BmoreBio

When I was in high school, I remember having a few snow days every year.  They would be spread out and were always a pleasant surprise.  However, I never had a snow week until I moved to Baltimore.  In case you didn’t see it on the news, we got hit with 2 blizzards in the same week.  Each one gave us 20-30 inches of snow, bringing our total for the season up to over 80 inches!  At first, the time off was very relaxing and enjoyable.  But cabin fever soon set in after a few days of being stuck in the house without a way to escape.  Luckily, my neighborhood has a lot of bars/restaurants that stayed open so we could occupy our time at night.

As you can probably imagine, this led to a multitude of problems in school.  Before these storms, my students were about 2 weeks behind schedule due to the other snowstorm we had in December.  We missed the three days before winter break where I was going to end my homeostasis unit, but had to spend an entire week reviewing before the test.  Now, my students are 4 weeks behind schedule which means we may not get through the entire curriculum as well as I hoped.  They need all the EXTRA time they can get; not less!

Besides the scheduling issues, behavior has been atrocious.  We only had three shortened days this week and not only did the students forget most of what they learned before the blizzards but they also forgot how to behave (well, some of them never knew in the first place).  Also, think about how you feel when you have a big break and get back to work- no one wants to do anything!  So on top of dealing with obnoxious behavior outbursts, I am dealing with completely apathetic students who just want to sleep in again.

This week will be the first full week I’ve taught since December (assuming we don’t get snow days this week)!  I can’t believe it and am sort of dreading it.  But my students definitely need to get back into gear- we have less than 3 months until the High School Assessment!  Wish us luck as we push forward!

I’ve had a few firsts over the past couple weeks that have been pretty interesting:

- I was asked to write a letter of recommendation for the first time.  This student is one of my best so it was very easy to write- she was applying to the National Honor Society and was accepted.

- The next day I was asked to write a character letter for court for one of my students.  He is not one of my best, but has had a recent upswing.  He was the one student who took me up on my offer to study for the midterm over the weekend, which was another first:

- I went to a student’s house for the first time to help him study for the midterm.  I stayed for about two hours and he ended up passing the midterm so I was very happy.  Seeing his house was also an interesting experience that I won’t go into too much detail about here.

While court appearances are a common excuse for absences, I have had multiple students out recently for court dates.  Apparently, the courts take a holiday break and in January they try to catch up by having all of these trials.  And I definitely noticed a decrease in attendance because of it.

I was compared to Matthew McConaughey for the first time, but I have been compared to a multitude of other famous Caucasians such as:

- Eli and Peyton Manning, Colt McCoy, Matt Leinhart, “that guy from the Wire who gets stabbed in the neck in a school,” most other white teachers in my school, the Indian teacher who teaches across the hall from me, the guy from “The Sasquatch Gang,” Asher Roth, and others

I received a compliment for the first time from a parent for being the teacher who keeps her most consistently updated on her son’s progress.  Unfortunately, it has not done much to change his behavior and she is looking into sending him to military school for his senior year.

I also had the first parent interaction that went like this:

I explained the situation S.’s absences and progress in my class.  I also told her that he left the midterm before I dismissed the class and when I told him to sit back down he refused.  I then repeated myself and he said “What are you going to do about it?”  I then said I’m not going to deal with this and told him he had detention.  [It’s my policy that if they skip detention, I add 15 minutes, call home, and give them 0’s on everything until they make it up]  He said “Fine, give me detention and walked out.”

His mother’s response was “I don’t mean to sound rude, but I don’t care about S.’s education.  He has decided that he’s going to fail at school, and there’s nothing I can do about it.  I’m not going to tell him he needs to go to your class and I’m not going to tell him he needs to make up your detention.”

While this was the first time I received such a blunt response, I can’t blame her.  S. is extremely apathetic about school, and year after year he apparently hasn’t changed.  I don’t doubt that she loves her son, but it seems like she’s given up because she doesn’t know what else to do.  I’ve seen many parents exude this exasperated attitude, and it is extremely sad because I often don’t know what else to do either.  All I can do is keep trying day after day to motivate them somehow…

After weeks of counting down, Winter Break finally arrived and it was well worth the wait. I spent a lot of quality time with friends and family, and most importantly relaxed.  I came back to Baltimore the Saturday before school started so I had a full day to prepare for school, and I definitely needed that preparation time because this week was extremely challenging.

On Monday, the students were very riled up.  I thought after two full weeks away from school, they would have a new-found appreciation for school, but I was wrong.  It seemed like my management was worse than before break and the students were definitely not in the mood for school.  On Monday, I had a girl tell me to shut up and stop talking to her multiple times after I gave her partial credit on an assignment in class.  She was working on an assignment from another class, and I told her to put it away but she refused.  When I took points off her assignment, she flipped out and ended up storming out of the class.

On Wednesday, I checked out the laptop cart at my school which sounds like a great idea because there are 30 laptops with a wireless router so students can use the internet.  We don’t have a library at my school so this is the only way they can use the internet during school.  But there were a multitude of problems from before school until after school.  It gave me a huge headache to troubleshoot all of the technical issues, and my first block didn’t even get the chance to use them.  I had to work with another teacher and my assistant principal for the entire hour and a half, and in the last five minutes we got the internet to work.  But there continued to be problems throughout the day, but the students did seem to enjoy the project.  They were researching diseases, writing the symptoms and the body systems affected and explained how the symptoms arose based on their knowledge of the human body systems.

On Thursday, I attempted to play Trashketball with my classes which is a review game where they get the chance to throw paper balls in the trash can (something they love to do) for points.  However, a majority of my first block simply refused to play the game.  Even though I gave them the choice to pick who would shoot, they still refused to answer any of the review questions.  It was extremely frustrating, and my second block acted similarly.  But my last block was great- they got really into the game and were the only class to actually finish all of the questions.

On Friday, we had a two-hour delay due to snow, so each class was shortened by about 25 minutes.  I still had to give my unit test that day because I was originally supposed to give it before winter break but because of snow days I pushed it back.  Unfortunately, only 18 students showed up out of about 90 so a lot of people will have to make up the test.

We also had class meetings this week which are usually a disaster because about 250 kids are corralled into the auditorium and they usually refuse to stop speaking.  Nevertheless, the administrators and teachers attempt to get them quiet enough to hear the announcements which were pretty dire.  An assistant principal shared with the class that out of 250, only 4 have a gpa above 3.5 and only 16 have a gpa above 3.0.  This was after a discussion about what it takes to get into college (namely, a high gpa).  This reminded me of some students in my own class.

A. is a student who is very bright, when he comes to class.  He easily gets above 80%s on most test and quizzes, but misses 3-4 days per week and rarely gets make up work.  He is on the wrestling team, and all athletes can fail one class and still play the sport so many of them pick a class to “give up on” and fail.  His current grade in my class is in the 30s and he explained to me that he chose my class to be the one that he fails.  He wants to go to college, but doesn’t understand how the choices he makes daily (like skipping my class) hurt his chances of going to college.

Another girl, Q., is also extremely bright.  She catches on to difficult concepts easily and has a great memory.  She used to get the highest grades on quizzes and tests but now has a grade of 34%.  She explained to me that because she has my class first period, she kind of gave up.  All my students have to take the city buses to get to school, which means sometimes up to 1.5 hours of travel each way.  School starts at 8:15, so students sometimes wake up at 5:45 or 6:00 a.m. to get to school on time.  While I encourage this behavior, many of them do not think it’s that important to show up on time to school which results in a majority of my class coming 30-60 minutes late everyday.

One success story of the week was with a student, J.  He also comes to my class one or two times a week, and rarely does homework.  He has a 22%, but his goal was to get a 80%.  He also wants to go to college, but has failed almost all of his classes in the past.  He has a 3-month-old baby, and a difficult home situation.  He is in my second block which comes to me for 45 minutes, then goes to lunch, then comes back to me for 45 minutes, and he often does not return from lunch.  One day, I asked him where he was after lunch and he told me he got in a fight with a freshmen because he had to show him “he meant business.”   This week, he didn’t come back from lunch on Monday but had the audacity to come during my last block and try to grab his coat that he left.  I asked him where he was, but he just grabbed his coat and ran.  Than night, I called his grandmother who spoke to him about his behavior.  This entire week, he came to class everyday (and even after lunch).  He received above a 70% on our unit test which is a huge improvement from his 35% on the last test.  Hopefully this behavior continues….

This coming week is HSA testing for students who have failed one of the tests.  All Maryland students must pass four HSA tests to graduate (English, algebra,  government, and biology), and these tests are for those who have not passed all four.  A majority of students at my school have failed at least one of the tests so they block out this week to give them a second chance.  This means less lesson planning for me, but potentially atrocious attendance.  Wish the students lots of luck!

Before thanksgiving, my students’ attitudes for the most part were off the charts.  Normally well-behaved kids refused to do work and I had more issues with behaviors than I normally do.  After speaking with other teachers, I learned that this is pretty typical of student behavior around thanksgiving.  The reason is that thanksgiving dinner is sometimes the only big meal students eat every year.  It may be the only time they are really full or satisfied after a meal, and it is sometimes the only time they get to see their parents.  Many of my students stay with their grandmothers, as their fathers are out of the picture and their mothers are working two or three jobs and have problems of their own.  Because of the anticipation of this day, students are not focused on school at all, and it is pretty frustrating as a teacher but it makes sense.

As for my thanksgiving, it was definitely very nice to be home and away from Baltimore for a few days.  The holiday itself, geared around reflection on what we’re thankful for, allowed me to see how lucky I am.  I am very thankful that my family is healthy and safe.  I don’t have to worry about where my next meal will come from, or constantly worry about how I will get home safely.  I can afford to fly across the country to see my family, and I always know that a hearty meal will be waiting for me.  I am thankful also for our education.  We all have steady jobs, and these are realities because of the education we received in our youth.  Finally, I am thankful for the constant support from my family and friends- a gift some of my students do not have.

After returning from thanksgiving, I was quickly brought back into the reality of teaching.  The lesson plans, grading, calls to parents/guardians, and Hopkins work all returned. Nonetheless, last week wasn’t too bad.  I was able to go to a Trivia Night during the week with friends, dinner with friends, and to a bar– all during the week.  I am definitely becoming more efficient with planning and grading, and it also helps that this coming week is the last week of Hopkins for the semester.

The students were particularly challenging at the beginning of the week though- most likely because everyone’s grumpy after a break.  On Tuesday, I had about 12 students simply refuse to do any work during class in my first period.  I reminded them they would get zeroes and they said they didn’t care at all.  It was most likely because the assignment was pretty difficult, and many students give up on tasks if they don’t know how to complete it immediately.   Teaching students that effort leads to success is a difficult thing, and many students simply do not believe it’s true.  That’s another gift of teaching though- showing each student that he or she can succeed.

Sarcasm may not translate well on a blog, but here’s a breakdown of this past week.

Monday- After school, we had a faculty meeting for an hour about Bloom’s Taxonomy- something that was drilled into our heads during institute.  That meeting made all of the TFA teachers at my school late to our all-corps night which was a night with all 250 B’more teachers.  We heard a speech by an alum, had meetings with our content groups, and went to workshops.  By the time I got home it was 9 p.m. and I hadn’t planned for the next day so it was a long night.

Tuesday- I had an hour-long conference call tonight about a special funding opportunity for science projects in my class. It was helpful but came during an already pressed week.  That night, I also had to plan my next two days, one of which would be my formal observation by my assistant principal.  I was working on improving my checks for understanding with my program director at the same time, so I had to go through a powerpoint and make sure everything was as good as it could be for the next day on top of the Hopkins homework for the next day.

Wednesday- After school, I had to quickly set up two labs for the next day then run over to Hopkins for class.  I left class early to go to the Sponsor-a-Teacher event which was really nice.  About 60 teachers are “sponsored” which means we are matched with donors who have donated enough funds to recruit, select, and train teachers in TFA.  It was in a penthouse apartment that overlooked the bay and the skyline and was a really nice event overall.  But I had to rush home to finish my pre-observation forms for the next day.

And then Thursday happened.  My observation went really well during my first period actually, and the labs I set up turned out better than I hoped.  I thought it would be chaos trying to coordinate two activities at once, but the students stepped up to the challenge and did well.  Everything was going fine until 10th period when the fire alarm went off.  Then, someone got on the PA system and said “Evacuate the building immediately” in a not-so-calm tone.  We evacuated quickly (which means go home to most students), and talking to some teachers I found out that students had lit another paper towel dispenser on fire.  This was the second time in about a month that this happened, and after the first time all the bathrooms in the school were locked during the day except one by the office.  That one bathroom is the one the students chose to light on fire which caused again smoke to fill the second floor.

But that wasn’t the biggest problem of the day.  For whatever reason, students started fighting outside during the evacuation and it turned into multiple fights involving a lot of people.  Within a few minutes, 3 fire trucks arrived to help put out the fire, 19 cop cars came to get the crowd under control and stop the fights, and the arson investigation unit arrived to help figure out who started the fire.  No one was allowed in the building for about two hours, but some students snuck in somehow and more fights broke out inside the school when teachers couldn’t get into the building.  It was pretty chaotic, but the cops helped get everything back under control and I got back into my room at 4 p.m. and nothing was taken.  They caught the two students who started the fire which wasn’t the case last time.  Baltimore recently passed a new arson law which is apparently very strict, so the students will be punished pretty severely.

Friday was pretty calm compared to the rest of the week.  I didn’t really know what to say with the students with black eyes, but we pushed through and kept learning biology.  I only had 7 out of 34 students in my last class and attendance was pretty bad throughout the day.  My weekly quiz averages took a little dip this week, but we’re gearing up for our unit test this week and the first benchmark.  I’m excited to see how my students do on the benchmark- I’m pretty optimistic and it will be the first chance I get to see how we’re performing on the standardized test level.

The first week of school, I had my students think of three excuses to why they’ve failed a class before or why we shouldn’t have the same test scores as students in the County.  Then, I had them write their best excuse on this special paper called flash paper.  This paper ignites into a flame when lit and then disappears with no ash or smoke.  About once every other week since then, I’ve taken a random excuse from the bag of excuses in my room and we discussed what would happen if you continue to use that excuse.  Most of them so far have been things like I didn’t do my homework, I didn’t like the class, I didn’t like the teacher, or I failed the tests.  But this week, the one I pulled out said “My brother died and I couldn’t focus on school and failed all my classes.”  As a class, we then discussed the impact of death on our lives.  I reminded them that school is a constant (and may be the only constant) in their lives and they can always count on me to be consistent.  I shared the story of my friend who died while I was in college and told them that what helped me get through that was to focus on my classes and use that as an escape.  We eventually came to the decision that we cannot let anything prevent us from reaching our goals in this class or in life, even very traumatic experiences.  And I burned the excuse.

Also, this week, one of my football players was staying after school to make up work so he can get a passing grade to play in the playoffs.  He told me that two years ago he was stabbed as he was walking home from school and that the track team was shot at after practice last year.  He said these things so nonchalantly that it was pretty disturbing, but I didn’t feel like it was my place to say anything.  These students do live in rough neighborhoods and that creates a multitude of additional challenges as a teacher.  But the good news is that despite all of these things, success can happen.

This week, for example, all 3 of my classes had averages that were 80% or higher on the photosynthesis quiz.  Only one other time did one class score an 80% on a quiz or test, and to have all 3 classes get above 80% is awesome.  Part of the reason why they did so well is the support TFA gives teachers.  We participate in 3 or 4 cycles throughout the year with our program director.  Our PD is like an advisor or coach who helps us reflect on what’s working and what needs to change in our classroom.  My PD has been working with me for the last two weeks and it is paying off, according to those quiz scores.  I can’t wait to share these results with my class tomorrow- they usually get really excited about their successes in class and this is something big to celebrate!

Last weekend, the students had a 4 day weekend because Thursday and Friday were devoted to professional development days for teachers.  Those days for teachers consisted of sitting in our classrooms, grading and planning instead of in meetings.  I’m not really sure if other schools did anything but we definitely didn’t.  That weekend, I took a trip to NYC with my uncle for my graduation present.  It was so nice to get out of the city for a mini-vacation and be in such a fun city.  We went to Greenwich Village, SoHo, Fifth Avenue, Times Square, the top of the Empire State building, and saw Jersey Boys.  It was a great weekend, but then I quickly got back to reality Sunday night.

This week was homecoming week at my school, which meant students were out of uniforms to dress for different spirit days.  This on top of the 4 day weekend made students act up throughout the week.  I had a very difficult time with my 10th period everyday this week- they would just not stop talking and walking around the room.  It seemed like no one was doing any work, and it made me pretty upset.  My first period class was also off, and a lot of students didn’t do any work on some days.  Tomorrow, I’m posting grades again and a majority of my students are still failing.  The quarter ends next week so hopefully they’ll shape up for the next week and a half at least.

What’s been very frustrating is the administration at my school does not give teachers advance notice on what assemblies are happening.  For example, this Wed. there was a powderpuff game during 10th-11th period.  I didn’t find out until about 2 hours before I was supposed to teach.  During the game, a student threw eggs at people and a fight broke out, but I was in my room working with the 4 students that missed the game to stay in class.  Then again, on Friday the Pep Rally was schedule for 10th-11th period but I didn’t find out until 10th period started.  Now, my 10th period is 4 days behind my other classes because of these assemblies so I have had to cut out a lot of activities to catch them up.

The pep rally was interesting also.  We have a modeling club so the models performed, and then they had a dance crew of four people perform.  They were really good dancers but it seemed a bit inappropriate for school.  At the end, they released students by classes and the juniors got in the faces of the sophomores and a fight broke out.

Talking to other teachers at a happy hour on Friday though, it seemed like this week was the roughest so far for a lot of people.  That’s the nice thing about TFA- it lets us see that we are never alone.  We cannot take any of the things the kids say to us personally, because they say it to everyone.  It’s always nice to compare stories with other teachers so I feel like it’s not just me!  Hopefully this week will be a little better.

October is supposed to be one of the roughest times of the year for teachers because the students are getting more comfortable in class and behavior problems start showing up more often.  I’d say that’s been fairly accurate with my experience but nothing too crazy yet.

My last period continues to be my biggest challenge.  Out of 34 students on the roster, I get about 14-16 in class everyday.  The class as a whole is usually wound up because it is the last class and they are getting antsy.  I had a special ed teacher come one day to talk about one of the students who will come maybe 2-3 times a week and just put his head down on the desk, not take notes, not do any class activities, and just sit there.  She looked at my roster and saw the names of the other students and after every name she would say something like “You have DT in here?  And DC?  And MW?  And SM?  And DS?  And…”  After listing off more student names she said “And you dont’ have any help in here?”

Basically, the last class sometimes turns into a zoo, but I have been able to control them the past few days so hopefully I can keep that up.  The issue is that in addition to the 6 special ed students (who need constant reminders and extra help and motivation), I have a student who was suspended for getting in some kind of physical altercation with a teacher,  a student who cannot sit down for more than 4 minutes at a time, two students who continually insult each other, about 5 seniors who failed the class last year, 6 students who really care about the class and will always ask me questions during activities because they are curious and want to learn more, two girls who will undoubtedly say “I hate biology” or “This is so boring” (usually with a cuss word thrown in) every time there is a small silence, and a few students who love yelling across the room to get my attention about something.  It provides an interesting mix to say the least, but it usually makes me laugh when I think about the class.

In other exciting news- a student decided to light the paper towel dispenser on fire in the bathroom so we had to evacuate the building.  When we were allowed to go back in, the 2nd floor and 3rd floor were filled with smoke and smelled awful.  The 2nd floor classes had to go to the auditorium for the rest of the day, but luckily I’m on the 3rd floor and we were allowed to go back to our rooms.  Fortunately, no permanent damage was done outside of the bathroom and no one was injured.

Some good news- I gave my second unit test on Thursday and my students got about 72% mastery which is still pretty good.  We had a discussion on Friday about our class’ big goal (80% mastery) and what everyone (including me) can do to get that goal for the next test.  One of the objectives for the day was “Students will be able to help me become a better teacher” and a couple students said “How can we do that when you’re already the best teacher here?”  I also had a girl in my last period call me the best teacher at my school, but this was a few days after she told me she hated biology, cussed me out and stormed out of the room, so who knows.

I gave students a survey about the class and found that most students do enjoy the class and think it’s at least somewhat interesting.  Many people think that the class, like all classes in school, are a waste of time but I’m giving them a powerpoint presentation tomorrow about the correlation between education and salary to maybe give them reasons why school is important.  Attendance is my biggest problem overall I think, so hopefully mini-lessons like these will get them to see that coming to school will put them on a new track in life.  We’ll see what happens…

It’s been almost a month since I started teaching- I can’t believe it!  I’ll include a few snippets from the past couple weeks.

Welcome Back to School Night was this past week.  I had 9 students’ parents or guardians come out of about 90 students which is a pretty high rate compared to some of my other friends.  All of the guardians that came were very invested in their students’ success and I witnessed a few shouting matches about low grades.  Overall, it was a nice night though.  One mother told me she’s heard a lot of students talking about my class and how excited they are to learn about biology.  She said “I don’t know what you do, but keep doing it.”  Another mother and father came in my room with a boy and asked me if I knew him.  I said I had never seen him before, but they told me his name and he was on my roster.  He just hadn’t come to class for four weeks.  Apparently he was going to another biology teacher’s class instead, but we’ll see if he comes tomorrow.

I gave my first unit opportunity (test) about a week and a half ago and I had about 73% mastery which is pretty good.  My big goal for my class is 80% mastery, so we’ve got some more work to do.  This test was probably the easiest one of the year though because it was mostly review about scientific method and things they should have learned before.  We’ll see how they do on the next one.

One student, E has a pretty rough home life and has an IEP (individualized education plan).  The first two weeks, his attendance was sporadic and he wouldn’t really do anything when he came.  Then, I changed seats and started checking in on him more during class and this week he was on time to every single class.  He even stayed during lunch three days to finish up his class work.  I hope he continues working hard and doesn’t slip back into his old habits, but his outside life is going to make that challenging.

Another student, J has also missed a lot of days.  One day, I posted grades and he saw that he had an F and got pretty angry at me.   After missing class the next day, he came to my room later in the day to get his make-up work.  He apologized for yelling at me the day before and told me that he’s having a lot of problems at his home now.  He told me that he knows I only want what’s best for him and I can’t lower my expectations because of outside problems and he is going to start trying to come to school everyday.  I reminded him that he can do very well in my class if he is in class everyday and doing all the work, and he agreed that he can succeed.  This talk was during a fire drill, but he seemed to understand that my expectations of him and all of my students are high because I know they can do more than what they are used to doing at school.

In general, I’ve had many students get angry during class because of certain expectations (like homework is half credit if you are more than 10 minutes late to class).  I’m giving a mini-lesson on choices tomorrow and reinforcing those expectations.  A lot of my students have Fs now because they don’t come to class at all or if they do come they are always late.  Part of the grade is attendance and that’s mainly why people are failing.  I’m doing a series of investment strategies over the next couple weeks to hopefully boost attendance, but it’s difficult because they seem to have this mindset that school is optional and they only need to come when they feel like it.  Hopefully I can get that mindset to change though!

Overall, my first two classes are pretty well behaved (minus a few students who continue to have outbursts during class about various things).  My last class is much more talkative and non-compliant but I’m doing a few things this week to hopefully give them some incentives to use classtime more efficiently.  Out of 34 students on my roster, I only had about 14 in my last class on Friday, and I think it’s related to the class culture.  I’ve been thinking through a bunch of different strategies for that class this weekend and I’m looking forward to implementing some of them this week.

I’m still happy with teaching.  The time management thing is getting slightly easier as I’m becoming more efficient with grading.  The planning part is still challenging though, especially since I’m creating a lot of worksheets and notes from scratch which takes up a lot of time.  I’m hoping I can start using more TFA resources in the future to help me out with that though.  All in all, I’m still extremely busy but it’s been a great first month.

Apparently, the first couple weeks of teaching are called The Honeymoon because everyone is in the back-to-school mood and everything is new and exciting.  I’d say overall I’m happy with the first two weeks but apparently the next stage is Survival, then Disillusionment (right around Thanksgiving and Christmas), then rejuvenation and finally reflection.  Hopefully I can keep the positivity going into October (when the Honeymoon ends), but we’ll see.

Here are some snipets of my life split into categories (all centered around teaching of course, because that’s all I live, think, and dream about).

1.  Students

- I have pretty much the whole spectrum from the go-getters who will do everything they can to get an A to a student who was arrested during school to an athlete who has a ton of potential but needs to be pushed to the people who have been told they are stupid and are not willing to attempt anything because they are so afraid of failing to girls with huge attitudes who cuss every chance they get to special education students who need a lot of processing time and have a hard time keeping up with the work to those who finish everything early and want more work to students I still haven’t met because they have not come to school for the first two weeks.

In the first week, I did this mini-lesson on goals and shared with the class my two goals (1- for everyone to pass the biology HSA at the end of the year that is required for graduation and 2- for everyone to get 80% mastery by the end of the year on all objective) and had everyone write a goal for the class and a life goal.  The goals for the class were mostly 80% mastery or passing the HSA but the life goals varied.  Many people said things about college, being successful, owning businesses, becoming doctors, nurses, or lawyers, but one student said his only goal in life right now is to live until he’s 30.  When he announced this to the class, someone else said that’s the best goal he’s heard all day.  What’s even harder for me to handle is that these two boys are so smart and could be extremely successful.

During another icebreaker, I found out everyone in one of my classes loves their mothers except two students but only three students love their fathers.

I have not had nearly as many problems as some other TFA teachers in Bmore, but I have certainly had my dilemmas.
2.  Socializing

Because practically the only people I know in Baltimore are teachers, I hang out with teachers all the time.  Since we are all new teachers, our lives are consumed by teaching so when we “get away” from work, all we end up talking about is our students, the teachers at our school, upcoming lessons, and other TFA-related stuff.  It’s so hard to not think about teaching all day every day because it takes up so much of our lives now, and we don’t really have time for much else.  But nevertheless, we do go out and have fun.

3. My Daily Schedule

… looks something like wake up at 5:45 a.m. to get to school early to make copies, set up my room, sort papers, etc.  My first class starts at 8:15 and I have a 2 minute transition into my second class.  Half-way through my second class, my students go to lunch and saunter back 30 minutes later for part 2 of the 90-minute class.  Then I have 90 minutes of planning which usually consists of meetings, making copies, and grading.  The school day ends with my third class which is the rowdiest, and school gets out at 3:05.  I usually stay at school until 5:30-6 p.m. and drive home, make dinner, and spend the rest of the night planning lessons, grading, calling parents, buying supplies, and trying to keep my life organized.

4.  Hopkins

Every Wednesday I have to get out of school early (by 4 p.m.) to get to Hopkins for my Masters classes.  These have actually been very helpful so far, but it is added stress since they last until 8:45 p.m or 6:30 p.m. depending on the week.  I have realized that I really enjoy being a student though, and I feel much more comfortable learning than teaching.  The classes are useful and have already helped me improve even only in two weeks, so I think they will definitely make me a better teacher overall.

5. Other teachers in my school/administration

I won’t say much in this section but I will say I never knew there could be so much drama in the copy room.  In general, there is a wide variety of abilities at my schools and that incosistency makes it even harder for students to make significant academic gains.  The other TFA teachers have been extremely supportive and helpful though and I know I will definitely need them as the year goes on.

I always have such a hard time making these concise and entertaining, but I’ll try to keep it interesting.  I could probably write a novel about life as a teacher every week because so many things happen every single day that are noteworthy but it is all starting to blend together a little.  I’m not sure how I’ll handle the pressure of getting all my juniors to pass the biology test they need to graduate by the end of the year, but I do know that this year will never be boring.