I am considering a Ph.D in Educational Policy.
This Week Kind of Sucked October 20, 2007
I can’t share all of the details of why this week sucked so much because of legal/harassment implications. But repeat after me, “It’s never the kids.”
Two of my colleagues have been singling me out for making decisions “not as a team” and for disrespecting their “seniority. “ In this case, disrespecting their seniority means not cowtowing to their whims. It also means inserting my whims into the conversation based on my own observations and moral sense of right and wrong.
For example, I have a student that I have very few problems with anymore. As in, there are students that I have significantly more problems with than him. My lack of problems with him isn’t any different between the morning, early afternoon, or late afternoon. However, the other two teachers continue to have problems with him. I disrespected the most-experienced teacher’s seniority by answering honestly to my principal’s directly asked question of “is everyone having this same problem.” I told him that since his father came up, I was not having the same intensity of problems although I could see the problems that Teacher1 and Teacher2 were still having with him. Apparently, I should have lied to my principal.
That’s when this all started. It blew up yesterday when Teacher 1 and Teacher 3 (completely unrelated to the situation) double-teamed me in front of the whole grade group. I have been advised to document instances of this kind of behavior happening so that if it continues to happen I can bring a harassment grievance against them.
The only good thing in all of this is that I know (because I went through the proper channels to escalate this) that my principal, my assistant principal, my grade coach, and one other person will back me on this if it continues to happen.
Last Week Was Pure Hell October 14, 2007
Who knew that a two day week in the classroom could be so painful?
Last week, we had a four day week. Except on Thursday and Friday, a colleague and I were attending a conference in Richmond, Virginia. So, we had a two day week in the classroom and a two day week in intense, on going professional development.
In those two days that we were there, my students basically did everything they could wrong and the school decided to be a giant pain in my butt.
I dislike working with adults.
“Age Appropriate” October 3, 2007
Today’s topic is age-appropriate classes.
Development and Philadelphia history dictate the following:
An 8th grader is 13 or 14; no more than 15.
A 7th grader is 12 or 13, no more than 14.
A 6th grader is 11 or 12, no more than 13.
A 5th grader is 10 or 11, no more than 12.
There is a practice in Philadelphia that if a student is the “no more than” age, they get bumped up to the next grade to keep them “age appropriate.” This is done in conflict with a practice in Philadelphia that if a child fails a grade and does not attend summer school, the child will have to repeat the grade.
We have been dealing with this again at Jones this year, as with every year. It’s a way of pushing the kids through the system faster but it ends up making no sense.
A child struggles in 2nd grade, so he is failed and retained for a year. He continues through 2nd grade again and does fine; maybe he’s now in the middle of his class in performance rather than at the very bottom.
Then, the student reaches 6th grade and someone decides that because he is *already* 13 because he was a struggling student at one point and was retained, he must be moved up to the 7th grade so that when he is in 8th grade, he will be no older than 14. Even if the child has caused zero behavior problems and is learning in his 6th grade classroom just fine with no appearance of grade-inappropriate behaviors.
So, the kid jumps a year (having been retained once) and immediately falls behind because he missed a WHOLE YEAR of educational instruction, reinforcement, and practice.
Why, I ask, did we retain this child in the first place? What did we hope to accomplish in the first place? And what message are we sending about school when we jump kids entire grades like that? I have two answers, neither of which is very pleasant:
“6th grade isn’t that important?”
“Your age is more important than your ability?”
Counter-intuitive to our goals, no?
