean, I had my education classes, but they were ages ago (I went to grad school after getting certified to teach), and they didn’t cover any of the practical stuff on how to get a job.

Fortunately, my sister is in education — she teaches at an independent school in Massachusetts, and she went through the whole rigmarole and gave me loads of advice. She also put me in touch with a number of her teacher friends who I asked tons of questions to. I didn’t know the wide diversity of independent schools until I talked with them. Boarding? Day? Mixed boarding and day? How many classes is it normal to teach? How many different preps? What does a dorm parent do? etc.

I also did a lot of library/book research to find out salary information, how to write a good resume, and where to look to find public schools with openings (I’m certified in Massachusetts), and how to find independent schools with openings.

In other words, it wasn’t an easy process. But I learned a number of things along the way that I would recommend to anyone going on the job market. I think most of these mainly apply to independent schools, but I’m not sure…

(more…)

This year I’ve been intimately involved with the hiring process. With two of our veteran (and funny, and quirkily snarky, and supremely excellent) teachers retiring and our department head moving on to bigger and better things, there have been a number of math openings to fill. I’ve now seen a lot of demo lessons, had lots of conversations over lunch about teachers, and read a fair share of resumes, recommendations, and personal statements.

In addition, there has been a reorganization of the Upper School administration, and we’re switching from two academic/social/disciplinary deans (one for 9th and 10th grade; one or 11th and 12th grade) and four grade level deans (that deal with attendance, keeping advisers on the same page, and lead the big grade level project) to four “everything” deans and one new “assistant head of the upper school” (assistant principal). These deans travel with the grade (so they work with the same kids each year) and deal with anything and everything regarding the students.

A consequence of this transition is the search for these “everything” deans and the assistant head position.

And I’m on the search committee for these candidates too.

So I’ve been really involved with watching demo lessons, asking interview questions, and evaluating. Because these hires affect me significantly.

Things I’ve learned, observations I’ve had, advice I can give… But this seems very specific to my school, or similar independent schools…

(more…)

It’s 10:45pm and I just came across this compelling article called “The Mathematician’s Lament” that I’ve now read half of. I’m going to finish it off when I have more time, and post my reaction to it. From what I’ve gleaned thus far, this article is incredible provocative. I can’t say I wholly agree with everything the author says, but he also does hit a few points home.

Some juicy quotations to get you hooked:

Sadly, our present system of mathematics education is precisely this kind of nightmare. In fact, if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as is currently being done— I simply wouldn’t have the imagination to come up with the crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.

By concentrating on what, and leaving out why, mathematics is reduced to an empty shell. The art is not in the “truth” but in the explanation, the argument. It is the argument itself which gives the truth its context, and determines what is really being said and meant. Mathematics is the art of explanation. If you deny students the opportunity to engage in this activity— to pose their own problems, make their own conjectures and discoveries, to be wrong, to be creatively frustrated, to have an inspiration, and to cobble together their own explanations and proofs— you deny them mathematics itself. So no, I’m not complaining about the presence of facts and formulas in our mathematics classes, I’m complaining about the lack of mathematics in our mathematics classes.