Get Your Learn On

My MTC Experience

2007-05-05T06:26:00.000-07:00

Looking back on my experiences in Mississippi, I can honestly say my students in Mississippi treated me in ways that my students in Massachusetts, Vermont, and California never did. Sadly, most of these ways were bad.
In Mississippi my students defied me, ignored me, angered me, enraged me, lied to me, cussed at me, and even sexually harassed me. The things they did to each other were much worse, if you can believe it. I broke up arguments, shoving matches, play-fights, fist fights, food fights, and even a monkey knife-fight (alright, I made that one up).
Let me lay down my favorite defense mechanism, humor, and be frank. The environment of my school could best be described as a perfect storm of animosity, poverty, and apathy. I observed dozens of female students progress through the stages of teen pregnancy while the boys tried to prove their masculinity by fighting, cussing and drawing graffiti. I witnessed far more hate than love during my time in the Mississippi Delta, and I saw too many gifted students waste their talents. When Dr. King said he had been to the mountaintop, he wasn’t talking about Hollandale, MS. There are no mountains in the Delta, and the bright future Dr. King predicted cannot be seen from my desk at Simmons High School.
I leave the Delta knowing that it will only get worse in the years ahead. As I take inventory of my time here, I try to make sense of what I accomplished and what I failed to do. To my knowledge I did not save anyone from drowning or talk anyone off a ledge. I didn’t deliver babies or balance the budget or help a candidate get elected to office. For fifty minutes, six times a day, I did the only thing I was paid to do: I taught to the best of my ability. I coaxed, I encouraged, I threatened, I bribed, I pleaded, I shocked; I tried everything I could to ignite the spark of knowledge in my students and keep that fire lit. In some students I leave with that fire raging like an inferno; in many others though, the fire could be snuffed out the moment they leave school.
This leads me to a question I often ponder: how do we measure the impact of a teacher? I know about a hundred students passed the English II state test because of the lessons they learned in my classroom. Many of them could have passed that test with another teacher though. So what difference did I make? That’s why I came down to Mississippi, to make a difference (and earn a teaching license and Master’s degree). Next month, I’m leaving the Delta with that license and degree: but what legacy do I leave behind?
When I first arrived at Simmons High School, I was often compared to my predecessor, Deslin Chapman. She too had been a MTC teacher, and by the rave reviews students showered upon her, I could tell she had been admired. It used to drive me crazy in my first year how the students would compare the two of us, with me often suffering by comparison. On many days I felt as though Ms. Chapman’s ghost haunted my room. By the end of my first year of teaching, I was glad to leave behind my students, my school, and my specter.
In this, my second year at Simmons, I haven’t heard much about Ms. Chapman. Perhaps they’ve forgotten about her, although I rather doubt it. More likely, to my students I have become Mr. Hebert instead of “that white dude who replaced Ms. Chapman.” I’ve proven I care about them and now I have been accepted among them, like Kevin Costner’s character in Dances With Wolves. Some days when I think about leaving I realize whoever replaces me next year will be bombarded with exaggerated anecdotes about my teaching ability, antics, and wit. It’s funny, but knowing this makes me smile.
In another year the students will find someone else to talk about, and the cycle will continue again and again. Besides conversation fodder, what am I leaving behind for my students? Skills, of course, those necessary abilities to read, write, speak, and think. I’ll leave behind plenty of pithy maxims, like “Some things that are hard are still worth doing, and some things that are easy are a waste of time.” And while I did not literally save anyone from drowning, I hopefully sent enough life jackets adrift through my lessons, my talks, my discipline, and my rewards that some of my students will make their way to a friendlier shore. Until they reach this destination, I only hope their mind receives enough firewood to keep them warm.

Why teach English?

2007-04-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

Teaching English is more than a career; it forms an integral part of my identity. Below is a list of reasons why I choose to teach English rather than another discipline.

Communication is the foundation of human relationships. As an English teacher I equip my students with the tools to successfully communicate in a myriad of ways. At a basic level they learn the essentials of grammar and essay writing. My students also learn the different modes of writing as they practice crafting persuasive, narrative, and informative essays. English class is a rich environment for discussion, debate, and presentation of ideas. No other class focuses so whole-heartedly on the importance of meaningful communication.
Opportunities for critical thinking abound in an English classroom. Literature can be examined on a variety of different levels using different critical lenses. "What would a Marxist say about this work? A feminist?" Students study diction to gain an understanding of the power of words and connotation. Metacognition is another tool invaluable to the English teacher: I can see the lightbulbs going on over my students' heads when they realize that thinking about reading amplifies their understanding of the written word. When students begin taking notes while they read, they see a difference in their understanding which often translates into better grades and test scores. The opportunities to think critically are limitless in an English classroom and these skills extend into other facets of a student's life.
What subject can elicit more passion than the study of English? The beauty of words and their power to capture the human condition is at once awe-inspiring and accessible to English students. My students produce written work that makes me laugh out loud, and I have been moved to tears by their oral presentations. English teachers provide students with an outlet for expression that can open up a new world to them by providing a mirror with which to examine their heart, mind, and soul in earnest.
English is easily applicable to the world outside the schoolhouse. How do we use English lessons on a daily basis? On the same day a person may write a grocery list, memorandum, personal letter, e-mail, diary/blog entry, and business letter. They may tell a story, profess their love to a significant other, and argue persuasively (perhaps all at one time). They might summarize a reading, evaluate a work of art, and present their ideas to a group of colleagues. All of these incidentals of life require skills sharpened in an English class. It is my fervent belief that knowledge learned in English class is as directly relatable to a student's life as those learned in Driver's Education or Home Economics.
English is MY passion. I cannot imagine living in a world where I wasn't surrounded by books. I love reading fiction and non-fiction encompassing nearly every genre. I even take out movie scripts from the library and pore over them, dissecting the dialogue and reshooting the film with the camera in my mind. As a budding author I encourage my own students to, as Faulkner put it, "kill your darlings." If your writing can be improved, strike down your wilting words and replace them with writing that shows rather than tells. I am currently working on my second novel and actively shopping my first manuscript to agents, a process that gives me even greater appreciation for the authors we study in English class.

The study, consumption, and creation of English is an integral part of my life that I feel compelled to share with my students. I teach English because I believe firmly in the power of critical thinking and communication. I believe English class more than any other gives students passion and utility at the same time. As much as I am a man, or a New Englander, or anything else I may profess to be, I am an English Teacher. No other part of my identity instills me with more pride than that.

The Raven and the Diamond

2007-04-18T15:11:00.000-07:00

Ravens, like many bird species, are attracted to shiny objects. I read a story once about a homeless man who stumbled across a raven's treasure trove of objects inside a hollowed out elm tree. The stash included broken watches, discarded bottle caps, and a diamond ring. It seems so impractical: I mean, what's a raven doing with a diamond ring? I found myself thinking about this story at a staff meeting today. Months ago expensive new television sets, cameras, and speakers were installed haphazardly in our classrooms. We were given a remote control and told training would commence shortly. Today that training finally took place.

The idea is that the camera will videotape our lessons and students in the alternative school can get their lessons even while not physically in the room. We are expected to control the camera by remote control, zoom in on the board, and otherwise operate the camera while starring in the lesson. Oh, we're also supposed to teach 20-30 students who are in the room while we do this. I am skeptical about all this to say the least.

In my opinion, this is another example of school districts (not just mine) doing everything they can to cover their butt. If a child in alternative school failed a test or class, they could blame the school for not delivering instruction. Now, schools can give that child a live feed of our lessons. Realistically, this may have an extremely small positive effect for a small group of students. In other words, tens of thousands of dollars (perhaps more) have been spent to potentially help trouble-makers learn a little better. Maybe this would be less frustrating if we had the money at our school to buy copy paper.

No Child Left Behind really means cover your butt. Schools (and this is a generalization that does not only apply to my school) will do whatever it takes to keep up the appearance of progress. There is no incentive to innovate or try meaningful school growth, because you don't get any points for that. Cover your butt, teach to the test, and make it look like you are helping every student. It's not all bad, all this documentation and assessing, and schools should be held accountable. I just think we need to find practical solutions that help the largest number of students possible, rather than throwing out large sums of money to help a small group of students who chose to violate school rules.

Red Sox Predictions: Not Quite a Championship Squad

2007-03-31T15:23:00.000-07:00

Spring training is over, and it’s time for baseball—America’s pastime, no matter what the NFL and NASCAR claim—to commence. Red Sox Nation will watch Curt Schilling take the mound in Kansas City on Monday to kick off the 2007 season. Here are my predictions for the Red Sox this season.

Starting Pitching
This appears to be a major strength. Looking into my crystal ball, I see Curt Schilling missing a few starts but still turning in a solid season. Ditto for Tim Wakefield. Daisuke Matsuzaka, the most exciting Japanese product since Hello Kitty dolls, should baffle hitters, particularly the first time they face him. I predict he will make the All-Star team but struggle in the second half of the season. Julian Tavarez (or “Skeletor,” as I call him) begins the year as our fifth starter, but he is only keeping the spot warm for Jon Lester, 23 year-old cancer survivor and the left-handed anchor of our rotation for the next decade. (Sidenote: Chris Elias, Meredith, Lisetta and I witnessed Lester’s first major league win).

Bullpen
The Red Sox typically have abysmal bullpens. This year will hopefully be different. Jonathon Papelbon recently decided to return to the closer role, which makes a lot of sense for the 2007 squad. A mix of veterans and young bucks will try to get the ball to Paps in the 9th inning with a lead. I see Brendan Donnelly and Hideki Okajima having successful seasons, with J.C. Romero and Joel Pineiro being busts and Craig Hanson, Kirk Snyder, and Manny Delcarmen yo-yoing between the minors and big leagues. One or more of the young pitchers may be traded during the summer as the Sox prepare for a post-season push.

Lineup
Ortiz and Manny are the best 3-4 combination in the game over the past three seasons. They’ll continue bopping this year, with new shortstop Julio Lugo and first baseman Kevin Youkilis setting the table in front of them. Perpetual injury risk J.D. Drew will offer Manny protection in the lineup that he did not have last year. Glove stud Mike Lowell will have another adequate post-steroid year at the plate.

The three big question marks are at the bottom of the order. Captain Jason Varitek, who continues to be masterful behind the plate, looks lost standing next to it. I see his offensive struggles continuing. Coco Crisp, incredible in spring training last year before a finger injury started a horrible regular season, will bounce back. Call it a hunch. Dustin Pedroia, our 120 pound second-baseman, will be a singles hitter and hustler in the mold of David Eckstein, and hopefully swipe a few bases while playing adequate defense.

Bench
We have some power sitting on the bench in the form of Willy Mo Pena and Eric Hinkse. Unfortunately, both have a penchant for striking out, not something you want in a pinch-hitter. Alex Cora is a solid utility player and will spell Pedroia if he struggles. Doug “Caveman” Mirabelli, who is even more lost at the plate than Varitek, will catch Wakefield’s knuckeball and do little else.
There’s a lot of optimism surrounding this edition of the Sox. On paper, the team looks deeper than the Yankees in the starting pitching department, and they saying pitching wins championships. However, with the question marks in middle relief, a weak bench, and potentially three non-producing hitters, I don’t see this squad topping the Yankees during the regular season.

Prediction: 91-71, 2nd place in the East, no wildcard

Venting after a frustrating day

2007-03-21T10:59:00.000-07:00

Teaching at my present school is a trying experience. My biggest complaint about the school is that students do not show respect to themselves, their classmates, or their teachers. They don’t listen to me at times, and they don’t give me the respect I know I deserve. Sure, there are reasons why they behave this way: their parents yell at them and treat them like shit, for example. But why should I bear the ill effects of this malevolent upbringing? I treat my students with kindness and respect, and I do not get this returned to me. I know I signed up to teach here, but the biggest culture shock to me is the chronic insubordination students show teachers.

I’m going to a new school next year, and there are two possibilities waiting there for me. One: the students at my new school will be different. They will treat me with human dignity and, dare I dream, respect. They will understand I care about them and truly want to help them succeed in life. The other possibility is the one that keeps me up at night. What if the students at my next school are just like the students at my current school? What if they slap each other, cuss at teachers under their breath, and openly defy you just for laughs? If that is the case, I suppose I will find out quickly whether I am cut out to be a teacher or not.

What is the author’s tone in this passage?
a. content
b. frustrated
c. hopeful
d. nostalgic

Keep your hands to yourself

2007-02-22T05:52:00.000-08:00

Should students be allowed to touch each other? I'm not so sure. In fact, if I ran a school system I think I would enforce a strict no-touching policy. Here's why:

1. Students constantly push each other into lockers, into walls, into other students, into teachers. A junior pushed a freshman boy into me yesterday...hard. Needless to say, I did not appreciate it.
2. Male students slapping girls on the backside....and vice versa. Allowing this behavior condones sexual harassment and escalates sexual violence outside of school.
3. Pushing and horseplay often lead to "real" fights. Example: two students are "just foolin' around" when one of them pushes the other a little too hard. He responds by pushing his friend a little harder, and soon they are throwing punches and wrestling in the hallway. Some bystander, rather than stopping the fight, encourages them on, and soon everyone within a three-block radius is rushing to watch the entertainment.

People who oppose a no-touching policy might point out the benefits of a hardy handshake or a well-timed pat on the back. I would respond by saying for every handshake I've seen at my school, I've seen about five or six pushes, slaps, and punches. If I were a student, I would not feel safe in the hallway, where full-sized men-children push people around and girls constantly slap and trip their friends and enemies alike. School should install a love of learning in children; when there is too much touching, the only thing installed in students is fear. And maybe some bruises.

Wiley Coyote

2007-02-10T10:01:00.000-08:00

I have a student who is sneaky. EW loves to stir up trouble, but he flies under the radar because he wears a quiet, respectful-to-adults veneer. Other students tell me of atrocities performed by EW, but when I question him, he looks at me with innocent, innocuous eyes that make me feel bad for suspecting him in the first place. He has gotten away with countless misdemeanors over the two years I have taught him simply because proving he committed a crime is like pinning jello to the wall. Nothing sticks. He is the Road Runner to my foolish Wiley Coyote. However, unlike the hapless Coyote, I finally was able to catch EW for the first time this week.

A week ago I had created a wonderful overhead sheet that demonstrated different dialects. I used it with my first four classes, and they loved it and learned a great deal from it during a bellringer activity. At the beginning of fifth period, the overhead was on the projector. Two minutes later, it was gone. EW was one of only a couple students in the room, and my suspicions fell upon him immediately. I could not prove it however, so i simply put up a different bellringer and went on with my business.

This week, I again placed an overhead on the projector. I went into the hallway to talk to Ms. Wysopal, but this time I kept my eye on the overhead. Sure enough, right before the bell rang I saw EW snatch the overhead and crumple it up. I felt like Elliot Ness when he cornered John Dillinger. "Where are you going with that overhead?" I asked, confident even EW could not talk himself out of this one.

EW: "I was going to copy it into my notes."
Me, not buying it: "That's why i put it on the overhead, so everyone can see it."
EW: "But I can't see it from the back of the room."
Me, waffling a little: "You haven't had a problem with the other bellringers."
EW: "Yeah, i just haven't said anything about them."
Me: "Go sit down, E."

He put on a nice little show the rest of class, moving to the front of the room, raising his hand, and participating like never before. I know though, that he was purloining that overhead just to throw a monkey wrench into my teaching plans. He pulls these hi-jinks to entertain himself; sadly, literature and intensive test-prepation doesn't hold a candle to the creation of mayhem. In the end I did write EW up, because I cannot tolerate a student actively underming the educational process in my room. I understand EW's reasoning, and I even respect his guerrilla tactics and skills. I just hope that he learns to use his powers for good, say as a spy or undercover police officer, rather than as a grifter.

Super Bowl Party

2007-02-06T15:56:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the boys of Saint Ann Street in Jackson for their hospitality during Super Bowl Weekend. It was a strong MTC showing. I am really glad that there is so much more inter-year bonding. This is much better than last year, IMO.

Get Rich or Die Teaching

2007-01-06T09:30:00.000-08:00

Nobody teaches in order to become wealthy. However, I believe that teaching can potentially provide a comfortable lifestyle in retirement. After exhaustive research (namely, subscribing to Money magazine for a year), I have composed a list to help new teachers plan for a healthy financial life now and in their golden years.

1. Look at the interest rates
If you have old student loans or credit card debt with an interest rate over 7%, your first financial goal should be to pay this down. Money should always be applied to where the interest rate is highest, so if the interest you are paying on loans is small, it is wiser to put your money in a money market fund like INGDirect.com, an online savings account which pays 4.5% interest.

2. Pack your parachute
Unfortunately, some expenses arise unexpectedly, like a visit to the ER, a car crash, or having to pay bail (we've all been there). This is why it is important to have an emergency fund- at least 3 months living expenses socked away in a safe money market fund or savings account. If you don't have an emergency fund stashed away, you could be forced to put new expenses on credit cards, and interest payments will keep you in financial distress long after you've made bail and skipped the country.

3. Retire Rich
If you do not have high-interest debts and you have a comfortable emergency fund, congratulations--you are doing better than most people in their twenties. Now is the time to start preparing for retirement. Yes, it may seem far away, but the longer you put off starting an independent retirement account (IRA), the less control you will have over the date you retire.

If your employer offers matching funds in a 401(K), contribute to that first. If you are a teacher and your employer doesn't offer matching funds, it is even more important to start your own IRA. I suggest getting a Roth IRA, which accumulates interest tax-free provided you don't dip into it until you are 60. T. Rowe Price, Vanguard, and Fidelity all offer target retirement date mutual funds that you can invest your Roth IRA funds in. As you get older, your investments get more conservative to ensure you will retire with a healthy nest egg. If you contribute $300 a month from age 25 until age 65, you will have over $1.1 million. Contribute $400 a month and that figure leaps to $1.5 million.

Don't forget to make contributions to your district's pension plan if you intend on retiring after a career of teaching. A pension can be an integral piece of your retirement income, and teachers are lucky to be in one of the few professions that still offer pensions.

4. Wall Street vs. Main Street
If you are like most people, one day you will purchase a house. If this is something you plan to do in the next five years, start saving for a down payment now. If you don't have at least 10% of costs saved for a down payment when you purchase a home, you may be forced to pay a higher interest rate to get a loan. This could cost you tens of thousands of dollars. If home buying is in your near future, put your money in a secure savings account; again, I recommend INGDirect.com.

If you do not plan on buying house in the next five years, and you have already fulfilled steps 1-3, then put that extra money to work for you. Invest it in mutual funds and try to keep a diversified portfolio (no single stock should comprise more than 15% of your portfolio). Stocks are riskier than savings accounts, but they typically come out much better in the long run.

The truth is you will probably never get rich teaching. The good news, though, is that if you manage your money responsibly, it is possible to enjoy a modest lifestyle and a very comfortable retirement.

New Year's Resolutions

2007-01-02T11:21:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season for that wonderful journalistic cop-out, the list of resolutions for the new year. In 2007, I will:

1. be patient with my students;
2. reinforce classroom procedures;
3. get my students excited about reading;
4. play tennis at least twice a week;
5. improve my backhand and serve;
6. write a new novel;
7. query at least 100 agents about my first novel (40 down, 60 to go);
8. look for teaching jobs in New England, particularly in the Boston area;
9. sock savings away for a down-payment on a house;
10. plan a wedding ceremony;
11. get married in old college chapel;
11. climb a Guatemalan volcano during honeymoon;
12. graduate from Ole Miss with a master's degree;
13. show my parents around the Delta;
14. watch the Red Sox win the World Series (okay, this one is a little out of my hands).

2007 is going to be an exciting year.

Thoughts on motivating the unmotivated

2006-12-11T08:37:00.000-08:00

Most of my students are not motivated to learn. In fact, the vast majority care about school only so far as they want a passing grade on the final day of class. I was shocked last year to find how many students regarded a 70 with the same level of acceptance as a 90. My students are not thinking about college, or the pursuit of knowledge as its own reward: they just want to get enough passing grades so they can exit high school. In order to motivate students, teachers must first change this culture of ignorance and apathy.

I have had several students with GPA's in the 1-2 range tell me with a straight face that they plan on becoming a doctor. Many of our students have not had close contact with people who have graduated from college: in fact, fewer than 3% of Hollandale residents hold a graduate degree. As a result of not knowing any better, our students think they can accumulate C's and D's and become doctors after high school. They are in dire need of a reality check, and teachers are in an excellent position to provide one.

In the beginning of each school term, I preach the importance of good grades to my students. I explain to them that in order to go to college, they must earn good grades and test scores in high school. In order to graduate from college, they must work hard and earn good grades there too. In order to become a doctor, or lawyer, or dentist, or other special position, they need to go to graduate school for several more years. When I tell them this, I show a chart that depicts the average income of Americans based on their level of education. The chart illustrates that the more education a person has, the more money they will earn on average. Money is a motivating factor for some of them, but more important than this is the knowledge that what they do in high school determines in part the success they will experience during the rest of their life.

Understanding the importance of grades is the first step to motivating students to try hard in class. The next step is explaining how they can improve their grades. Teachers can breed accountability by demanding students turn their work in on time and making them understand that late work lowers their grade. I teach my students that missing work is like an anchor that lowers their grade. I also grade my students on participation, which motivates them to pay attention, ask questions, and monitor their own behavior.

Praising students is another great motivational technique. People are more easily led than driven, and if someone knows hard work will earn praise and other rewards (like participation points), they will be motivated to do their work. I will make positive phone calls home to my students who do well grade-wise or behavior wise, which is a simple method that doesn't take long but means a great deal to my students.

The best motivation comes from within. It is difficult motivating students to do things they may not initially like (studying, listening to the teacher), but once they understand the importance of these things, the motivation begins to emerge.

Cool Sights in Mississippi

2006-12-03T13:29:00.000-08:00

My parents are visiting me for five days in February, so I want to use this blog as an opportunity to share the cool places I intend to take them. Let me preface this by saying I am a little anxious about this visit, since neither of my parents have been in the Deep South before. Okay, here we go.

Saturday evening:
Parents fly in to Greenville Airport. A nice airport, famous for its free long term parking and incompetence in tracking of luggage. Amazing, since it only runs direct flights to Memphis.

After touching down I will take my parents and fiancee to Fermo's, a delightful Italian eatery on I-82 in Greenville. Their loaded, gooey pizzas are among the best I've ever tasted (plus there is a good chance of a John Zarandona sighting at this restaurant).

Sunday:
Church bells beckon us to Leland First Presbyterian. The minister, Ken Landry, is a former attorney from Texas. His sermons are like the knuckle puck from Mighty Ducks: they go all over the place, but 1 out of 5 of them are right on target and a joy to behold.
There's not much to do on Sunday afternoons, though Club Ebony in Indianola has good music playing. Maybe we'll catch a matinee at the Malco on Rt. 1 in Greenville. Sunday night we'll cook at home, and me and Jamie will take on my parents at Spades or a game of Hand and Foot. At night we'll drive around Deer Creek and see the floats all lit up. The water spraying fire truck is a personal favorite.

Monday:
I going to work today, and I think my dad will tag along for the afternoon. I'm not sure how I feel about exposing him to some of my kids, but I think they will get a kick out of meeting him. After school we'll get my mom and drive out to Warfield Point Park, a cute park off of 82 West in Greenville, MS. This park is nestled on the banks of the Mississippi River, and has a five-story observation deck. There's also a tree with large green nuts nearby. Bring up a few of the large unidentifiable nuts into the tower and drop them from the top. I love gravity.

Tuesday:
No school today! I'm going to wake up the folks early, get into the car, and drive down Highway 61 until we reach Natchez. At one point Natchez was home to more millionaires than any city in the world except New York. Then the Civil War happened (or as some Rebels call it, the War of Northern Aggression). Hopefully we can view some antebellum mansions and I can show off my Southern accent. On the way back to Leland we'll stop at Vicksburg National War Memorial. My father, a Civil War expert, will enjoy driving through the beautiful rolling hills of Vicksburg on the 16-mile loop. We'll stop at a few monuments, maybe talk extra loud in our Yankee accents, and compare Vicksburg to Gettysburg, PA, where my dad took me twice as a boy. The two battles were going on simultaneously and changed the tide of war. I love history.

Wednesday:
No school today either! Today is a relaxing day, so we head to Indianola's The Crown to enjoy the best lunch in the Delta. Afterwards I will drive them around the rougher neighborhoods of Indianola, pointing out the abandoned houses where people sell drugs and do other illicit activities. This is a day to show them real Mississippi: how the other half lives. When we get home we'll relax, maybe watch a Netflix movie (not technically a sight, but I don't know how I'd survive withouth Neflix in MS) and then have a quiet dinner at home.

Thursday:
Drop the parents off at Greenville Airport, and cry as I drive back to work at Simmons in time for Home Room. It was a great visit, and I am glad my parents got a chance to see the beauty that is Mississippi, as well as the sinister side of Mississippi's segregated past and present.

Where have all the teachers gone?

2006-11-12T13:32:00.000-08:00

I was discouraged during our afternoon class on November 11th when it was revealed by a show of hands that very few second-years in MTC are planning to stay in secondary teaching. Yes, the gulag that is the first stretch of the year is in full gut-wrenching force, but I was shocked nonetheless by the notion that next year only a handful of us would still be teaching 7-12.

What happened?

I am not surprised that many of us are chomping at the bit to leave Misssissippi. After all, the majority of us have no family members living in a 1000-mile radius. But I thought people would be moving closer to home to teach, not shifting career gears completely. Maybe I thought this because that is what I plan to do next year: move back to New England and teach in the public schools of Boston or somewhere nearby.

I plan on taking full advantage of my masters degree next year and in the future. I look forward to the pay hike I will enjoy, first with a graduate degree and second with a relocation. Why aren't other MTCers sharing this ambition? Have their teaching experiences been worse than mine (I doubt it, or at least they've done a good job of hiding it)? I am lucky in that I have a REAL TEACHING MACHINE, Jess Wysopal, across the hall from me. This woman is a pillar of strength and integrity, and we feed off each other's teaching moods on a daily basis. Perhaps that is why we were among the minority of hands that popped up when Prof. Barb asked who planned to stay in the profession.

I have no doubt that the people in our program will be successful in whatever venture they pursue. It just saddens me a little to know that the venture will probably not be teaching.

Literature Woes

2006-10-31T18:12:00.000-08:00

I love literature, and I wish I was better at sharing this love with my students. When we are reading a story though, and a student wants to share a comment, I always end up trying to rush them along. Why? Because the moment they start sharing, the rest of the class starts tuning them out and talking to each other. This aggravates me to no end. Often, when I want to add a comment of my own, they will not listen to me, but will instead talk to each other.

I know I could improve my classroom management marginally, but I honestly do not think my students are truly capable of behaving in a way that is conducive to meaningful discussion of literature. This sounds defeatist, mostly because it is. I still try my best for all of them to get something out of the lesson, and in my smaller English III class this is working great. But in my bigger classes, like my 30 person English I class, there are just too many side conversations to squelch. I think English classes work best when they are small. Just a thought.

Quitters Never Win, and Winners Never Quit

2006-10-15T16:30:00.000-07:00

It is sad to see anyone leave the teaching profession when there are so many students in need of good teachers. I suppose that most people who leave teaching feel that they are not good teachers, and they use this as rationalization for leaving the profession. "The kids will be better off with someone else," they think. In Mississippi, however, this is generally not the case. Even a beleagured first-year MTC teacher will impart more knowledge than a typical long-term substitute. This thought was more than enough to convince me that I could never leave during my first year of teaching.

Is being a first year teacher tough? Of course. It's tough anywhere, what with lesson planning, learning a new school system, and practicing classroom management all demanding a great deal of time and patience. It is especially tough for outsiders to come to Mississippi and experience culture shock. However, there are several things more difficult than being a first-year MTC teacher:

1. Being a 19 year old high school junior. You still have two state tests left to pass, and you know the consequences for failure. You could be a mother, a father, an orphan, a homeless person, or a runaway. These problems are a lot more prevalent in the Delta than in Vermont where I grew up.

2. Being a substitute teacher in the Mississippi Delta. You only work a couple days a week and get paid between $40 and $45 a day. Sounds great, until the rent is due or you get sick and have no insurance. Kids treat you like crap, lie to you, and you don't know any of their names, so how do you write them up? I am speaking from personal experience here...subs have it tough.

3. Being a Delta principal. Everyone blames you for everything that goes wrong. Students mock you, and teachers talk about you behind your back. You are responsible for attending every school function, and school takes over every waking hour of your life. You are a human pinata. I would much rather be a teacher than a principal.

My number one suggestion to new teachers who are thinking about quitting? KEEP THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE. Whatever your situation, it could be worse. Things will start getting better for you as soon as you start to help yourself. There are ways to improve your plot if you just think outside the box. Finally, never forget that as bad as things get for you, there is someone out there with a hand much worse than the one you have been dealt.

Fix the Public Schools

2006-10-01T13:04:00.000-07:00

There is certain knowledge that every American should possess. The problem is that no group of policy makers has been able to determine what this knowledge is. As a result, new teachers walk into a classroom and are told to "teach the frameworks." We are left with little to no materials and have to invent our own curriculum, trying at the same time to relate these to the muddled mess that are our district/state's frameworks.

This system is broken. Here is a way to fix it (IMO).

Teachers need a curriculum. Tell new teachers what skills they must teach and give them lesson plans that earlier teachers have used. More teachers would stick around for a second year if they did not spend 30 hours a week making lesson plans from scratch.
Have a national teacher lesson plan website. I should be able to go on the Internet and find ten different units on teaching subject verb agreement. Instead I have to sift through three or four teacher sites to find a worksheet here, a fifty-minute lesson plan there. Teachers need to share information. Notice I am not talking about a one-day lesson plan either: I think new teachers should be able to look for entire units that they can teach on everything from sentence completeness to figurative language.
When a teacher leaves a position at the end of the school year, they should be required to write a letter addressed to the next person to teach that course. In that letter would be units taught, a list of materials used, and advice for successful ways to teach that course. This was a requirement at a summer school program I worked at, and it was helpful to know that someone before me had taught this class. Teachers all have the same mission: make our students smarter. We must be willing to share information/materials to do this.
ACT/SAT materials should be made more accessible to poor students. I would love to buy a study guide for all my students, or better yet send them to tutoring sessions like rich parents can do. That's not an option though. Level the playing field by making materials available to ALL teachers interested in helping their students achieve success on this important tests.

There are more things we can do to fix public schools: they are not irreparable by any stretch. These are a few simple things I think could go a long way in making public school teachers and students more successful.

My Name is Joel Hebert, and I am a Motivational Speaker

2006-10-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

There are two types of motivation: internal and external. Internal motivation comes from within, and mainly exists when a student wants to accomplish something because he has an emotional/personal stake in that outcome. For example, internal motivation might mean a student wants to earn an A because it will make him feel smart.

External motivation comes from outside the student, and often consists of rewards. Some teachers love to use external motivation, bribing and cajoling their students to try harder with the promise of cookies and stickers on their behavior chart. Neither system is without merit. But personally, I believe that internal motivation is the better way to get a student to work hard in your class.

I try to encourage my students to strive for the best grades possible. This is difficult because many of them are only trying to scrape by and do not understand or care that they will need good grades to get into college. What is there left to do? Try to get the students on your side. Don't give them compliments they don't deserve, but when they are doing something right, point that out. Use lots of smiley faces on papers. Encourage students to share their work. Call home and tell their parents how well they are doing in your class. If the students believe in you and your classroom goals, they will be intrinsically motivated to accomplish everything they can in your class.

Is this the only way to motivate? No. But I prefer this to motivating externally with cookies and candy, for two reasons. First, baking cookies takes a lot of time, and buying candy and other treats costs money that I would rather keep in my bank account. Secondly, people are shown to draw more satisfaction from something when they are not paid for it. Third, if students are only doing classwork to get candy, will they still work hard next year if their teacher DOESN'T give them a Snickers bar for acting like they are supposed to act? I think it is better to make your classroom a team environment, and show the students that you want the team to be acceptable. Give them easy, free bonuses--like story time and extra credit--when you want to reward them, and hold the whole class accountable when they act up. If you get the students invested in you and your mission, they will be internally motivated to be successful.

I have done a much better job this year of making my classroom a postive, productive workspace. As a result, my grades this year are much higher than they were last year, AND my students are learning a lot more. Motivate your students to be their best, and make the success of the class a reward in its own right.

Last year vs. This year

2006-09-02T11:51:00.000-07:00

Last year: Big class sizes, including 48 freshmen in one class for the first two days of school
This year: Big class sizes, including 33 freshmen in one class for the entire year

Last year: Administration told me they would work to correct my schedule: they did
This year: Administration told me they would work to correct my schedule: they didn't

Last year: I have to teach three different classes (English I and II, Learning Strategies)
This year: I have to teach four different classes (English I, II, and III, Learning Strategies)

Last year: Kids constantly testing me, calling me Mr. Gay-bear
This year: Kids know me/know of me, respect me, adore me

Last year: Only white guy on the block
This year: One of three white male English teachers in the school (I get called Mr. Weimer a lot)

Last year: Across the hall from Special Ed, down the hall from Lilly Chang
This year: Across the hall from Jess Wysopal, down the hall from Mr. Weimer

Last year: Broke up a fight every week
This year: Haven't broken up a fight yet

Last year: Lots of detentions and demerits
This year: Fewer major consequences, more copying lines

Last year: I tell my students I am old, late twenties
This year: I tell my students the truth: I'm 24 and beautiful

Inefficient Scheduling

2006-09-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

Scheduling is not my school administration’s strongsuit.

This year the schedules of students were still being pieced together into the wee hours of the morning on the first day of school. In the past, the schedules of teachers have not always been determined by the second week of school. I should know: last year I added a section of English I and dropped a section of English II during the third week of the school year. So this year, when my school’s guidance counselor and principal handed me a schedule with four preps and a class of 34 freshmen, I did not panic right away.

Instead, I went to the principal and talked to him rationally. As it turned out, there had been a mistake: there were only 3 sections of English I to accommodate 80 freshmen, but there were 4 sections of English III to accommodate 64 juniors. My principal told me he would tell the counselor to fix the schedule. Reasoning triumphs over stupidity, right. Not quite.

This schedule change was not made. My guidance counselor was so overwhelmed during the first week of school that he asked me to speak with him on Thursday of the second week. He was so full of anxiety that I agreed to wait until next week. After all, I thought, I can handle classes of 30 freshmen, and I can teach four preps for a couple weeks. This proved to be wishful thinking.

When I met with my guidance counselor and principal the next week, they explained that it would be difficult to change the schedule because there were more freshman this year than they had anticipated (they told me they had only expected 75, and there were 79 currently enrolled). This would make adding a fourth section of English I difficult since other classes that were already at capacity could not absorb any more freshman. They also could not eliminate English III, a class I did not teach last year, from my schedule because it would be difficult to move my kids. I told my administrators it would be pretty difficult to teach four different classes, and it would be pretty difficult to have 34 freshmen in a room together. They informed me that technically I was only teaching 3 classes because Learning Strategies, a class designed to help students in need of remediation for the state test, was supposedly a lot like English II. That was news to me. His idea of improving my situation was moving the Learning Strategies students into English II classes and having them learn the same lessons they passed last year. I told him no thanks.

This is going to be a challenging school year. I am teaching English I, II, III, and remedial English. I have huge freshman classes. The good news is that I have better management than last year, and this year’s freshmen are much more mature than last year’s freshman/this year’s sophomores. I was hoping that my second year of teaching would be much easier than my first. Classroom management wise, it will be. But lesson planning will continue to eat up days and hours of my “free time.” This annoys me most because it is completely unnecessary for me to teach English III. I look forward to the day when I work at a school that tries harder to take care of student and teacher schedules in the springtime or summer, rather than during the first weeks of school. Efficiency is something our students need to learn, and our scheduling system does not model anything approximating efficiency.

Summer School Review

2006-06-21T12:11:00.000-07:00

Summer school has been a successful endeavor. It has gone smoother than I expected, and has proven to be a more positive experience than I thought possible. Here are some things I think are responsible for its success, and a couple ways we can make it run even smoother next year.

Already Great
First year/second year partnership. The pairing of first years and second years is the strength of the summer session. Second years get a much-needed break from the front of the classroom, thereby freeing them to impart their wisdom and observations to the first years. Everyone is a winner, stronger social connections are made, and as boring as it can be to just watch others teach in a classroom, the lessons I witnessed were more interesting than the majority of Teacher Corps classes.

Food. Every school lunch was palatable. I enjoyed having salad every day, and the hot lunch was far superior to what Simmons High serves. There was also breakfast provided. This was pretty unappetizing, but the croissants we had one morning were a delight. The lunch ladies were similarly delightful.

Need Improvement
Administration. Every school needs a central figure who installs and helps maintain the bottom line. We did not have one this summer, which was problematic. Teachers could not be confident that unruly students would receive discipline if they were sent to the office. Mr. Chase told students to let their teachers handle it, but there are some situations where an administrator needs to step up and get a teacher’s back.

Second Year Power Struggle. Some second years who were not lead teachers seemed to be slacking off. I had a great view of the library from the art-room window, and I noticed a handful of second years who routinely spent three or sometimes four periods a day in there. I tried to give Mason Cole more responsibility than that, because he is every bit as capable as me of giving our first-years valuable feedback. Next year, make expectations of all second years known in the beginning, and don’t treat non-lead teaching second years like second class citizens.

Randy the Robot

2006-06-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

Randarious, or Randy, is one of my favorite students. He isn’t the brightest of students—he finished the year with a C-average in English I. But no student provided me with more entertainment, both intentionally and unintentionally, than Randy.

Randy talks like a robot. He shoots his words out like a data processor. He wastes no breath, keeping his statements as concise as possible. Occasionally, when he gets excited about a writing assignment, he shoots his hand up vertically. “I read this?” he asks. When I give him the go-ahead (he never does anything without first asking permission), he accelerates his rate of speech, shooting out the words in a quicker yet still robotic fashion. The students have a hard time abstaining from laughter when he talks—so do I. But he never gets upset. He will just rationalize that, “Them kids are crazy,” and sit down with his scowling face.

Randy has a scowl on his face most of the time. He loves propriety, and the ridiculously inappropriate behavior he witnesses at Simmons High disgusts him. On one assigned essay he had to tell about a time when he did something better than he thought he would. He wrote about attending a dance, where he watched, “Them kids acting crazy” better than he anticipated.
“How did you watch them better?” I asked curiously.
“I didn’t blink.”
“You didn’t blink for the entire dance? How long were you there?”
“Fo hours. I just sit and watch them act all crazy.”

I often speculated what conditions it would take to produce a child like Randy. I often pictured Randy going home at night to an over-bearing, stringent father who would whoop him if he even thought about doing something out of line. One day I was proven wrong.

On parent-teacher night, a man walked through the door who looked like Randy. I was confused though, because he was smiling—Randy did not frequently smile in the beginning of the year. He introduced himself as Randy Sr., and as he spoke in a quiet, comforting tone free of harshness, I was amazed that this man produced a children as rigid and obedient as Randy.
“I try to get Randy to smile, to have fun, to go over to friends’ houses, but all he wants to do is play them video games.” I told him he was a perfectly behaved child and an average student who works hard. He shook my hand, and I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to have met the father of Randy.

There are a million other things I could write about Randy. But to close, I want to talk about one of Randy’s greatest passions: running. Randy talked about running endlessly. In keeping with his robotesque personality, he believed there was some secret to running fast. If he learned this program, he would be the fastest in the school.
“Mr. A-bear, I move my arms like this, I go faster, so fast I win the race.”
“Mr. A-bear, sir, I got this new bracelet, it make my blood faster, it make me unstoppable.”
Nearly every week Randy had a new secret. Later, when I coached him in track, I discovered what I suspected all along: the secrets did not amount to piss on snow. But anything that made Randy the Robot excited brought a joy to my heart. He was the best-behaved student I’ve ever seen, he had a character all of his own, and he entertained the class with his unique personality. I could not have asked for a more enjoyable student, and I hope all the first-years have a similar character in one of their classes.

Ours not to reason why

2006-06-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

Today in class I had my students write their obituaries. Of course, this being the age of NCLB, I had to fit this into a standard or framework or anchor or whatever they are currently called, so I used the act of writing obituaries as an opportunity to study point of view. It was one of the most enjoyable lessons I have taught. The kids were involved and learning, and all of us had a lot of fun. This is how the lesson was structured:

1. Bell-Ringer. Talk to students about death. Ask them to write down three things that happened when a person dies. On the board, divide these into three sections:
Physical Ceremonial Other
2. Discuss obituaries. Ask which column they would fit under.
3. Read some example obituaries. In my class I used the obituary of an average person, in this case an engineer from Florida, and the obituary of a famous person, in this case comedian and Dave Jones lookalike Chris Farley.
4. On the board, have students write down some elements they observed in these obituaries.
5. Review point of view, specifically 1st person, 3rd person objective, 3rd person omniscient, and 3rd person limited. Ask obituary-related questions using point of view terms (i.e. what point of view are obituaries written in usually? why aren't most obituaries 1st person? etc.)
6. Now have the students brainstorm what they would like to include in their obituary. Will they list the family members they left behind? Will it focus on their personal accomplishments? Which point of view would they like it written it?
7. Students spend the rest of the period writing and sharing their obituaries.

This worked so well this summer I plan to make it a two-day project with all my classes in the fall. It was so fun, and it really helped drive home the differences among the different points of view.

A Visit With Mr. Act Right

2006-06-13T12:46:00.000-07:00

Mr. Act Right is the name of the large wooden paddle my principal uses to beat children. We did not have a Mr. Act Right at the high school I attended in Vermont. At the schools I went to as a student, principals did not use anything to beat children: not their fists, not their feet, not even inanimate objects with comical names. But down here in Mississippi, lots of principals have a Mr. Act Right, or their own version of Mr. Act Right.

Lots of paddles are painted or have designs burned into the wood. One principal by the name of Macintosh, a large burly black man (like so many Delta principals), named his paddle the "Mac Attack." The name is emblazoned on the paddle in bright red paint. You can almost picture him chasing students into an assembly, waving the paddle and threatening, "Y'all get in there before you catch a Mac Attack."

The paddle is used to inflict physical justice on students of all ages and for all manner of infraction. This is generally left to the discretion of the principal. When students receive licks, they bend over a desk or chair with their butt pointed in the air. If no desk or chair is available, the student should place their hands against the wall. If the student is small enough, principals have even been known to pick them up with one hand and paddle with the other. This provides exercise for the principal, and is really doing the student a favor, since the principal will not be able to get his full force behind the thick wooden paddle.

Like professional tennis players, some principals paddle with a one-handed grip, whereas others prefer the two-handed grip. Unlike tennis players, however, a paddle-swinging principal should avoid unnecessary follow-through. The secret to a good lick is to minimize the length of time the paddle is in contact with the behind. Snap that wrist and bring the wood away quickly so the strike will not be smothered. Think of a football player snapping a towel in a high school locker room--think of the way a pit viper attacks its prey. This is how a principal should discipline a student.

Students have been raised to accept paddling, and do not seem to bear any greater grudge against the principal than if he had given them detention or a writing assignment. I have come to accept paddling as a part of Southern life, and like my students I shed no tears when the wooden handle of justice falls on someone else's behind. Maybe some life lessons are best taught with liberal doses of white-pine deliberance. After all, I'm not here to agree or disagree with the way things are done. I just advise my students to be diligent, respectful young people and avoid the wrath of Mr. Act Right.

New Year's Resolutions

2006-06-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

During this forthcoming school year, I will be a better teacher. Like George Foreman used to say when he was a Meineke muffler pitchman, “I guar-an-tee it.” A Teach For America teacher told me last year that he’d never heard someone lament, “My first year went great, but my second year was a nightmare.” Humans—intelligent ones, anyway-- learn from mistakes. So what mistakes did I make during my first year of teaching that I plan to rectify this year? Here are just a handful.

1. Raise your hands before speaking! I was a bit lax on this after I found the policy difficult to enforce. Big mistake. At times last year my insistence on students raising their hands rubbed my students the wrong way. I won’t care this year. Raising hands is necessary for my classroom to function the way I want it, so raise your damn hand.

2. You waste my time, I will waste yours—but not in a way that makes me waste even more of mine. Detentions stink because you have to serve them along with the chuckleheads who are fooling around in your class. I plan to hold them, because they are a necessary evil, but I will only hold them once a week. If you can’t make it, sorry, that is four demerits. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

3. Bi-monthly Shout-Out becomes Students of the Month. I had planned to pick one student from each class to praise twice a month. Not a bad idea, but I found this to be one extra thing to worry about. This year, I’ll make it once a month, and be more consistent in my application.

4. Start tutorials sooner in the year. Some kids are so far behind, they may never pass the state test. I need to identify this struggling readers and start working with them ASAP. They may not want the extra help. If this is the case, I need to scare their parents into letting them stay after to get this help.

Next year will be better. These are four ways I plan to make it happen.

Five Teaching Gems

2006-06-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

I've been telling the first-years all kinds of stuff about teaching, Teacher Corps, and living in Mississippi. If I could only impart five, as is the magic number in this blog, here is what they would be:

#1 Cover your butt. As a first year teacher, you'll be making more than $30,000 this year. Doesn't sound like much to you? It does to your students and their lawsuit-happy parents. You will have hundreds of thousands of interactions with students this year, and if just one of them ends up putting you in a vulnerable position (grades, breaking up a fight, being accused of racism), you could find yourself on the receiving end of a lawsuit. The NEA (National Educator's Association) offers insurance as part of its benefits package. Unfortunately, the NEA is also a politically-driven lobbying group that has been accused of being extremely pro-choice and pro-gay marriage . It also runs over $300 a year to be a member. For only $90, you can still cover your butt with over a million dollars in professional insurance if you join the MPE (Mississippi Professional Educators). They do not have political aspirations; they are just around to help protect teachers. To find more information or sign up, go to: www.mpe.org or call 1-800-523-0269.

#2 Keep your sanity. Teaching is a tough job, but don't forget it is still just a job, no matter what your inner-idealogue tells you. Part of doing the best you can means acknowledging that you are a human being with interests that extend beyond lesson-planning, grading papers, and stressing yourself out with teacher-worries. Take time each day, every day, to do something that has nothing to do with teaching. Even if it is just for an hour, go for a run, read a book, watch a movie, play lawn darts, build a popsicle stick suspension bridge--whatever tickles your pickle. AND DON'T FEEL GUILTY ABOUT THIS----EVER!

#3 Pick your battles wisely. Your principal won't listen to you about making sweeping changes if you've only been at the school for a semester. Put yourself in his shoes: you wouldn't want some upstart telling you how to do the job you've been doing for years. Be patient, and if you must make a suggestion, or a request, keep checking in on it until you get what you want.

#4 No rules are set in stone. Teachers have different personas. What one person tells you is a teaching dogma may only be dogma to him/her. Example: some teaching "experts" say you shouldn't have more than 3 rules, some say 5, others say 6. I had 10 this year, and the walls did not come a'crumbling down. If it works for you, do it.

#5 Be a role model. This sounds obvious, but remember: your students are watching you. Even if you are the worst teacher in the world, you can STILL be an amazing role model. Don't lose your cool, be patient, don't hit people or play fight, say kind things to everyone, and never forget that you are making a difference. For two years of your life you are exposing these students to a unique person: whatever you do, they will remember you for it, so be a positive force in their young lives.

First Week, First Impressions

2006-06-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

First Impressions of the First Years
Hope springs eternal at the beginning of your teaching career. I discovered this lesson last summer, and now I have the privilege of watching this hope fill the hearts and minds of this year’s teaching rookies.
My initial impressions have been favorable. I’ve met most of the first years, and as a whole they seem friendly, likable, and service-oriented. These are three qualities good teachers need. Of course, there are 1,001 other qualities a good teacher needs, and we will soon see which of these qualities the first years possess. I still haven’t decided if you can teach someone to become a good teacher, but I believe if there is any program that can do it, it would be Teacher Corps.

Living Arrangements
I’ve moved in to a house with seven other second-years. Aaron Thompson and I share a room, while Lily, Jess, and Meredith share another, and Ruth, Adryon, and Tiffany share a third. It’s a crowded house, but so far the living arrangements have worked out swimmingly. On the downer side: we need a pool. Oxford summers are soooooo hot, and this year has been on the mild side.
A couple days after complaining about a pool, Lily introduced me to Sardis Lake. The water there was warm, perhaps a little too warm, but the beach was clean and nice. Meredith, Lily and I spent our Sunday there playing Frisbee and lounging around. It was definitely a good place to spend an afternoon.

Summer School
Today was the first day of summer school. Overall, it was a rousing success. The students were well-behaved, and lessons went very smoothly. I feel good that Joe Sweeney observed me, and I got that out of the way early. I look forward to Thursday when I get to see the first years in action. All four: Landon, Chris E., Amy, and Jon are teaching that day. I can’t wait to see their teaching personas.

Poetry Slam

2006-05-22T15:37:00.000-07:00

I am concluding a week-long unit on poetry with my freshmen and sophomores. Among the more thought-provoking prompts I gave them came on the heels of a lesson which looked at the works of several prominent African-American poets. I asked them to praise or criticize one aspect of African-American culture. Here is what a few of them came up with.

Actin’ Black
What is actin’ black?
Is it chicks wearing too tight clothes?
Or dudes wearing pants with too much slack?
What do you call actin’ black?

Is it a certain way of the walk,
Or maybe the way black folks talk?
How are are we so diverse from other races,
Is it just the look of our dark-skinned faces?

Hip white folks love to imitate,
Our unique sense of style.
But they say we’re not prestigious enough,
To live a white lifestyle.

They characterize us
As ignorant, illiterate, and emotionally held back,
They want us to envy them
But they’re the ones actin’ black! -Kelsey Haggard, 10th

Haters, Haters, Everywhere
Haters, haters, everywhere
On the land and in the air.
Haters, haters, everywhere
Some are here and some are there.
Haters, haters, everywhereBe a hater if you dare. -Curissa Prince, 10th

Rough Times
We’ve been beaten, we’ve been hung,
We’ve been slung to the ground,
But life has come around for us as black in many towns,
We’ve been talked about, stepped on, and not thought of in their minds.

But it’s our time to shine.

We have become the people they tried to keep us from being.
Lawyers, doctors, teachers are the jobs we’re achieving.
We’ve been down a bumpy road,
The story is still being told,But I think blacks have obtained a greater gold.
-Quentin McKnight, 10th

Lights
White people do this, black people do that.
When white people’s lights go off, they panic
When blacks’ lights go off, they plan it.

In the old days people picked cotton for a buck,
But now we win the lotto just by pure luck.
In the old days they kept their food in an ice box,But now black people have their own stocks. -Kivante Hunter, 9th

Untitled
Love of my culture is everything I know,
Black is beautiful from my head to my toe.
Love of my culture, so nice and sweet
My culture is everything kind to meet.
I wouldn’t trade my culture for the world
Because I’m a
Tall
Black
Sexy Cute kind of girl. -Brittany Mackin, 9th

The Blackness of a Person
The blackness of a person describes their dignity and strength,
The blackness of a person describes the love of God within.
The blackness of a person tells a person so much about their history,
The blackness of a person tells the world about their pain and misery. -Jaleesa Thomas, 10th

A raisin in the sun
That is what black in the summer is to me
Plump and juicy, round and sweet
Healthy as a beet.

Though pigments may differ
And hair may not be straight
More valuable than a mink fur, body of a figure eight.

Rhythm so on tempo
Dancing so on beat
Swaying hips from side to side
Sweating in the heat.

Everything about black
Stands out like the number one
Especially in the summer time,
Like a raisin in the sun. -Jasmine Steverson, 10th

Field Trip

2006-05-08T16:40:00.000-07:00

Ahh, field trips. They bring back such terrible memories from childhood. Growing up in Vermont, I remember being subjected to the torturous tour that was the Shelburne Museum, a local attraction that showed how boring life was during the bygone days of yore. The thing that made this field trip terrible wasn't necessarily that the museum was boring (it was); it was the fact that we went there EVERY GRADE FROM KINDERGARTEN TO 6TH. Just thinking about the place still makes me shiver. I'm just trying to show the reluctance with which I agreed to chaperone our sophomore trip to Jackson State last Thursday.

We arrived at Jackson State at 10:30, earlier than trip leader, Counselor Curtis Humphrey expected. After a bathroom break, we headed to lunch at the school cafeteria. There, we stayed for over two hours, feasting on fried chicken and other delicious soul food. After our leisurely lunch, we had a tour of the gym, student center, and gift shop (of course). We also walked by the part of campus where different fraternities and sororities hang out in their designated areas. This was the setting of one of the funniest events of the school year.

Angelo Boykins, a boisterous man-child who has spent equal time entertaining and frustrating me with his misbehavior this year, bragged on the bus ride to JSU that he was, "Gonna get me a college honey, yo." I tried to dissuade him from this impossible task, but he assured me he would triumph. "You don't even know, Mr. Hebert." The truth was, neither of us could predict what would happen later on sorority row.

In the outdoor quad, there are special benches reserved only for the members of a certain frat or sorority. Feeling young and cocky, Angelo approached one of the benches, sure that these older college women would eat him up. He would regret this decision almost immediately. Before he even had the opportunity to spin any game, a tall woman with large, curly hair confronted him screaming. "No! Uh-uh! Get out of here! Leave! Get OUT!!!" The woman looked like a momma bear protecting her cub, and the look on Angelo's face was priceless. His eyes were the size of dinner plates and his body shook as he backed away from the woman and the benches. Female chaperones came rushing over to yell at Angelo, while all the students around him burst into simultaneous laughter. I was laughing right alongside them.

After Angelo recovered from this incident, I sidled up to him. "Any luck with the ladies yet, Angelo."

"Don't talk to me, Hebert."

Maybe I could grow to like field trips.

Changes in the Test

2006-04-23T13:54:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, my English II students will take their state test. Of the four tests Mississippi requires them to take in order to graduate from high school, English II is the one students struggle with the most. The first year the test was offered, fewer than 60% of students passed it. Over the past five years, this number has risen to around 75%. Are students getting better at English? Probably not. Teachers are just gearing their curriculum more and more to the objectives of the test. Speaking from personal experience, 100% of what I have taught so far this year was directed toward the test.

With all my teaching efforts directed toward the test, one would think I should feel confident going into the week of the test. In a way, I am. Some of my brighter students should get impressive scores, and most of my kids will pass. My goal, as a first year teacher, is to have 70% of my students pass. Any more than this, and I will be happy. Any fewer than this, and I will be a little disappointed.

The English II state test takes most students between 2 and 2.5 hours to complete. It feature 85 questions spread out over 12 different reading passages. Some slow readers will spend in excess of 5 hours attempting to complete this test. I think this is unfortunate, because many students initially fail the test not because they do not know the answers, but because they are not used to taking such formidably lengthy exams. They put their heads down and quit when they realize they still have 3, 4, 5, or more passages left to wade through. I think Mississippi should streamline the test by elimlinating some of the passages to make the exam more manageable. The average student should spend and hour and a half tops on the test, and no one should have to spend more than 3 hours on it. After all, this is not a college entrance exam like the ACT.

Observations

2006-04-22T16:31:00.000-07:00

My students are only a few days away from T-Day....the dreaded English II state test. I think most of my kids are ready, although there are a few students I am convinced will probably never pass this lengthy exam. Some students read at the comprehension level of a fourth grader, while others do not even read at this level. Next year I plan to identify the students who have the most difficulty reading and work with them one day a week after school. I think this might mean the difference between passing and failing for a few students who would be willing to put in the time. Unfortunately, I feel as though few of my students are willing to invest their time in bettering their situation in life.

In both the classroom and the athletic field as a track coach, I have seen students fail to push themselves to achieve what they are capable of. Some students do seem to be lazy and/or disinterested. In track, this was particularly troubling, because kids who went out for the team did not have the tenacity to push themselves during workouts. Even my fastest runners seemed more intent on complaining and whining than improving their God-given abilities. Speaking with other track coaches, this is a state-wide problem. I tell my kids that if you to improve, you need to practice, whether it is in school, music, or sports. Unfortunately, the thing that many kids are practicing the most in the Delta is complaining.

Opening Day is Coming Up

2006-03-29T19:11:00.000-08:00

Excuse the escapism, but MLB's opening day is only four days away, so I'd like to use this blog as an opportunity to discuss the 2006 Boston Red Sox.

Starting Pitching
The Sox have five quality starting pitchers this year, with newcomer Josh Beckett headlining the cast. Elder citizens Curt Schilling, Tim Wakefield, or David Wells are all pushing 40, but still have killer instincts and nasty stuff. If any of them should break down at some point, young guns Jonathon Papelbon and Jon Lester are waiting to step up. Rounding out the starting five is Matt Clement, who is aiming to shake off a difficult end to last season when a line drive smashed into his face and put him out of commission.

Bullpen
Traditionally, the Red Sox have notoriously weak bullpens, but the front office made this a priority this offseason. They signed Skeletor-look alike Julian Tavarez for two years, and also signed Rudy Seanez. In trade action, the Sox aquired David Riske, and they re-signed Mike Timlin for another year. Closer Keith Foulke is hoping to return to 2004 form after having off-season surgery on his knees. If he doesn't get the job done, Jonathon Papelbon, Timlin, or rookie Craig Hansen have the potential to step up. The one southpaw is Lenny Dinardo, a personal favorite of Sox G.M. Theo Epstein.

Infield
The Sox have an all-new infield. I'll miss Bill Mueller, especially since his replacement, Mike Lowell, is coming off a career-worst offensive season. Hopefully his Gold Glove will make up for it, and he can rediscover his stroke in Fenway's lefty-friendly field. Alex Gonzalez, a free agent, will play short stop, and is reputed to have amazing range and a powerful arm. Mark Loretta, who the Sox acquired in exchange for caveman-catcher Doug Mirabelli, will provide the consistent #2 hitter the Sox need in their lineup. First base will be a platoon with Kevin Youkilis, aka "The Greek God of Walks," and J.T. Snow. Manager Terry Francona loves Snow, but I hope Youkilis gets the majority of the at-bats. He gets on base and has a knack for getting a clutch hit. Alex Cora is the backup infielder, and future starter Dustin Pedrioa should see time later in the season.

Outfield
This was an area the Sox need to address, and they have done so. Fragile right fielder Trot Nixon needed a backup and platoon partner, and the Sox got him one in Willy Mo Pena. He is 6'5" and 240 pounds, and hits home runs that make people's jaws drop. He's also great at hitting lefties. In center field, Coco Crisp replaces unfrozen caveman lawyer, Johnny Damon. Crisp is speedy and young; plus his first name is Coco. In left field is the best right-handed hitter in baseball, Manny Ramirez. I am looking forward to another season of Manny being Manny: he'll hit near .300, launch 40 homers, and drive in 140 runs. How do you say stud in Spanish? Canadian star Adam Stern will back up Manny and provide speed on the basepaths, eh?

DH/Catcher
David Ortiz, aka El Jefe, aka Big Papi, aka Shrek....this is one of the nicest guys in baseball, with the clutchest bat in recent baseball history. He makes me want to be a better person. Speaking of which, Jason Varitek returns after winning both the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger award in 2005. It'll be a tough act to follow, but as long as Tek continues to handle the staff masterfully, whatever offense he adds is a bonus. Josh Bard will serve as Tim Wakefield's caddy and try to handle his knuckler.

Predictions
The Sox has a lot of question marks: will Mike Lowell and Mark Loretta bounce back? How are Keith Foulke and David Wells' knees? Is Curt Schilling going to have a great season at age 39? In the end, their success depends most heavily on Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett, and Keith Foulke. If these pitchers are at their best, I predict 96 wins. If any one of them spends significant time on the D.L. or struggles on the mound, expect no more than 88. Remember, the Yankees are still in the A.L. East, and the Blue Jays are loaded for bear this year. I think the Jays are a little overrated, and the Yankees are a Randy Johnson injury away from a long season, so hear are my predictions:
First-Yankees
Second-Red Sox (Wild Card)
Third-Blue Jays

Alternative-Route Teachers Rout Street-Ballers in Hollandale

2006-03-10T06:45:00.000-08:00

Hollandale, MS- In December of 2005, a squad of street-balling hustlers posing as police officers played a team of teachers at the Simmons High School gym. It was a homecoming for many of the street-ballers, several of whom were members of the 2001 state championship team. The young ballers destroyed the mostly middle-aged teachers by a final score of 110-65. The lone highlight of the game for the teachers was a third-quarter rim-rattling dunk by first-year teacher, Joel "White Thunder" Hebert. Needless to say, there was no talk of a rematch after the slaughter. But that did not stop Simmons principal Roger Liddell from scheduling a second blood-letting.

This rematch was played on Wednesday, March 8. The crowd was smaller this time, due to no previous announcement of the game. But fortunately for the teachers, our empty bench was full of high school seniors, and our starting line-up was given a major overhaul. Not wanting to endure another beating by the ballers, Mr. Hebert called up his roommate, 6'7" power forward Chris Elliott. Chris is a Teach For America (TFA) teacher in Greenville. Chris in turn placed a call to his friend, William, another member of TFA. William is an explosive point guard who attended Wake Forest, where he was assigned the task of guarding All-American Chris Paul everyday in practice. With these additions to the starting line-up, combined with Joel and Aaron "the Assassin" Thompson, the second game of this series was shaping up to be a much more even affair.

The first five minutes of the game were frustrating for the teacher team. The street ballers jumped out to an early 14-4 lead, as Joel Hebert and other teachers could not find their shots. The ballers continued to press into the second quarter, and only the inside scoring of Chris "Moose" Elliott kept the game close. At halftime, the score was 44-31 on the side of the ballers.

It was in the third quarter that the miraculous comeback began. Cheered on by Principal Liddell, who unselfishly elected to sit out this game, the teacher team roared back to life. Led by Terrence Williams and other high school seniors, the teachers clawed back to within seven points. The starters were inserted into the game at this point, and the teachers began wiping the boards with the trash-talking ballers. With six minutes left in the third quarter, Joel put in short jumper off a nice pass from his roommate Moose. He was fouled on the play, and had the chance to tie the game at 57-57. This would be the first tie since the game started at 0-0. Hebert, who has never missed a free throw at Simmons, converted this one as well to tie the game. This brought the crowd back into the game in a major way.

A major part of the teacher's turnaround was our composure. The street-ballers turned into a bunch of thugs, who cursed out the student-refs and cried about every call. At one point, the other team's leading scorer was called for a foul and threw the ball across the gym. He was given a technical foul, which the teachers converted.

The street-balling, foul-mouthed thugs mounted a comeback in the fourth quarter. Again and again they pulled to within a single point of the teachers. But with thirty seconds left in the game, 350 pound shooting guard, Phil Gibson, made a three pointer that clinched the game for the teachers. The gym went crazy, as Cinderella paid a visit to Simmons High. The message of this story: when alternative-route teaching programs work together, anything is possible. Especially when you assign funny nicknames.

You Can Lead a Horse to Water...

2006-02-09T16:06:00.000-08:00

If Jerry Seinfeld was a teacher, he might lament: What's the deal with late work? Why isn't there a simple way to get students to do work on time. I'm not Jerry Seinfeld, but I am a teacher who is struggling with this dilemma.

"Procrastinate" is one of those strange words that a disproportionate number of Americans like to use. This is probably because we have become a nation of procrastinators. This explains the billions of dollars in credit card debt in this country. I can't help but wonder: is there a cure for this putting-off of important things, like homework and getting notes signed? Or is this epidemic, which afflicts most of my students, incurable?

In general, my late work policy has been working well, although it remains far from perfect. Currently, I penalize students 10 points (out of 100) for handing in an assignment one day late, 20 points for two days late, and 30 points for three or more days late. The result is that some students turn their work in on time, but many will blow off their work until the week before grades close, creating a logjam of late work for me to grade. The con is that kids lose points for late work, but there is no difference in the punishment between three days late and three weeks late.

I know some teachers do not accept late work. This is setting the bar very high. I have considered doing this, but fear that it would result in many more students failing my class. An alternative approach is not to assign homework, and many teachers in my school and elsewhere do not assign homework. But I feel homework is necessary for supplementing lessons and practicing for assessments, most notably the state test.

In the end, I guess there is no perfect system. I am satisfied with penalizing late work for now: but I hope my students begin to avoid these late penalities.

White Men Can Jump

2006-02-07T20:04:00.000-08:00

Hollandale, Mississippi was the site of a slaughter two weeks ago. Six intrepid employees of the school district, including Aaron Thompson and I, competed against Hollandale community members (aka street ballers) in a competitive game of basketball. Basketball is a beautiful sport, but the result of this contest was not very pretty.

Befitting our school, which seems to do everything on the fly (to put it euphemistically), the school team did not practice together before the big game. Around 200 fans showed up to watch us play together for the first time. Aaron and I started, along with brand-new English teacher Mr. McClaren, fifty-something year-old Principal Liddell, and two support staff members, including another fifty year old, Mr. Young. Our opponents were all serious ballers in their twenties and thirties, including three young men who in 2001 were members of the Simmons High team that won states. Not one of the teachers had played high school ball post-1974.

The much younger and much better community hoopsters got off to an early lead. They full court pressed us into embarassing mistakes and seemed to make every shot. They scored the first 12 points before Aaron got our team onto the board. The quarters were 13 minutes apiece, but seemed to go on forever. Occasionally, our students would shout encouragement to us during timeouts. My freshmen told me I needed to dunk the ball. In the third quarter, when we were down by about 30, I decided to take their advice.

I had the ball at the top of the arc when I noticed the right side of the lane was wide open. I learned later that Aaron had set a screen on one of the defenders to open this hole. Without thinking, I dribbled twice toward the hoop, leapt into the air, and threwdown a one-handed dunk. As I landed I could hear the crowd roar with approval. I thrust a finger skyward in a victory salute, and slapped hands with my beleagured teammates. I soon remembered we were still losing by almost 30, but the fact that I dunked in front of so many of my students made the loss less embarassing.

The next day, students I didn't even know were talking to me about my dunk. It was great. The funniest comment of them all came from senior wise-guy Derrick Martin. At lunch he approached me with a straight face. "I saw your game last night, Mr. Hebert."
"Oh? What did you think, Derrick."
"I guess that white men can jump."
In a school that is 100 percent black, I could appreciate the compliment.

Will You Still Love Me When the Test Scores Arrive?

2006-01-10T19:31:00.000-08:00

Teach For America has a term to describe the lofty expectations it places upon the participants in its program called "significant gains." Every teacher is expected to improve the test scores of their students by 1.5 grade levels in reading and 2 grade levels in math. This is an incredibly difficult feat, but around half of TFA teachers accomplish it in a given year. Teacher Corps, in my understanding, has no comparable specific expectation of student improvement. I feel this relieves MTC participants of one extra feeling of pressure during an already stressful first year of teaching. But from a personal standpoint, I feel as though I cannot achieve "significant gains" when it comes to improving the test scores of my students.

Let me explain what I mean. Last year, Deslin Chapman, a MTC second-year, taught English II, a state tested subject. She was incredibly successful, and 78% of students passed the test on the first go-round. This figure was better than the state average. She actually left Simmons High School to work for a private consulting firm, and now Mrs. Chapman is literally writing the book on how to teach toward the state test. Reading that book, and trying to replace her, is yours truly.

My kids are struggling to master many of the dozens of frameworks they need to know in order to pass the test. I simply do not see how anywhere near 78% of them are going to pass the multiple choice test in April. Many of them cannot read a children's novel, and yet they will have to answer difficult reading comprehension questions on short articles and essays that no one will explain to them. This is a source of stress for me. I am an optimist, but moreover, I am a realist. I understand that the percentage of students passing from Simmons High this year is more than likely going to decrease. The bar was set high for me, and I don't think I can hurdle over it. So where does that leave me? If only 60% of the kids pass, will I become a pariah at Simmons? Frankly, I'm not even worried about that. What I worry is what my harshest critic will feel when my students' scores come back in April. I'm worried about how I will feel when all the work I poured into my lessons is characterized by a two-digit number. My job would be a lot easier if only 40% of students passed last year. Going from 40% to 60% is a whole lot better than dropping from almost 80% to 60%.

All I can do is work hard and do my best. After school tutoring sessions begin soon, and these will hopefully help some of my struggling students. But my biggest worry is that some of my students are so far behind, they are already beyond help. I just hope that when I get the student scores back in July, I won't feel as though I am beyond help as well.

Is Winging it Really Bringing It?

2006-01-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

I wonder sometimes how much preparation is enough. As a first year teacher, in order for me to feel fully prepared for the next day, I sometimes spend an entire evening on school work. This is a depressing thought: devoting an entire 24 hour day to nothing but work and sleep. Investment bankers do this with regularity, but they also earn six figures and date Amanda Peete.

Sometimes, the temptation to put the work away when I'm at home and do something more relaxing is too good to pass up. When I do this, I know in the back of my mind that I will be "winging it" to some extent the next day. I am very good at thinking on my feet, and years of being a camp counselor have prepared me well for making something out of nothing. I have had several very good lessons this year where I had nothing more than a six or seven word lesson plan. I know that what Ben Guest said this summer, about the integral nation of the lesson plan, is overstated at least a little. However, I also understand that heading into the classroom with copies made, activities planned, and a lesson plan in hand makes a lesson much more likely to succeed.

So where does that leave me as a first year teacher? Do I spend my whole live preparing? Or do I live on the edge and wing it? The ideal solution is to reduce the amount of prep time and thereby eliminate the need to wing. The only way to do this: keep plugging away, build up a library of successful lesson plans, and keep teaching the same courses. As for now, I need to keep my life balanced. It's truet that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But sometimes half an hour of sleep is worth having to wing it at least a little.

First Semester is Almost in the Books

2005-12-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

The first semester of teaching is almost at a close. It has gone quickly, but when I think back to the first week of school, way back in August, it seems as though the semester began many years ago.

I have enjoyed my first semester, and feel I have been successful in many regards. I give my kids a lot of me: my humor, my support, and much of my free time. As Dave Odom said in class today, we always seem to choose what our kids need instead of what we need. But despite making this choice routine, I still feel refreshed and upbeat more often than not. That tells me that the second half of the year is going to be even better.

I have learned a lot about my students personal lives by reading their essays and watching them present their oral history projects. We have read two interesting books, The Road to Memphis and Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, and my students enjoyed these. I have picked up on many of my students' academic inadequacies, and feel like many students have made strides in improving. In fact, in a couple of my classes, 100% of my students are passing, and I have not lowered the bar at all from first semester, when a couple students failed in every single class.

I did not coach a sport in the fall, but I did work with the academic decathalon team, and spent six days after-school working with students preparing for the ACTs. I had time left over to run a couple times a week, write for about an hour a night, and watch a couple movies each week. My personal life is in a great place right now, my professional life is wonderful, and Christmas break is coming up soon. Next semester will be busier, as the dreaded state test approaches and I may be coaching track and field as well. But I just need to remember to control the things I can control and let the chips fall where they may. This semester was great, and next semester, though busier, will be even more rewarding.

Football Fever: Or How I Learned To Just Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

2005-12-03T08:26:00.000-08:00

It's nearing the second week in December, and football fever is still raging at Simmons High School in Hollandale. This is due to the fact that Simmons High has yet to lose a game during the reguar season or playoffs: we're undefeated baby, yeah! All posturing aside, the joy of gridiron glory has its negative attributes as well, and these have increasingly come to light over past few weeks.

I like the football players I have in my class, and their academic work has not suffered with the prolonging of their athletic season. But the academic work of Simmons High School as a whole has taken a hit because of the team's success. Or rather, students have missed hours of instructional time to engage in the age-old ritual of pep rallies, something supported whole-heartedly by our one-man administration team.

We have had at least seven pep rallies, by my count. They are noisy, and many of them are short-lived, but I can deal with them as a minor annoyance. The real disturbance they cause is twofold. First, they throw off the bell schedules, leaving students and teachers uninformed. Secondly, they create an atmosphere where students do not feel obligated to attempt to learn. Students treat school like a party instead of a center for the acquisition of knowledge. Unfortunately, some teachers enable this mostly-harmful behavior by turning their classrooms into poster-making and pennant design centers.

The high school season ends this Friday with the state championship game in Jackson. Our school will be getting over with at 11:30, so that we can pack onto a bus and make the trek. How much learning will take place on that short day? None. Can I do anything to change that? I can certainly try. But sometimes I think that maybe I short just stop worrying. Just stop worrying and love the bomb.

Reflecting on the Summer Blogs

2005-11-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

Looking back over my blogs from the red-hot days of our Oxford summer, I am struck by how much faith I invested in the need for consistency. If there was a catch phrase from my summer blogs, it would be, “An ounce of consistency saves a pound of cure.” Several months later, I continue to believe that statement, and feel that I have tried to be true to it, with varied results.

Perhaps I need an addendum to my summer catchphrase: “Consistency is important, but sometimes change is necessary.” A teacher is a great improviser, and nowhere is this more true than the Mississippi Delta. At Simmons we have had countless surprise pep rallies, assemblies, and unannounced meetings. These have challenged my ability to remain consistent. Another challenge is the fact that I am a first year teacher, and I am often finding new ways to change and (hopefully) improve my class. At times, I have forsaken consistency and the status quo for the chance to reap greater benefits in a new consequence ladder or seating arrangement.

The other main thing I noticed about my summer blogs was how theoretical everything was. We spend so much time planning and looking at models for different things, such as classroom management plans, and while these DO help prepare us for teaching, as a teacher I am often in need of a Plan B.

Back from the North

2005-11-27T19:30:00.000-08:00

It's good to be home. That's what I felt when my plane finally landed in the Greenville airport, two hours later than its scheduled arrival time. Though it would be an exaggeration to say I missed work (after all, I was home with my friends and family), I was not dreading a return to the Delta as my girlfriend was last Thanksgiving during her first year with Teach For America. I know now that she wasn't alone: many first year teachers dread coming back to the Delta after a respite back home. I, for one, choose to see the silver lining.

Quick aside: The Delta may not have Starbucks and Barnes and Nobles, but what it lacks in high societal charm, it more than makes up for in good ol' relaxed country living. The weather getting off the plane was gorgeous, a balmy November evening, and I will take 60 degrees over 25 degrees any day of the week.

I have been told that as difficult as it is to return home after Thanksgiving break, it is much harder to return after Christmas. That is probably true, since the next vacation is 2.5 months away. But coming back with a positive attitude can make your life a whole lot better. Optimists live longer for a reason, and they are a whole lot more fun to be around. Our profession, our Corps, has a lot going for it right now, and we as individuals should be happy to be a part of something so positive. You don't become a teacher for the vacations, but there are a lot of them, and if you make it through the first semester, you can make it through the first year. And after that.....that's just gravy, baby.

Success Story

2005-10-26T17:23:00.000-07:00

Given no guidelines on what constitutes a true "success story," this topic intimidates me a little. I worry that if I describe a student who has turned it around in my classroom, describing their success will somehow jinx them and lead them to a quick reversal. An alternative is to write about success on a more macro level; I could talk about an aspect of teaching I suppose that I am doing well. Both of these options seem imperfect in their own way. So I am writing about a third kind of success: my "success story" is that 50+ days into the school year, I am happy, healthy, and upbeat.
At the beginning of the year I knew I wanted my kids to know two things: I cared about them, and I expected them to conduct themselves in a manner conducive to learning. I wish I could say my success was that all my kids love me and are cherubs within the walls of my classroom, but that would be an outright lie. My kids still question my decisions, they still act persecuted, and they are sometimes nasty little brats. But at a basic level, I believe they respect me and understand that I do care about them and want them to do well. I have never yelled at them, never disrespected them purposefully, and have treated them as fairly as possible. And, over time, the rudeness, and disrespect, and the egregious assaults on my human sensibilities have gradually decreased. This is my success.
By the end of the year, I will hopefully have dozens of students I can hold up as shining success stories. Right now, I feel more democratic about this situation. I still believe that success is something that classes can achieve together. If I can remain positive, and my attitude remains unassailable, then my students and I will all be successful this year and beyond.

Ten Thoughts on Teaching in the Delta

2005-10-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

1. First year teachers tend to focus on what they don't have when it comes to classroom materials.
2. First year teachers have more materials than they realize; it's just a matter of knowing the right person. To get an overhead projector, I had to go to the superintendent. The principal, librarian, and other teachers could do nothing to help.
3. All teacher corps member have their own challenges based on their own circumstances.
4. It is impossible to compare one teacher's situation to another's: in one situation a teacher might thrive, whereas the same teacher might struggle in a different situation.
5. Free time is a teacher's best friend.
6. There isn't much free time, so you must prioritize. I never sacrifice sleep: I pull at least 7.5 a night, and usually 8 hours. I can go without running and reading, but not without sleeping.
7. Students will do some things simply to test you: last week, I had one student call me "Mr. A-bitch" and another call me "Mr. Gay-bear." Neither of these were said in anger: they were simply trying to see my reaction (sidenote: students were punished and I haven't heard these nicknames again).
8. Could I teach in the Delta for 30 years? No way. The negativity of the hallways, with students hitting each other and cursing each other out, is more than I could handle.
9. Corporal punishment would seem to fit right in at my high school. I cannot imagine my school environment becoming any more violent than it already is. Students understand physical abuse more than they understand more mature forms of consequence.
10. Although we don't practice corporal punishment at my school (to my knowledge), and my school is a violent, swarming mass of aggressive students, I am glad I do not have to worry about my students getting paddled. But I have to admit, there are some students I wouldn't mind taking a paddle to myself.

Inductive vs. Deductive

2005-09-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

As an English teacher with students who are several grade levels behind in reading and writing, I feel an almost desperate sense that no time can be wasted within the walls of my classroom. For this reason, I rely much more heavily on deductive instruction rather than inductive.

The strength of deductive instruction is that it allows the instructor to explain materials at a more rapid rate. This gives me the opportunity to share knowledge with the students rather than waiting for them to find the answer. The con is that some studies have shown that inductive reasoning is more effective when it comes to retention rates: but so far, in my classroom, deductive instruction has proven effective based on scores from various assignments.

Inductive instruction works great, but I feel it it more beneficial to science and math teachers. With inductive instruction, students find the rule after going through several examples. They make arguments based on observation rather than rules. Science experiments and mathematical theorems lend well to this style of instruction. English maxims in some cases also can be taught in this way: for instance, I did use inductive reasoning to teach the five parts of a sentence. In general, though, I find deductive to be a quicker, smoother, and simpler mode of instruction.

Reality Check

2005-09-29T14:20:00.000-07:00

These kids do not care about their future.

This is the conclusion I reached during the two days I spent as proctor of the PLAN, a test meant to prepare students for the ACT.

I expected students to struggle with the test's grueling 3-hour long format. But I thought they would at least give it the old college try. Sadly, by the end of two days spent watching students flounder their way through the test, I realized these students were not willing to try much at all. I also realized that almost none of these students understand the connection between high school and standardized tests and getting into college and getting a decent job.

Few students spent the alloted time working on the test. In fact, many students filled in the bubbles randomly before putting their heads down to take a twenty minute nap. I watched in horror as students left large sections of the test unfinished, sitting up defiantly with a look of, "I don't have to try, and you can't make me plastered on their face." Some students even went so far as to distract others, either by making comments or rattling their necklaces or passing gas. I felt as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on my face, as I came to a saddening realization: most of these kids aren't going to "make it."

I'm familiar with all the stats, and I came in here knowing that most of the kids I'd work with are not going to go to college. But seeing them treat this standardized test as a joke or a torture sentence made me feel all kinds of different emotions, none of them good. I felt angry that they were wasting this opportunity to get an education; certainly their grandparents never had this chance to earn money for college. I felt sad that the students have no idea what it takes to be successful outside of Hollandale, MS. I also felt depressed in the knowledge that college really is a pipedream here, and it is more of Mr. Hebert's dream than that of my students. The reality is that I care more about my student's success than they do. This is a scary thought. But it will motivate me to hopefully do the best i can for these kids, and I just have to hope that some of my attitudes toward education will rub off on them.

Classroom Management: That's Your Warning

2005-08-30T16:57:00.000-07:00

I spend too much time giving warnings and demerits. Discipline takes up a lot of my time. I did not anticipate having to give warnings to twelve kids in a single class period, but that's happened more than once. The only good news is that I have stuck to my guns, and I think that in time, all of these disciplinary measures are going to pay dividends.

My classroom management plan initially entailed the following ladder of consequences:
1. warning
2. stay after class and talk to Mr. Hebert
3. write an essay
4. demerit

When I started the school year, the kids did the inevitable testing of the water. I gave out lots of warnings that first week, and I had to ask many students to stay after class. Too many students in fact: this step soon became more trouble than it was worth. I eliminated it during the second week. I continued assigning essays, and students did them (though they insisted they would not). But these did not seem to curtail student misconduct. So the third week of school, I eliminated this consequence. Now, my consequence stool looks like this:
1. warning
2. demerits

Students know I will not hesitate to dispense consquences, and now that I've given out handfuls of demerits, they are hopefully beginning to get the picture. I have seen a reduction in the number of students receiving warnings, and plan to use my amended management plan for the weeks ahead.

August's Free-Style Blog Topic: Fighting

2005-08-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

There is a sign outside Simmons High School that reads, "This is a fight free school." I noticed this sign recently after breaking up a fist-fight taking place in the nearby walkway. Apparently, those students had not been made aware of the school's fight-free status.

A lot of schools in America have taken a zero-tolerance stance toward fighting. The school I work at is not among these. We have had five or six fights at school this year. I have had a hand in breaking up three of them. None of the students involved have been expelled, or had charges pressed against them. Instead, they've all returned to school, receiving only detentions and demerits as a result.

Our school is trying a new discipline strategy this year involving demerits. If a student receives more than fifty demerits during the year, they are sent to an alternative school. You can receive demerits for any offense: I've given out two demerits for talking, or three demerits for talking back, for instance. A student at our school who started a fist fight received only twelve demerits for his trangression. Later that week, I gave the same student two demerits for talking in class. Is punching someone in the face six times worse than talking in the middle of class? There's no way to know for sure...but yes, it is at least six times worse. Students need to feel safe at school, and if fights are allowed to happen on a routine basis, students will not feel safe.

I go to school to be a teacher, not a bouncer. Our school does a good job placing teachers in high-frequency fight areas after school, and so teachers such as Mr. Thompson and myself have effectively handled most fights. But we need to make examples of students who choose to fight. There's no place at school for fights: it's hard enough to get students to pay attention in class. When there is a fight before class, that's all my kids can talk about. They notice who is fighting, and they notice when they are not suspended. I believe in order to promote learning, we need to do more to discourage fighting.

Tee-Ball for Teachers

2005-07-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

The nine lessons delivered in front of the watchful eyes of veteran teachers are history, and now is the time to reflect on the usefulness of the experience. While the experiment was not completely devoid of merit, I believe that it falls hopelessly short of preparing teachers for the classrooms they will be leading in a manner of weeks.

I don't want to dwell on this point, but there were obviously fewer students in our section than there will be in a real classroom. This can't be helped. But here's a useful change that can be made- encourage "students" to act as though they were real adolescents. Real students will not sit quietly while bad lessons are being thrown in their direction. Real students will not stay awake if the lessons are not exciting, or if the teacher is not a master of the classroom. Real students are not so forgiving when you lose your train of thought during a lesson. If this experiment was aiming for realism, then it comes up miles short of the finish line.

To make an analogy: the "MTCers as students" teaching is to real classroom teaching as hitting from a softball tee is to stepping in against Roger Clemens. Not anyone can deliver a lesson to a panel of receptive peers, but then again, not everyone can hit a ball off a tee. Most people, though, can write a lesson plan and deliver it in front of a respectful audience. Far fewer people can step into a room of rowdy high schoolers and deliver the same lesson. If you can keep students awake, maintain discipline, and still get students to learn your lesson, it's the teaching equivalent of getting a base hit against the Rocket. I'm afraid that the nine lessons we delivered have not provided any real batting practice.

We have not spent the past two weeks getting ready to teach students. We have been practicing how to pass an evaluation. This is unfortunate. Instead of learning how to become effective math or English teachers, we instead are learning how to look good in front of the camera. We focus on the newest hip-teacher tool, the six-step lesson plan, though as one of my MTC colleagues put it, "they used something different ten years ago, and they'll be teaching another technique in five years." Getting through to students is timeless, and though we touch on it in our lesson plans, we do not focus on that OBJECTIVE nearly enough.

Student teaching, for me at least, was a lot more useful experience. We dealt with a class of real students, none of whom cared how many steps we had in our lesson plan. All they cared about was whether we were bringing it: and "it" includes much more than a lesson. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE GOOD CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT, THESE STUDENTS WILL EAT YOUR LUNCH. We've heard this rhetoric before, but I don't think all of us truly understand the harsh reality of the statement. You will not be delivering your lessons to your friendly MTC peers, but to people who largely don't care about what you have to say, and aren't going to fake it for you. What are you going to do when they start snoring? What will you do when they talk and ignore your pleas to stop? Are you ready to dish out consequences in the real-world? In a few short weeks, we will find out.

I do not want to criticize the lessons in front of the veteran teachers without proposing any solution. I believe, and I know some (not all) of my colleague agree, that MTC "students" should test the classroom management skills of the teacher. I don't believe it should only be about content delivery, that we should have to just jump through our twenty hoops and be praised by our handlers. Instead, let your peers test your ability to maintain law and order in the classroom. If Evan is talking, tell him in no uncertain terms to be quiet. If Lily's throwing erasers, tell her she's staying after to clean them up. Practice discipline and classroom management, because as a first year teacher, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO BE TESTED! There's no substitute for a real classroom of high schoolers, but that doesn't mean we should not try to replicate such an environment. When you are getting ready to face a 90 MPH fastball, you better practice against live pitching, not just hitting off a tee. In the future, I hope we can come up with a more realistic scenario to get first-years ready, one that involves more than just delivering lesson plans in front of a friendly audience.

To Tie or Not To Tie

2005-07-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

Some people out there think ties make you look sharp. Other people think ties are sexy. Still other people think ties resemble nooses and are uncomfortable to boot. There are a lot of different opinions out there about ties. But I feel there is one equation that no one can dispute:
Wearing a tie=Dressing up=Looking professional

In my book, dressing up should be a requirement for anyone who works in a service industry. If you work with people, you need to look presentable. The person selling you a used car more than likely will be wearing tie. Is his job more important than teaching? If you are a teacher who doesn't "believe in ties," your outfit indicates that it is.

Those in the anti-tie camp may say, "I'm not trying to sell anything. I'm trying to teach. How does a tie help me do that?" First of all, you are trying to sell something. You're selling an image of yourself as a competent professional. A Scooby Doo shirt does not sell this image. A tie, if paired with a collared shirt and ironed slacks, does.

A tie does not inherently make you a better teacher, just as a magic feather did not really make Dumbo fly. But a tie sends the message that you are successful and competent, which in turn makes you feel more successful and competent. If you wear a tie, you will stand out from your kids, many of whom may be your size or larger. And, perhaps the biggest benefit, your students will treat you with more professional courtesy if they believe you are a professional and not just a slob with a teaching degree.

Teachers have an extremely important job, but you would not know that looking at the way some male teachers dress. While many of their students invest heavily in their wardrobes, teachers often look frumpish by comparison. Do you want your students to respect you? Then take a page from the entertainers and athletes whom they revere: style commands respect. If your students do not respect your clothes, then it is unlikely they will respect you. Clothes may not make the man, but you are foolish if you do not see at least a grain of truth in that maxim.

Ties may be a mark of the wealthy class, but you do not need to be wealthy to wear a tie. Many thrift stores sell ties for under a dollar, and Walmart offers many ties for under $15. If you are too proud to shop at a thrift store or Walmart for your clothes, then you are getting into the wrong profession in the first place. The point is this: ties are available to you, ties show you care about yourself and your position, and ties make your job a little bit easier. If you are a teacher who just "isn't a tie guy," you can still dress professionally, and I sincerely hope you do. But if you want to go that extra mile to look successful in the eyes of your students and co-workers, you might start by making a trip to Tie-land. It is an easy way to show your professionalism without saying a word.

Portrait of an Awkward Instructor

2005-07-13T18:51:00.000-07:00

He's pacing around the room like a tiger in a bamboo cage, restless and confused. He awkwardly reassures himself that things are okay by constantly repeating the word as a mantra out loud and to himself. "This is the thesis, mmkay?" The man is devoid of enthusiasm or any sort of passion for the material he teaches. Is this some nightmarish instructor, or perhaps a video showing what not to do? Sadly, it is both of things and more. It is a video of myself, and a reminder of the things that I must improve on.

The good news is that the person on the video is not a finished product. I look nervous, and my constant use of the phrase "okay" is the manifestation of my nervousness. Saying okay constantly is not a habit for me: but this video showed me that I use this nervous device as a crutch. When I feel comfortable, I do not use it.

On the tape I look unenthusiastic. Perhaps this is because I have been sick recently, maybe it is related to my nerves. But the person I see on tape is much different than the one I watched last month during student teaching. With the kids I was confident and full of life: teaching my peers I seemed hesitant and afraid to make a mistake. I need to loosen up, or "thaw out" as one of my colleagues put it. When I stop putting pressure on myself to be perfect in front of my MTC peers, I will begin to actually creep closer toward perfection. For now, I want to focus on discarding the "okay" crutch, and work on bring more enthusiasm to our lessons. I am running a tight ship, but that doesn't mean I can't be happy while I do it.

Summer School: Not Just a Great Mark Harmon Movie

2005-06-27T11:07:00.000-07:00

Entering the last week of summer school (though many of my MTC colleagues are already finished), I am surprised by how much I care about the students I am working with. I'm not surprised that I care about my students, but I did not realize I would become this invested in summer school students who I only worked with for a month.

We had our big project due today, and of the six students in my small group, four handed them in on time. I felt like the shepherd in the Bible parable who had lost his sheep. Rather than rejoicing that four students had turned in great projects, I worried about my two stragglers who will lose ten points each day the project is late. I question my teaching, and wonder if I should have been harder on them during this process to ensure they finished on time. The other part of me understands these students must learn responsibility, and that is a skill that largely must be learned from personal experience. In the fall, I will not take for granted that my students will get work done on their own schedule. Instead, I will make many due dates for a large project, to ensure no student falls behind. This was the single most important lesson I learned in summer school.

Another important lesson I learned was the need for consistency in a classroom. I am looking forward to having my own classroom, with my own procedures, rules, and routines set up. I enjoyed working with my MTC colleagues, but their presence was distracting at times to the students. During one lesson, I was interupted several times by one of my colleagues who wanted to make a correction on what I felt was a minor point. Also, planning for a class is complicated when you must worry about what your fellow teachers will be teaching. Consistency is lost in this process, and consistency is necessary to a successful classroom.

I learned by watching the strengths and weaknesses of my fellow MTC teachers. Mr. Molina's humor, Ms. Savage's no-nonsense approach, and Mr. Heston's caring attitude are all characteristics I would do well to copy. I hope I was helpful to them by modelling confidence and control, and I do believe we all learned together and worked to hone our craft.

The upcoming fall is going to be a million times more challenging than summer school. Delta schools have much greater problems than Lafayette High, and I understand that this year will be a trying time. I am confident, however, that I will be able to make a huge difference in the lives of my students. I care very much about my summer school students, and I believe my investment in my students at Simmons High will be even greater. I have high expectations of my students, but I am able to do this only because I place such high expectations on my self. Summer school gave me some experience working with high schoolers, and I experienced both successes and failures. I know that I will learn a lot from both, and will be a stronger teacher because of my time at Lafayette this summer.

Self-voyeurism in the classroom

2005-06-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

The other day I had the opportunity to watch myself on videotape as I taught. This was a novel experience for me, and one that I looked forward to with some trepidation. I do not feel as though I am a novice teacher, since I have spent countless hours teaching as a summer program leader, substitute teacher, and outdoor educator. But how can you really know if you are good at something until you watch yourself perform? So after my formal observation, I grabbed the videocassette and watched myself teach.

The tale of the tape revealed no major surprises, fortunately. The person I saw was obviously confident and in control of himself and the classroom. I am standing straight and tall with my chest out, and give the impression that I know what I am doing. This is reinforced by the fact that I do know what I am doing. Even when relying on students to be the centers of attention, as I did in this lesson when I told students to dramatize vocabulary words, I keep control by urging effort and reigning in potential disruptions.

There were of course areas I can improve upon. At times my voice would trail off as I completed a sentence, making it difficult to hear and leaving onlookers wondering if what I said was important. I also frequently put my hands in my pockets, making me look less assertive and more non-chalant. Perhaps I could have something in my hand at all times to make myself look more confident, ala Bob Dole's pen during the 1996 presidential campaign. I will try to refrain from referring to myself in the third person, as Dole often did.

Overall, watching myself teach was a positive experience. I saw myself as a confident professional, which is exactly the image I want to project in my classroom. I also saw some areas I could tweak to improve my craft. By making some adjustments, I can make myself a better teacher, which is my goal every year I spend in the profession.

Cold Calling is Hot Stuff

2005-06-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

Pick a card, any card. On Monday of this week, I employed a teaching strategy known as Cold Calling. Essentially, you write the name of each of your students on an index card, and when you have a question that needs answering, or are in need of a volunteer for an assignment, you simply turn to your deck of cards. The fate of this unborn answer depends on how you cut the deck.

The twenty students in our classroom are typically very passive learners. I typically will call them by name and ask them to answer a question I have. I do not let students slide by like zombies in my classroom. Considering this, I was not sure how Cold Calling would benefit me. But within five minutes of using this technique, I realized that it leant a very real method to Mr. Hebert’s madness.

After announcing that I would be using card to determine who would answer questions today, I asked my students to volunteer to come to the front of the classroom and dramatize one of five vocabulary words on the board. Predictably, no one volunteered. Dramatically shuffling the cards, I selected one at random. The young man whose name was called reluctantly came to the front of the room.

I could tell Leo needed some assistance in his assignment, so I pulled another card that brought Jamie to the front of the room. Asking them which of the five words they would be acting out, they said, “I don’t know.” So again, I turned to the cards, and Miguel selected a word that they should act out. Eventually, they came up with a humorous way to illustrate the word mutilate, and took their seats.

I repeated this practice for the rest of the words, and used it later on in class to ask reading comprehension questions. Simply put, the cards worked. The students did not grumble or shoot me dirty looks when their name was called. It wasn’t even as though I were the one selecting them. The hand of fate had chosen them to answer this question about Malcolm X; the teacher just read the name out loud. Students remained on their toes and on task. The cards gathered attention but they were not a distraction. It made my normally passive crew a little more active, and was a complete success that day.

I will definitely use this method again in my regular classroom. I would not use it everyday, because that would lessen the effect of surprise cold callings. But with passive groups or on days when students are particularly lethargic, the cards will magically appear.

A Reluctant Disciplinarian in the Trenches

2005-06-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

Last week I read Gary Rubinstein’s book, The Reluctant Disciplinarian, and was pleased by his self-effacing look at his first year of teaching. He seemed a perfect example of a teacher whose students, “Ate his lunch.” When he recounts his laxity about classroom procedure, rules, and even personal dress, I cringed. He was certainly ready to teach mathematics, but in no way was he ready to teach students.

In the book, Rubinstein described his carefree student teaching days, where his students were careful not to mess with the new guy lest they incur the wrath of their “real teacher.” This calls to mind the idyllic teaching situation we MTC first-years are presently enjoying at Lafayette High and Oxford Middle. The building is immaculate, students are respectful, and we have plenty of support from our fellow teachers and administrators. Everything is run like a military war game, meant to prepare us for the harsh realities of conflict: specifically, teaching at a poor school in Mississippi. Sadly, just as a military simulation cannot tell a soldier how they will react in combat, the student teaching experience in Oxford does not represent the real challenges of being a teacher in a critical needs area.

If MTC teachers do not learn from the mistakes and advice of people such as Rubinstein, we will be as miserable and frustrated in our attempts to teach as he was. He advocates consistency, discipline, and preparedness, and I believe these are three traits that must be modeled by teachers. The students waiting for us in August when the school year starts are every bit as capable of making our lives challenging as though who tormented Rubinstein his first year. Perhaps even more so. But hopefully, if we prepare ourselves for battle with an intelligent plan, we will be able to avoid the terrors that Rubinstein experienced. As for myself, I do not plan to be a reluctant disciplinarian: I plan to be a resourceful classroom manager. Now I just need to decide on an appropriate exit strategy.

Differences between Oxford and the Delta

2005-06-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

After a couple of weeks, I have come to possess a warm affection for Ole Miss. I was not sure what was waiting for me here, having spent five months in the Delta earlier in the year, but only one previous afternoon in Oxford. Now, though, I feel qualified to make some comparisons between life in Oxford and life in the Delta.

In Oxford, you have Square Books.
In the Delta, you have no books.

In Oxford, you can go to the gym and lift weights.
In the Delta, you can lift cotton bails.

In Oxford, you can chase after squirrels, rabbits, and attractive coeds.
In the Delta, you can run away from cockroaches and giant mosquitoes.

In Oxford, men wear polo shirts and women wear make-up.
In the Delta, men wear overalls and women....well, I guess they wear overalls too.

In Oxford, there are bars in the downtown area.
In the Delta, there are bars everywhere; except in the Delta, the bars are in windows and doorways.

In Oxford, the University is a center for the exchange of ideas.
In the Delta, juke joints are centers for the exchange of ideas.

In Oxford, it is hotter than hell.
In the Delta, it is really hotter than hell.

In Oxford, the local high school students are well-behaved and you can understand what they are saying.

In the Delta, you will need a translator to understand what your kids are saying. Here's a hint: if everyone in the class is laughing except you, they are laughing at you, not with you.

Hope you enjoyed these comparisons. Feel free to add your own.

-Joel

A long journey to the Delta

2005-06-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

It was busy, it was exciting, it was exhausting. The first week of MTC was everything I was expecting, and more.

I am returning to Mississippi, where I lived and substitute taught for the second half of 2004, to begin a new chapter in my life as a full-time classroom teacher. It was a long journey from college graduation in June of 2004 to finally joining the Teacher Corps this week. Originally, I had planned to be a member of 2004 Corps, but a cut in the budget courtesy of newly-elected Governor Hayley Barbour resulted in the elimination of my spot in the program. This was incredibly disappointing, and left me grasping at straws as to what I would do in the coming year.

I knew that I wanted to join MTC, and so I was willing to wait a year to be a part of the Corps. Back when I was planning to join the '04 Corps, my girlfriend Jamie accepted a position with Teach For America to teach in the Mississippi Delta. The revelation that I would not be able to join her in the Delta was obviously very stressful to our relationship. We resigned ourselves to spending the ensuing year apart, as I thought it would be impossible to find a job in such a depressed economic place as the Delta. With that in mind, I accepted a job to become a second grade teacher's assistant at Shore Country Day School, an affluent private school on the coast of Massachusetts.

That summer, I worked at Exploration Junior Program, a wonderful educational camp for students entering grades four through seven. Midway through the summer, as the realities of long-term separation from my girlfriend set in, I began to consider the possibility of joining her in the Delta. In the end, my heart made the decision for me. I called up the prinicipal of Shore and resigned my post, a month and a half before I was scheduled to begin work there. I packed up my car and drove down to Mississippi. In my mind I hoped that I was making the right choice.

My first month in the Delta was notable for the frustrations I experienced in looking for a job. No one needed a teacher two weeks into the new school year, and the only jobs available were posted by trucking companies. I considered the possiblity of obtaining a trucker's license, but I finally decided that to be a little too impractical. The only positive of the situation was that I was able to support my girlfriend during her first month of teaching fourth grade. We made many late night trips to the photocopy center, and I graded so many of her students' papers that I soon knew all of the students by name and writing style.

I stayed in Mississippi through the middle of December. Eventually, I became eligible to substitute teach, and I always enjoyed receiving the call to come in and sub. I taught a little bit of everything: I was an elementary gym teacher, high school art teacher, special educator. I got the opportunity to try a lot of different things. One day, I even threw on a hair net and apron and worked with the lunch ladies at Carver Elementary School in Indianola. I enjoyed these ephemeral experiences, but inside I longed to be a full-time teacher with my own classroom. I knew that I could do a good job, and I wished that I was called to teach more often than the two days a week I usually spent working.

While I was in Indianola I noticed many of the terrible problems that worked to slow down student achievement. Students are unmotivated, and too many of them have no fathers to encourage them. Their mothers and grandmothers often work two or three jobs, and rarely have the opportunity to spend time with their children. This contributes to a cycle where students in junior and senior high school have children of their own, starting families before they have had the opportunity to receive the education necessary to improve their own station in life. The list of problems is lengthy and convoluted, and presents a daunting challenge for communities in the Delta and programs such as MTC.

Eventually, lack of work caused me to make the decision to leave the Delta in January of 2005. I took a job teaching sixth-grade science in a camp setting in Julian, California. I worked with a YMCA program there, and spent upwards of 23 hours a day teaching and mentoring students. It was a difficult job, but rewarding and exciting at the same time. I picked up some Spanish from the many Mexican students I worked with, and was revitalized by the chance to work with young people on a daily basis. I missed my girlfriend while I was away, but I enjoyed my time in California, and I looked forward to the prospect of joining her as a fellow teacher in the Delta.

Now, I am back in Mississippi. The challenges I left behind are still here, but I feel that having my own classroom this year will provide me with a greater opportunity to affect positive change in my students. I believe that education is the greatest weapon we have for fighting poverty in this country, and I strongly believe in the goal of the Mississippi Teacher Corps. We have a great group of people here this summer, and we will have to support each other tremendously if we want to be as successful as possible. I fully anticipate this to be the most exhausting, heart-breaking, and challenging two years of my life. But if I did not think that I could make a difference down here, I never would have shown up to orientation. It is my belief that everyone in our program feels the same way.