Sunday, March 29, 2020 a day of recognition for the Vietnam Veterans. Welcome home to all who served.
I wrote about this scholar in my last blog post. In fact, the entire post was about this scholar and all of the obstacles and drama that has gone on in his life between the first and sixth grade. At the end of the last blog post, I told you the scholar had returned to school after being going for a lengthy time due to a marijuana incident. Here is the rest of the story.
I was walking down the second floor hallway when I passed this scholar's teacher of record. "I haven't seen Tourette for a couple days," I said to the teacher. "He's gone, this time permanently," was the reply I received. "Are you serious, he's only been back a week or so." "He stole another scholars watch, he's gone." "Are you serious?" "Yes."
A scholar that Tourette knew has a close family member that likes to collect watches. This family member decided to give this scholar, a relative, a watch, one that was supposed to have the value of $800.00. The scholar, with the watch in his possession decided to show it to other students while at school. One of these students was Tourette. Please note, at this point, I ain't buying the $800.00 amount but that is what the scholar stated.
During a restroom break this scholar took off the watch and put it down on a counter. While sidetracked the watch came up missing. A teacher was informed and addressed the issue. One by one the students in the area were questioned about the watch and then asked to turn out their pockets. One by one each student was found to not have the watch. The final student, Tourette, was asked about the watch. He denied having it. The teacher then told him to turn out his pockets. He complied turning one pocket completely inside out but the other pocket only partially inside out. The teacher asked Tourette what was in his pocket. There was no response. The teacher took the watch out of his pocket. Given the multiple number of serious issues with Tourette, he was expelled.
Borrowing the title from a series of books written by Lemony Snicket's, I'm continuing with a Series of Unfortunate Events. As a reminder, I don't make this stuff up.
I believe this one took place during a morning community circle meeting where the scholars shared with their classmates what they did over the weekend. This is from a T4-F. "My uncle was drunk and he kept breaking things."
This one falls under the category of No Boundaries, No Consequences. A T4-M scholar insists that school rules don't apply to him as this incident has occurred a number of time. "You need to take that hoodie off and put it in your cubby (locker)." The request was repeated three times before the scholar moved. A short while later this scholar, one the half dozen that are constant disruptions, is told to be quiet. Upset with his teacher he stood up, went to his cubby, gets his hoodie out and put it back on. "Why did you do that?" he was asked. "Because I can." "Put it back in your cubby." "NO!"
You are officially forewarned. I've seen a lot of crazy things in my eight years at this school and for the most part, nothing bothered me, until this one. A conversation between three or four F's took place. This conversation was overhead by another scholar and reported to an adult. The gist of the conversation centered on bi-sexual activity and physically harming one's self. Because a scholar did the right thing and reported this incident to an adult all of the parties involved spent some time with our school social worker.
The events you are about to read took place in a matter of fifteen minutes, maybe less. One of the events is a continuation of what I just mentioned above. I'll start with this one. A fight erupted between students. The adult in the immediate vicinity was female, in the same age group that I'm in, and falls in the petite category. Then there is this one. This incident involved a scholar that had an arm injury that may have reached the level of broken. Last one. One of the scholars I just mentioned above was writing in a spiral notebook. When someone approached this scholar the notebook was immediately hidden. The notebook was taken from the scholar. The notes that were being written were on how to physically harm yourself, to do it fast, and pain free. This is one of those immediately, have a school social worker get involved, and do a risk assessment event. Our school social worker was not in the school. Because of the seriousness of this incident a nearby school was called for social worker assistance. This school sent the help that was needed. With the risk assessment completed this scholar was sent to a facility to get the help that was needed to address this serious behavior issues.
Three incidents in fifteen minutes or maybe less. During this time calls were made to school leadership for assistance with the incidents and then guidance on how to move forward. Leadership did not get involved. They were busy. They were in a meeting. They didn't want to be disturbed.
A text message poured in on Saturday March 28, 2020 at 3:08pm. I wanted to check on the health of my colleague who occupies the front of the classroom so I sent her a text message, "Please tell me you are healthy." She responded, "Yes....some sad news last night. M's parental unit passed away last night. M wasn't with there at the time but the parental unit fell victim to substance abuse." I responded back, "I'm at a loss for words. Once again, a kid, fourth grade, is having to face these nightmare situations. This is not the first of its kind at our school. I'm fearful that it is not the last."
On Thursday, March 22, 2020, the Governor of Indiana came on the air and announced that all schools in the state of Indiana are to close effective Friday, March 23, 2020. So, here I sit knowing that the earliest I will see T4 and our scholars is in the first week of May, 2020. Our spring break fell in this time frame, but still, that is twenty-four days of lost academics. There is no way that much lost academic time can be made up.
During all of these years at my school I viewed myself as an obstacle remover. If a teacher; BaseG, Gnu, Knewer, and now T4 ran into a bump in the road, I took it upon myself to remove that obstacle. About three weeks ago, a big obstacle jumped up in front of T4. Right now I can't figure out how to remove that obstacle and it troubles me deeply.
The social distancing guideline that we are to follow right now is pretty simple. Stay six feet apart or stay six feet under. It's your choice. Choose safety my friends.
Monday, March 30, 2020
Thursday, February 27, 2020
One Scholar's Story
Sunday March 1, 2020
My first encounter with this scholar was in the school's main office and he was sitting outside TheBigB#1's office. That's not a good place for him to be so when I spoke to him I said, "Having a tough day?" As I walked on past him he started so I turned around to look at him. When he stopped he had put together one of the longest string of obscenities that I've ever heard and then finished it with a double flip off directed at me. The next time I crossed paths with him he was outside a classroom on the first floor. He was trying to hide behind his classroom door. When I approached him he said something to me that I didn't understand so I asked him what he said. His response to me was another string of obscenities with the F-Word being the most prevalent descriptive term.
Moving forward, this scholar was taken out of a General Education classroom is now in a Special Education classroom for scholars with an emotional handicap. Typical of a scholar in this type of classroom there were some really bad days but progress, with the help of Behavior Specialists and Behavior Therapists, was being made. As this scholar's grade level increased he moved to his second Special Education classroom for students with an emotional handicap. Again, there were some rough days but he continued progressing forward especially in controlling his anger.
Before I go any further here is a little background information on this scholar. He comes from a broken family where the male parental unit was rarely around. Issues that I'm not aware of had this scholar living with a relative that was not his original female parental unit. The relative he was living with was elderly, currently needs a walker to move around, often struggled keeping a scholar with serious anger issues under control and I've seen her in sitting in our main office crying on the days when she was called to school to take her scholar home after serious anger outbursts. Further complicating this scholar's life, his original female parental unit went into the hospital for surgery one day. She did not make it.
Because of my familiarity with this scholar I knew about the following events that took place in his life. Getting into fights on the playground during recess were frequent and often he lost his recess privileges and had to sit in the main office. At one point this scholar disappeared for a weekend. No one in his family knew his location. There were discussions about putting out an Amber Alert when the scholar finally returned home on a Sunday late afternoon. To this day no one knows for certain his location while missing. All that is known is that two men in a car dropped him off at his home and drove away. I was told by FBG, a Behavior Specialist, that this scholar had learned how to play chess. While passing this scholars classroom one day I saw him playing chess with another scholar so I walked into the classroom to observe. It didn't take me long to realize that he wasn't just moving pieces, he was moving them with a purpose. Watching him playing chess had me thinking about how far this scholar had progressed and then the eruption came a few days later. Paraphrasing, "I'm going to get my AK 47 and shoot this school up." That cost him a couple of days and when he returned to school he continued on a positive track forward for quite some time.
It's now just a few days short of our winter break and an after school event was taking place that the scholar was attending. In the midst of doing his best show and tell with some of the scholars attending the event he was found with enough marijuana in his possession to be considered a dealer. He is now gone but where he went I wasn't sure. I talked to this scholar's teacher of record trying to find out where he ended up. "Home schooled," is the response I received. "For how long," I asked. "I'm not really sure." Then the teacher of record told me this. "He was doing so well in my classroom. After our winter break he was going to transition into a General Education classroom full-time." Moving from Special Education to General Education, especially on a full-time basis, is not the norm for Special Education scholars. So, years ears of work put in by multiple teachers, instructional assistants, Behavior Specialist, and Behavior Therapists were all blown up after another poor decision while attending an after school event.
Every now and then I'd pass the scholar's teacher of record in the hallway just to get an update on this scholar. The last time I did so I was told that a manifest (case conference) would take place to determine this scholar's future. Knowing personally all of the adults in my school that are in the Special Education field, we would talk about this scholar's future. We were in consensus. This scholar needed to return to our school and not some alternative type of school. The reason, because this scholar's entire support network is in this school and if he went elsewhere, in all likelihood, this scholar would regress into his former self. None of us wanted that to happen as he had progressed so far since the first time I met him.
It's Ash Wednesday. I'm sitting at my half round table in the hallway completing a math worksheet that our scholars will be working on in a few minutes. As I'm was sitting there I saw the teacher of record walking toward me. Immediately behind the teacher of record is the young scholar that I have been telling you about. I called his name as he was approaching. He walked over to me, we did a fist bump, I said, "Welcome back," he smiled at me and continued down the hallway to his General Education classroom.
You just read the story of one scholar. A scholar that I met when he was in the first grade, probably seven years old. He is now in the sixth grade and probably eleven years old. What you just read took place over a five year period and I'm certain, like I am doing right now, you are just shaking your head.
A lot of negativity about one young scholar ending with a huge positive about this scholar is why I'm sitting here at this keyboard. These are the stories I like to tell. Hopefully, there will be a lot more of them.
Before I wrap this up I need to tell you about some upcoming role changes that will take place in what has been the most challenging classroom that I've been in over the past eight years. T4 is stepping away from the front of the classroom. I'll pause for a minute and let you think about that. She will be moving to the back of the room where she will have a similar view of the classroom that I enjoy. Why? For the next several weeks a student teacher will occupy the front of the classroom. T4, speaking to me about the student teacher, "I feel like I'll be feeding her to the wolves."
My first encounter with this scholar was in the school's main office and he was sitting outside TheBigB#1's office. That's not a good place for him to be so when I spoke to him I said, "Having a tough day?" As I walked on past him he started so I turned around to look at him. When he stopped he had put together one of the longest string of obscenities that I've ever heard and then finished it with a double flip off directed at me. The next time I crossed paths with him he was outside a classroom on the first floor. He was trying to hide behind his classroom door. When I approached him he said something to me that I didn't understand so I asked him what he said. His response to me was another string of obscenities with the F-Word being the most prevalent descriptive term.
Moving forward, this scholar was taken out of a General Education classroom is now in a Special Education classroom for scholars with an emotional handicap. Typical of a scholar in this type of classroom there were some really bad days but progress, with the help of Behavior Specialists and Behavior Therapists, was being made. As this scholar's grade level increased he moved to his second Special Education classroom for students with an emotional handicap. Again, there were some rough days but he continued progressing forward especially in controlling his anger.
Before I go any further here is a little background information on this scholar. He comes from a broken family where the male parental unit was rarely around. Issues that I'm not aware of had this scholar living with a relative that was not his original female parental unit. The relative he was living with was elderly, currently needs a walker to move around, often struggled keeping a scholar with serious anger issues under control and I've seen her in sitting in our main office crying on the days when she was called to school to take her scholar home after serious anger outbursts. Further complicating this scholar's life, his original female parental unit went into the hospital for surgery one day. She did not make it.
Because of my familiarity with this scholar I knew about the following events that took place in his life. Getting into fights on the playground during recess were frequent and often he lost his recess privileges and had to sit in the main office. At one point this scholar disappeared for a weekend. No one in his family knew his location. There were discussions about putting out an Amber Alert when the scholar finally returned home on a Sunday late afternoon. To this day no one knows for certain his location while missing. All that is known is that two men in a car dropped him off at his home and drove away. I was told by FBG, a Behavior Specialist, that this scholar had learned how to play chess. While passing this scholars classroom one day I saw him playing chess with another scholar so I walked into the classroom to observe. It didn't take me long to realize that he wasn't just moving pieces, he was moving them with a purpose. Watching him playing chess had me thinking about how far this scholar had progressed and then the eruption came a few days later. Paraphrasing, "I'm going to get my AK 47 and shoot this school up." That cost him a couple of days and when he returned to school he continued on a positive track forward for quite some time.
It's now just a few days short of our winter break and an after school event was taking place that the scholar was attending. In the midst of doing his best show and tell with some of the scholars attending the event he was found with enough marijuana in his possession to be considered a dealer. He is now gone but where he went I wasn't sure. I talked to this scholar's teacher of record trying to find out where he ended up. "Home schooled," is the response I received. "For how long," I asked. "I'm not really sure." Then the teacher of record told me this. "He was doing so well in my classroom. After our winter break he was going to transition into a General Education classroom full-time." Moving from Special Education to General Education, especially on a full-time basis, is not the norm for Special Education scholars. So, years ears of work put in by multiple teachers, instructional assistants, Behavior Specialist, and Behavior Therapists were all blown up after another poor decision while attending an after school event.
Every now and then I'd pass the scholar's teacher of record in the hallway just to get an update on this scholar. The last time I did so I was told that a manifest (case conference) would take place to determine this scholar's future. Knowing personally all of the adults in my school that are in the Special Education field, we would talk about this scholar's future. We were in consensus. This scholar needed to return to our school and not some alternative type of school. The reason, because this scholar's entire support network is in this school and if he went elsewhere, in all likelihood, this scholar would regress into his former self. None of us wanted that to happen as he had progressed so far since the first time I met him.
It's Ash Wednesday. I'm sitting at my half round table in the hallway completing a math worksheet that our scholars will be working on in a few minutes. As I'm was sitting there I saw the teacher of record walking toward me. Immediately behind the teacher of record is the young scholar that I have been telling you about. I called his name as he was approaching. He walked over to me, we did a fist bump, I said, "Welcome back," he smiled at me and continued down the hallway to his General Education classroom.
You just read the story of one scholar. A scholar that I met when he was in the first grade, probably seven years old. He is now in the sixth grade and probably eleven years old. What you just read took place over a five year period and I'm certain, like I am doing right now, you are just shaking your head.
A lot of negativity about one young scholar ending with a huge positive about this scholar is why I'm sitting here at this keyboard. These are the stories I like to tell. Hopefully, there will be a lot more of them.
Before I wrap this up I need to tell you about some upcoming role changes that will take place in what has been the most challenging classroom that I've been in over the past eight years. T4 is stepping away from the front of the classroom. I'll pause for a minute and let you think about that. She will be moving to the back of the room where she will have a similar view of the classroom that I enjoy. Why? For the next several weeks a student teacher will occupy the front of the classroom. T4, speaking to me about the student teacher, "I feel like I'll be feeding her to the wolves."
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
"Unexceptable"
Tuesday February 24, 2020
In cooperation with the Ruth Lily Foundation and Marian University, both located here in Indianapolis, several of the scholars in are school will be attending a presentation on healthy food choices. Rounding to the tens place value position, forty of our scholars were handed a flier on the event to take home to their parental unit. From what I can tell, thirty-nine scholars successfully accomplished this task putting T4's class at a ninety-seven percent success rate. One scholar failed to accomplish the assignment in a timely fashion. Below is correspondence from the parental unit of this one scholar. Again, I remind you, I don't make this stuff up.
Dear Teacher,
Why am I just now seeing this! I wasn't aware of this at ALL!! Then to get it the day of. Well actually after school on same day! Unexceptable !! I need a phone call ASAP!!.
Signed, Parental Unit
Dear Parental Unit,
I am not your scholar's teacher. I am the gray haired, wrinkly faced, sometimes grumpy, but right now thoroughly pissed off, old guy that sits in your scholar's classroom and helps him with his math and occasionally with his writing assignments. I had the opportunity to read the hand written note that you sent to your scholar's teacher and let me tell you this. Your hand written note is unacceptable for the following reasons.
In cooperation with the Ruth Lily Foundation and Marian University, both located here in Indianapolis, several of the scholars in are school will be attending a presentation on healthy food choices. Rounding to the tens place value position, forty of our scholars were handed a flier on the event to take home to their parental unit. From what I can tell, thirty-nine scholars successfully accomplished this task putting T4's class at a ninety-seven percent success rate. One scholar failed to accomplish the assignment in a timely fashion. Below is correspondence from the parental unit of this one scholar. Again, I remind you, I don't make this stuff up.
Dear Teacher,
Why am I just now seeing this! I wasn't aware of this at ALL!! Then to get it the day of. Well actually after school on same day! Unexceptable !! I need a phone call ASAP!!.
Signed, Parental Unit
Dear Parental Unit,
I am not your scholar's teacher. I am the gray haired, wrinkly faced, sometimes grumpy, but right now thoroughly pissed off, old guy that sits in your scholar's classroom and helps him with his math and occasionally with his writing assignments. I had the opportunity to read the hand written note that you sent to your scholar's teacher and let me tell you this. Your hand written note is unacceptable for the following reasons.
- The word is unacceptable not "unexceptable." That is unacceptable.
- In your first sentence you asked a question. That requires a question mark and not an exclamation point at the end of the sentence. That is unacceptable.
- In you third sentence you left off a prepositional phrase that was needed to have a complete sentence. That is unacceptable.
- Your fourth sentence is not even a sentence. That is unacceptable.
- ASAP is an acronym. Acronyms are not allowed when writing in the fourth grade. As soon as possible is allowed. The use of an acronym is unacceptable.
Let me tell you this before I continue. Your little diatribe, directed at your scholar's teacher, caused me to get so upset that I had to walk out of the classroom to de-escalate. With that being said, let me tell you a little about your scholar.
Are you aware that your scholar has been absent from school eleven times and tardy fourteen times? That is unacceptable. Are you aware that every school day your scholar arrives with absolutely nothing in his hands? No books, no papers, no pens or pencils, not even a backpack. That is unacceptable. Are you aware that your scholar is one of the biggest disruptive forces in the classroom and instruction has to stop multiple times a day to correct your scholar's misbehavior? That is unacceptable. Are you aware that when the teacher addresses your scholar's disruptive behavior your scholar thinks is appropriate to snap in half pencils that were paid for by either the school or his teacher? That is unacceptable. Are you aware that at the end of every school day your scholar walks within three feet of his mailbox that contains his completed school work and any notifications about school events that you need to see? Are you aware that every day your scholar walks out of the classroom without a book, paper, pen or pencil, or a backpack and without the papers you need to see about upcoming school events? That is unacceptable and is the reason you were not notified about the school event you mentioned in you diatribe.
So, before you go off the next time, let me offer you a bit of advise. You can call the teacher and get the truth or you can call me at BR549 and I'll tell you exactly what I see from my view at the back of the classroom.
Signed,
Gray hair, wrinkly faced, occasionally grumpy, old guy who spends a great deal of time every week helping your scholar with his math and writing because he is so far behind academically.
No Boarders and No Consequences
I'm on the second floor in a staff lounge that doubles as our copy center room. In the hallway, outside the art classroom, either the second or third grade scholars are arriving for their art class. The teacher is in the hallway as the scholars are arriving. Paraphrasing. "Please line up, girls in one line and boys in the other line and you all need to be quiet before you can enter my classroom." The scholars ignore the request. Twice more the instructions are repeated and still the scholars ignore the instruction. Finally, the girls are settled down and can enter the classroom and take their assigned seat. As the girls are entering the classroom one of them decides to sit at the teachers desk and not in her assigned seat. "Please get out of my chair and sit in your assigned seat," the teacher said to the scholars.
The teacher now turns her attention to the boys. The majority are now in line an silent so they can enter the classroom. The remaining handful are either sitting on the floor talking or rolling around on the floor with their jackets pulled up over their heads and totaling ignoring the teacher's request to get in line and stop talking. The consequences for this defiant behavior. None!
No Boarders and No Consequences
I'm now in the classroom. T4 is walking around the classroom handing out the morning work to the scholars so the day can get started. While at the desk of T4-F, T4 states to the scholar, "Take the hoodie off you head and hang it up in your cubby." The request is ignored. The request to remove the hoodie is made two more times and is totally ignored. In the past this type of behavior was referred to the school leadership so it could be addressed. That didn't happen on this day as referring a behavior issue to the school leadership results in the scholar being sent back to the classroom with a note in hand, paraphrasing, "Behavior is not an issue to be addressed by school leadership. You need to handle it yourself." There are, again rounding to the tens position, twenty scholars in the classroom. How much academic time should be lost dealing with one defiant scholar? In this case none as nineteen scholars are no going to miss a part of their academic time because behavior issue will not be dealt with appropriately by the school.
It's Friday morning and there are visitors in the school. Both of them are coaches from the school corporation and they are visiting classrooms to observe instruction. When I walked into the classroom the math coach from the school corporation was already there. T4 took a minute to introduce me and then the daily lesson, on decimals, began. As T4 progressed through the decimal lesson, with occasional comments made by the math coach, T4 passed near me and said that when the lesson was over I needed to step out of the classroom so she could talk privately with the math coached. I told her I would and when the time came I stepped out into the hallway, sat down at my half round table and with nothing to do I pulled out my cellphone and was going to read an on-line newspaper.
After a couple of minutes reading the newspaper the school corporation coach that was in OtherT4's classroom exited the classroom so I stood up and walked into OtherT4's classroom. "How did your observation go?" I asked. "I've about had it with this school so I told the coach was I thought." That didn't sound good so I said nothing. OtherT4 continues. "I told the school corporation coach this. I received input from our school based coach and followed those instructions. Then school leadership saw what I was doing and told me to stop doing that and do this. Then you arrived at the school, observe what I am doing, and then send me off in a third direction."
Right now I don't know how the school corporation coach reacted to what OtherT4 said to her. OtherT4 made a bold statement and I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. There is one thing I know for certain and it is this. Three people don't walk into the classroom and give the teacher contradicting directions. That is my opinion is unacceptable.
Wrapping it up for another day. One diatribe, two No Boarders and No Consequences, and one trilogy of contradictory directions on how to teach. No positivity, all negativity. As I you know, I don't like that.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
God Winked
Sunday February 16, 2020
I was sitting at the kitchen table staring at the screen on my laptop and drawing a blank as to how to get started. My part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse was sitting directly across from me so I said to her, "For someone who can run his mouth with the best of them I can't get started." "Why don't you remind your readers why you stopped writing a few months ago and then go from there," she said to me. Sound advice from my part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse so here we go.
I stopped for one reason. After seven and a half years at my school and after five years writing this blog, I got frustrated with what was going on around me. The negatives far outweighed the positives and I just couldn't get myself to write about all of those negatives so I stopped writing. So what made me change my mind?
It started on Wednesday of last week if my mind serves me correctly. T4 and I were sitting in our empty classroom talking as the scholars were at a specials class (PE or Art). I mentioned to T4 that I was thinking about starting the blog again when OtherT4 walked into the classroom and it was obvious that she was agitated. "You don't need to write a blog, you need to write and entire (expletive deleted) book," she said to me. I looked at her as she walked across the classroom and I thought to myself, "What set you off today?" I'll be paraphrasing because I need to make adjustments to some of the descriptive terms OtherT4 used.
"I'm was giving my scholars a test when a parental unit, with a sibling that appeared to be around three years old, just walked into my classroom. No one called me to tell me that this parental unit was coming to my room. How and the heck can that happen. A parental unit walked into the school, goes through the main office, asks how to get to my classroom, gets the directions to my classroom and nobody takes the time to call me. That is ridiculous. My scholars are taking a test and this parental unit sits down in the back of my classroom, opens up a bag of toys for her sibling to play with while this test is in progress. Then my scholar sees her parental unit in the classroom and begins a conversation with her. During the conversation, the parental unit pulls a cellphone out of her bag and hands it to the scholar. All of this is going on with a test in progress."
One negative down. Here is the next one. This one happened in a meeting. Sitting in the room was the BigB#4, LittleBigB#2, teachers and members of the school support staff. One of the topics being discussed was school discipline. Paraphrasing, "We need to start addressing the behavior issues that we are facing. We can't continue to allow our scholars to behave in the way that they do. Borders need to be established with consequences being consistently handed out when scholars are misbehaving." There was no reaction from the BigB#4 and the LittleBigB#2. NONE! So being disrespectful, defiant, storming out of the classroom, and refusing to do any work will continue to be the norm.
Last one and given and what I just said above this one leaves me shaking my head. I'm sitting at the half round table that is in the hallway outside T4's classroom grading papers. The LittleBigB#2 was heading to the classroom that is right next to me as there was a behavior issue going on and the teacher called for help. The LittleBigB#2 retrieved the misbehaving scholar from the classroom and was lecturing him about behavior in the hallway near me. As I'm eavesdropping on the conversation I realize that the LittleBigB#2 was talking very rapidly to this scholar. The look on the scholars face indicated that he had no idea what was being said. Then a voice communication comes across to the LittleBigB#2 on the walkie talkie that he was holding in his hand. The voice on the other end stated, "There is a behavior issue going on in another classroom and the teacher needs your help."
T4 happened to be in the hallway and the LittleBigB#2 looked at her and said, "Can you go down to the next classroom and see if you can help the teacher with a behavior incident? I have so many issues right now I can't keep up." The LittleBigB#2 can't keep up with all of the behavior issues and it's not just on this day, it happens multiple times a week. And what gets done to address these behavior issues. NOTHING! No borders, no consequences.
My negative story list could go on. There is an AK47 story, a two ounce confiscation of marijuana story, a scholar stomping on the body of another scholar story but I'm going to stop as you now have a feel for why I stopping writing. Then the most unusual thing happened, especially in a public school, God winked.
The subject was social studies. The objective was to create a wax museum of famous Hoosiers with the help of T4's and OtherT4's scholars plus the help of a gray haired, wrinkly faced, occasionally grumpy, old guy. "Schultz, take these forty-two pictures of famous Hoosiers, cut out the excess paper around the pictures, bring them back to classroom and using three staples per picture, staple the pictures on the upper left hand corner of the poster board. Oh, make sure, when you staple the pictures onto the poster board, they are on straight." "Aye, aye, Captain," and off I go.
The scholars were about to begin one of the biggest, if not the biggest project, that I've seen since I started working with T4. For the sake of space I'll give you the abridged version. In this sequence, the scholars were told to; research your famous Hoosier, note the date of birth, city of birth, and date of death, if deceased. Then, collect interesting events in the life of your famous Hoosier, write them on your poster board and then decorate your poster board as you see fit. When all of this is finished transfer your notes onto a 4x6 note card so you can actually read what your wrote, practice reading your notes several times as you will have to give an oral presentation on your famous Hoosier in front of your parental unit and any other people that walk into the wax museum.
The scholars worked a little bit each day for a couple of weeks on their poster boards. The classroom, more than once, got pretty chaotic as so many of scholars have the attention span of a gnat and the adults in the room had to work hard to keep their emotions in check. I'm happy to report that the adults were fairly successful controlling their emotions. Finally, it's time to go live with the presentations and the day to do so was Valentine's Day.
Approximately forty scholars were assigned a standing location in the Wax Museum of Famous Hoosiers (our library) and waited the arrival of the visitors to the museum. When the visitors arrived they could circulate through the museum looking at all of the famous Hoosiers. If they saw one that interested them they could step of a faux clicker that was on the floor in front of the scholar. When the faux click was stepped on the scholar would start giving her/his oral presentation to the person standing in front of them.
I had to travel to Bay City, Michigan on Valentine's Day so I missed the event. When I knew the presentations were over I sent a text message to T4 to see how the day went. The response I received was very favorable and the number of parental units that came to see their scholars in action was high and that put a smile on my face. A short while late T4 sent me pictures of the scholars and a video of their presentations. As I looked at the pictures there was a huge smile on my face as several of the scholars dressed up in costumes so they could look like their famous Hoosier. Right after looking at the pictures I downloaded the YouTube video of the scholars giving their presentations. As I watched the video of these scholars, some with so many home life issues, some with so much unnecessary baggage dragging behind them every day, tears started running down my face. "They nailed it," I thought to myself and I'm sure T4 and Other T4 were very proud of them.
Later in the day I received another text message from T4 with a picture of a hand written note attached to the text message. T4 told me in her text message that received a Valentine's Day card from one of her T4-F's. Included in the text message T4 sent were these words, "God winked." When I read those two words I thought to my self, "God winked" must be a typo and then I read the letter T4-F wrote.
Content edited by me.
Dear Mrs. T-4,
As long as I've been in this school you have been my all time favorite teacher ever. You're super sweet and very generous. I love it when you go out of your way to help and care for others. I know this class is super crazy and loud but you always make it through the day. I don't know how you do it so it makes me wonder if you are a Super Hero or not. If you are a Super Hero I know the perfect name for you. It is Sound-O-Blocker. I think it fits you pretty well. I also love the happy personality that you have and other than that, you are an incredible teacher.
At the beginning of the school year T4 said this to me, "Schultz, if you thought last year was bad, this year is going to be worse." She was right. This has not been a very good year and I just couldn't continue writing about it. Then it happened, on Valentine's Day, God winked at T4 and it couldn't have happened at a better time for her. It's been a tough year but this one wink is all it took for T4 to realize that in the midst of the daily chaos someone is actually paying attention. That is a huge positive. One that will keep me writing this blog.
Thanks for following along.
I was sitting at the kitchen table staring at the screen on my laptop and drawing a blank as to how to get started. My part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse was sitting directly across from me so I said to her, "For someone who can run his mouth with the best of them I can't get started." "Why don't you remind your readers why you stopped writing a few months ago and then go from there," she said to me. Sound advice from my part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse so here we go.
I stopped for one reason. After seven and a half years at my school and after five years writing this blog, I got frustrated with what was going on around me. The negatives far outweighed the positives and I just couldn't get myself to write about all of those negatives so I stopped writing. So what made me change my mind?
It started on Wednesday of last week if my mind serves me correctly. T4 and I were sitting in our empty classroom talking as the scholars were at a specials class (PE or Art). I mentioned to T4 that I was thinking about starting the blog again when OtherT4 walked into the classroom and it was obvious that she was agitated. "You don't need to write a blog, you need to write and entire (expletive deleted) book," she said to me. I looked at her as she walked across the classroom and I thought to myself, "What set you off today?" I'll be paraphrasing because I need to make adjustments to some of the descriptive terms OtherT4 used.
"I'm was giving my scholars a test when a parental unit, with a sibling that appeared to be around three years old, just walked into my classroom. No one called me to tell me that this parental unit was coming to my room. How and the heck can that happen. A parental unit walked into the school, goes through the main office, asks how to get to my classroom, gets the directions to my classroom and nobody takes the time to call me. That is ridiculous. My scholars are taking a test and this parental unit sits down in the back of my classroom, opens up a bag of toys for her sibling to play with while this test is in progress. Then my scholar sees her parental unit in the classroom and begins a conversation with her. During the conversation, the parental unit pulls a cellphone out of her bag and hands it to the scholar. All of this is going on with a test in progress."
One negative down. Here is the next one. This one happened in a meeting. Sitting in the room was the BigB#4, LittleBigB#2, teachers and members of the school support staff. One of the topics being discussed was school discipline. Paraphrasing, "We need to start addressing the behavior issues that we are facing. We can't continue to allow our scholars to behave in the way that they do. Borders need to be established with consequences being consistently handed out when scholars are misbehaving." There was no reaction from the BigB#4 and the LittleBigB#2. NONE! So being disrespectful, defiant, storming out of the classroom, and refusing to do any work will continue to be the norm.
Last one and given and what I just said above this one leaves me shaking my head. I'm sitting at the half round table that is in the hallway outside T4's classroom grading papers. The LittleBigB#2 was heading to the classroom that is right next to me as there was a behavior issue going on and the teacher called for help. The LittleBigB#2 retrieved the misbehaving scholar from the classroom and was lecturing him about behavior in the hallway near me. As I'm eavesdropping on the conversation I realize that the LittleBigB#2 was talking very rapidly to this scholar. The look on the scholars face indicated that he had no idea what was being said. Then a voice communication comes across to the LittleBigB#2 on the walkie talkie that he was holding in his hand. The voice on the other end stated, "There is a behavior issue going on in another classroom and the teacher needs your help."
T4 happened to be in the hallway and the LittleBigB#2 looked at her and said, "Can you go down to the next classroom and see if you can help the teacher with a behavior incident? I have so many issues right now I can't keep up." The LittleBigB#2 can't keep up with all of the behavior issues and it's not just on this day, it happens multiple times a week. And what gets done to address these behavior issues. NOTHING! No borders, no consequences.
My negative story list could go on. There is an AK47 story, a two ounce confiscation of marijuana story, a scholar stomping on the body of another scholar story but I'm going to stop as you now have a feel for why I stopping writing. Then the most unusual thing happened, especially in a public school, God winked.
The subject was social studies. The objective was to create a wax museum of famous Hoosiers with the help of T4's and OtherT4's scholars plus the help of a gray haired, wrinkly faced, occasionally grumpy, old guy. "Schultz, take these forty-two pictures of famous Hoosiers, cut out the excess paper around the pictures, bring them back to classroom and using three staples per picture, staple the pictures on the upper left hand corner of the poster board. Oh, make sure, when you staple the pictures onto the poster board, they are on straight." "Aye, aye, Captain," and off I go.
The scholars were about to begin one of the biggest, if not the biggest project, that I've seen since I started working with T4. For the sake of space I'll give you the abridged version. In this sequence, the scholars were told to; research your famous Hoosier, note the date of birth, city of birth, and date of death, if deceased. Then, collect interesting events in the life of your famous Hoosier, write them on your poster board and then decorate your poster board as you see fit. When all of this is finished transfer your notes onto a 4x6 note card so you can actually read what your wrote, practice reading your notes several times as you will have to give an oral presentation on your famous Hoosier in front of your parental unit and any other people that walk into the wax museum.
The scholars worked a little bit each day for a couple of weeks on their poster boards. The classroom, more than once, got pretty chaotic as so many of scholars have the attention span of a gnat and the adults in the room had to work hard to keep their emotions in check. I'm happy to report that the adults were fairly successful controlling their emotions. Finally, it's time to go live with the presentations and the day to do so was Valentine's Day.
Approximately forty scholars were assigned a standing location in the Wax Museum of Famous Hoosiers (our library) and waited the arrival of the visitors to the museum. When the visitors arrived they could circulate through the museum looking at all of the famous Hoosiers. If they saw one that interested them they could step of a faux clicker that was on the floor in front of the scholar. When the faux click was stepped on the scholar would start giving her/his oral presentation to the person standing in front of them.
I had to travel to Bay City, Michigan on Valentine's Day so I missed the event. When I knew the presentations were over I sent a text message to T4 to see how the day went. The response I received was very favorable and the number of parental units that came to see their scholars in action was high and that put a smile on my face. A short while late T4 sent me pictures of the scholars and a video of their presentations. As I looked at the pictures there was a huge smile on my face as several of the scholars dressed up in costumes so they could look like their famous Hoosier. Right after looking at the pictures I downloaded the YouTube video of the scholars giving their presentations. As I watched the video of these scholars, some with so many home life issues, some with so much unnecessary baggage dragging behind them every day, tears started running down my face. "They nailed it," I thought to myself and I'm sure T4 and Other T4 were very proud of them.
Later in the day I received another text message from T4 with a picture of a hand written note attached to the text message. T4 told me in her text message that received a Valentine's Day card from one of her T4-F's. Included in the text message T4 sent were these words, "God winked." When I read those two words I thought to my self, "God winked" must be a typo and then I read the letter T4-F wrote.
Content edited by me.
Dear Mrs. T-4,
As long as I've been in this school you have been my all time favorite teacher ever. You're super sweet and very generous. I love it when you go out of your way to help and care for others. I know this class is super crazy and loud but you always make it through the day. I don't know how you do it so it makes me wonder if you are a Super Hero or not. If you are a Super Hero I know the perfect name for you. It is Sound-O-Blocker. I think it fits you pretty well. I also love the happy personality that you have and other than that, you are an incredible teacher.
At the beginning of the school year T4 said this to me, "Schultz, if you thought last year was bad, this year is going to be worse." She was right. This has not been a very good year and I just couldn't continue writing about it. Then it happened, on Valentine's Day, God winked at T4 and it couldn't have happened at a better time for her. It's been a tough year but this one wink is all it took for T4 to realize that in the midst of the daily chaos someone is actually paying attention. That is a huge positive. One that will keep me writing this blog.
Thanks for following along.
Monday, October 7, 2019
Don't Stop Telling My Story
Sunday, October 6, 2010
The scholars were in specials (art or gym) and with the exception of two adults, the classroom was empty. "I can't get started on the blog. Although I didn't believe you at the start of the school year when you told me this year would be worse than last year you were right, it is. If I started writing the blog again it would be mostly negative so I stopped writing." "Old man," she said to me, "don't stop telling my story."
In no particular order as it has been a while since my last blog post, here we go.
* M - male. F - female
T4 has the scholars doing a writing assignment to start the day. I can't recall the topic but the assignment included listing ten items using complete sentences. I'm sitting at the hexagon (picnic table) in the middle of the classroom when I hear, "Mr. Schultz, can you help me?" "Sure," I say, "Have a seat." "How can I help you?" "I need help writing." I looked at T4-M's paper and said, "You haven't written anything." "I don't know what to write." "The teacher just told you less than five minutes ago what to write about" so I offered a suggestion to get him started. The scholar starts writing. He wrote, "Wen I." "Stop, what is that word you just wrote? "When, Mr. Schultz." I corrected the spelling and the scholar continued. Slowly T4-M progressed to sentence number eight when he ran out of time. During this writing assignment I'm confident in saying that I had to correct T4-M's spelling on ninety percent of the words he wrote. As I sat at the hexagon thinking about this scholar I started to get a little emotional. This scholar was probably socially promoted dating back to PreK, he is on a path to academic failure, and I'm not sure what I can do to help get him off this path because he is so far behind.
Changing T4-M's. A timed math test is under way. You have six minutes to answer either fifty-two (addition) or seventy-two (multiplication/division) problems. In this case the scholar, T4-M, only has to answer fifty-two problems as he is doing the addition test. When T4-M finished the test he walked over to me and handed me his test. "Mr. Schultz, I've finished the test." "How did you do?" "I think I got them all correct." I start checking his test, fifty-two addition problems that are at a first grade or maybe a second grade math level, and he answered all correctly. Despite knowing this fourth grade scholar just successfully completed a first or second grade math test I made a big deal of it. I stood up, told him he got them all correct, did I high five with him, he was all smiles, and I sat back down.
It is now a timed fifty-two problem subtraction test and it is the same T4-M as I mentioned above. The timer rings as the six minutes are up. The scholar placed his test on the hexagon, when everyone was finished with the test I picked them up, walked out into the hallway, and sat down at the half round table to grade them. When I got to T4-M's first or second grade level subtraction test I see that he only managed to complete half of the problems and about a fourth of the ones the scholar answered were incorrect. Simple, single digit subtraction problems, and this fourth grade scholar did not answer all of the problems and a fourth of what he answered were incorrect.
T4 has been giving the scholars a timed multiplication/division test twice a week for over a month now. They have to successfully multiply/divide numbers that include; zero, one, two, five, nine, and ten. With the exception of a couple scholars the results are not good. "Schultz, I need to change directions on multiplication/division as these scholars are not making any progress. Take these new multiplication tests, make twenty-five copies of each and bring them back to me." A few minutes later the copies are made, I'm back in the classroom, T4 takes the tests, finds the one she wants, and passes them out to the scholars. She sets the timer for one minute and the scholars begin. The timer rings, T4 collects the tests, hands them to me so I can grade them, and out into the hallway I go. When I looked at the test I saw that the scholars were only doing multiplication problems that contain the number one. It can't get much easier than that. Three of the twenty-three scholar failed to complete the test. One didn't even make it halfway threw the test. Several of the answers to a MULTIPLICATION problem were wrong because the scholars were ADDING not MULTIPLYING.
Enough with the academic issues. If I continued with academics I could write a book. Let's switch to behavior issues.
This one will be short. A former scholar, that I worked with from second through fourth grade, T6-M, went into an anger release outburst and said the following, "I'm going home to get my AK-47 and come back to school and shoot this place up."
T4, when doing academics, has options as to where she can sit while doing a lesson. All of those options are off limits to the scholars unless they get her permission. On this day a T4-M scholar decides that he is not going to do his assignment at his desk like everyone else. He got up, walked across the room, and sat down in chair that is reserved for T4. T4 sees him sitting at her chair and states, "Get out of my chair and sit at your desk." The scholar totally ignores her. "Get out of my chair." Again, she is ignored. Getting a little animated, "Get out of my chair and sit at your desk." For the third time the scholar does not move and I'm now up. "Get out of that chair." The scholar gets up and starts moving but not to his desk. He takes a seat on another chair that is reserved to T4.
Occasionally T4 lets the scholars play some games during our math block. Although the scholars think they are just games, these are games that are designed to improve critical thinking skills. One of the games is Legos where you look at a picture and then, using the Legos, created what is on the picture. One day, one of our fine T4-M scholars decided it was more important for him to stop doing what he was supposed to be doing, got up from his desk, walked over to where the Legos were stored and start playing with them. T-4 sees him and says, "Put the Legos down and go back to your desk." She is ignored. "Put the Legos down." Ignored. "Put the Legos down right now and go back to your desk." Three times she is ignored and guess who is now up and moving toward the scholar.
At what point did it become normal practice for a scholar to just totally ignore a teacher. Who decided that there are no consequences for this completely defiant behavior. I can guarantee you it was not a classroom teacher. I'll bet money that is was someone who is in a leadership position, who sits in an office somewhere, doesn't have to put up with this crap, and when this matter is discussed with school leadership the response a teacher gets is you need to do a better job of classroom management. This is not a classroom management problem. This is a school corporation leadership problem created by individuals who think any corrective discipline opens the pipeline that leads to prison. Let's get this straight. The real pipeline to prison is social promotion and behavior issues and not discipline. Until someone figures that out of the only pipeline that will open is teachers abandoning their profession because they didn't go into debt to didn't earn an undergraduate degree or a masters degree to put up with all of this behavior BS.
It's all negative, I'm getting agitated just writing about it and this is what is so frustrating about this school year. I could easily quadruple the number of behavior issues above what I just talked about. No teacher should have to put up with this crap especially the one that I've worked with for almost two years now.
Okay, a new subject. Guess what? We have a new scholar from Central America. Any one care to venture a guess as to what challenges this new scholar will present to T4. Surely this is a no brainer. The scholar doesn't speak English. According to OtherT-4, a language arts teacher, he knows about forty words of English. Any one care to venture a guess as to how often someone in an overhead position will walk into the classroom to support T4 when it comes to teaching math to someone who doesn't speak English? After approximately two weeks in the classroom, no one.
A final thought. I wonder how much trouble I'd get in if I quietly started video streaming what goes on in this classroom so people will realize that I don't make this stuff up.
It's all negative, I'm getting agitated just writing about it and this is what is so frustrating about this school year. I could easily quadruple the number of behavior issues above what I just talked about. No teacher should have to put up with this crap especially the one that I've worked with for almost two years now.
Okay, a new subject. Guess what? We have a new scholar from Central America. Any one care to venture a guess as to what challenges this new scholar will present to T4. Surely this is a no brainer. The scholar doesn't speak English. According to OtherT-4, a language arts teacher, he knows about forty words of English. Any one care to venture a guess as to how often someone in an overhead position will walk into the classroom to support T4 when it comes to teaching math to someone who doesn't speak English? After approximately two weeks in the classroom, no one.
A final thought. I wonder how much trouble I'd get in if I quietly started video streaming what goes on in this classroom so people will realize that I don't make this stuff up.
Monday, September 2, 2019
Year Eight
September 1, 2019
It was either the first or second day of the school year when I heard this, "Old Man, just so you know, this year may be as bad or worse than last year." Not exactly what I wanted to hear but, as I've said numerous times in the past, "I don't need to do this, I choose to do this." However, the words, "Bad or worse than last year," caused me to pause and think about this blog. Academically, last year was a challenge, it wasn't a lot of fun, it resulted in my writing more negative blog posts than positive blog posts and I didn't like that. So I delayed, delayed, delayed, and eventually decided to stop writing my blog.
On Monday, August 26th, T4 looked at me and said, "Why haven't I seen any letters (our private, classroom word for blog)." "I can't get started," I said. "It will be too much like last year and as you know, last year was a challenge." "You can't stop," she said to me. "You have to continue telling everyone what it is like to be a teacher. People need to hear the story,"
So, here we are, twenty days into the school year and I'm about to tell the story of a teacher, in a school in a low social economic neighborhood, a school that has been struggling to reach an academic standard that will avoid it from being taken over by the state of Indiana. You are being forewarned, when I get started "I'm too hot, called a police and a fireman, I'm too hot, make a dragon wanna retire man," and remember, I don't make this stuff up. The quote is from a song by Mark Ronson, featuring Bruno Mars, and is call Uptown Funk.
I'm going to list test results in the order that I found out about them so you can see what this teacher has just inherited. If this doesn't get too lengthy I'll go into some of the specifics as to what I've seen during the first twenty days of this school year, otherwise, you'll have to wait until the next blog post.
First up are the IREAD3 results. This is an Indiana reading and determination assessment measuring foundational reading standards for third grade scholars. The test was administered during the last school year. A failing grade results is a remediation opportunity for the scholar and, in worse case, calls for the retention of the scholar in the third grade. Here are the results. The number of third grade scholars that took the test is forty-six. The number of third grade scholars that passed the test is sixteen. The number of third grade scholars that failed the test is thirty. That is a sixty-five percent failure rate. From prekindergarten through the second grade you learn how to read. From the third grade on you read to learn. T4 is now sitting amongst thirty scholars who can't read to learn and they advanced to her fourth grade classroom.
Next up is the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) testing results. This test was administered to the fourth grade scholars about a week and a half into the school year. The results of this test will set the academic baseline for all of the scholars that T4 will be working with this school year. Once this baseline is set T4 will have the task of getting each fourth grade scholar to show academic growth over the initial test. In math forty-one scholars took the test. Seven of the forty-one tested out on grade level. That is seventeen percent of the scholars taking the test. In reading thirty-four scholars took the test. Only one of the thirty-four who took the test tested out on grade level. That is three percent of the scholars taking the test.
Last up is the biggest failure in mandatory testing in the state of Indiana. This test is a product of the lowest life form on earth, the politician, plus the Indiana Department of Education, and pointy headed intellectuals with a PhD. By the way I recently found out, from a Wine Drinking Wednesday friend, what PhD stands for, piled higher and deeper. So what is this biggest failure, Indiana's Learning Evaluation Readiness Network (ILEARN) and this is certainly a testing process created by a piled higher and deeper person.
Here are the fresh off the presses results of the ILEARN test. The results you are about to see are from the third grade scholars that are now in the fourth grade. The percentage of scholars passing English Language Arts (ELA) is eight percent. The percentage of scholars passing Math is ten percent.
"I'm too hot, called a police and fireman. make a dragon wanna retire man." Welcome to the insanity of education. A place where sixty-five percent of the fourth grade scholars failed to learn to read in the lower grade levels and got promoted to the fourth grade. Welcome to the insanity of education. A place where fourth grade scholars are tested to determine there academic baseline and the results show that the baseline they are currently at is at a third grade or below level. Welcome to the insanity of education. A place where eight percent of the third grade scholars passed the ELA portion of ILEARN and ten percent of the third grade scholars pass the math portion of ILEARN and they are promoted to the fourth grade. Welcome to the insanity of ILEARN where it clearly states on the test results what to do with scholars that are BELOW PROFICIENCY. "Indiana students below proficiency have not met current grade level standards. Students may require significant support to develop the knowledge, application, and analytical skills needed to be on track for college and career readiness." The scholars that T4 just inherited did not meet current grade level standards and they got promoted into her classroom.
"I'm too hot, called a police and fireman, make a dragon wanna retire man," and I'm about to add some fuel to the fire. School leadership, while doing a fourth grade classroom observation, observed what was going on, and then informed the teacher, "you need to us more rigorous fourth grade lesson plans." They are at a third grade or below academic level and more rigorous fourth grade lesson plans need to be used. What? Maybe the leadership person that made this recommendation could come into the classroom and demonstrate how to teach a rigorous fourth grade lesson plan to fourth grade scholars that can't do fourth grade work. Do you know what the chances of that happening are, ZERO. The blank statement, "You need to have more vigorous lessons," was made and out the door leadership goes probably thinking, "Well, I did my part, now it is up to the teacher to do hers."
Too long but I'll give you one example of what T4 is up against. Fourth grade math worksheet. Take a number that is in written form and change it into standard form. Here is the number in written form, six hundred and thirty-four. The scholar's answer did not contain a six, three, or a four. Why? The scholar is reading at a C level when he should be at an O level so he had no idea what six hundred and thirty-four meant.
Welcome to year number eight.
It was either the first or second day of the school year when I heard this, "Old Man, just so you know, this year may be as bad or worse than last year." Not exactly what I wanted to hear but, as I've said numerous times in the past, "I don't need to do this, I choose to do this." However, the words, "Bad or worse than last year," caused me to pause and think about this blog. Academically, last year was a challenge, it wasn't a lot of fun, it resulted in my writing more negative blog posts than positive blog posts and I didn't like that. So I delayed, delayed, delayed, and eventually decided to stop writing my blog.
On Monday, August 26th, T4 looked at me and said, "Why haven't I seen any letters (our private, classroom word for blog)." "I can't get started," I said. "It will be too much like last year and as you know, last year was a challenge." "You can't stop," she said to me. "You have to continue telling everyone what it is like to be a teacher. People need to hear the story,"
So, here we are, twenty days into the school year and I'm about to tell the story of a teacher, in a school in a low social economic neighborhood, a school that has been struggling to reach an academic standard that will avoid it from being taken over by the state of Indiana. You are being forewarned, when I get started "I'm too hot, called a police and a fireman, I'm too hot, make a dragon wanna retire man," and remember, I don't make this stuff up. The quote is from a song by Mark Ronson, featuring Bruno Mars, and is call Uptown Funk.
I'm going to list test results in the order that I found out about them so you can see what this teacher has just inherited. If this doesn't get too lengthy I'll go into some of the specifics as to what I've seen during the first twenty days of this school year, otherwise, you'll have to wait until the next blog post.
First up are the IREAD3 results. This is an Indiana reading and determination assessment measuring foundational reading standards for third grade scholars. The test was administered during the last school year. A failing grade results is a remediation opportunity for the scholar and, in worse case, calls for the retention of the scholar in the third grade. Here are the results. The number of third grade scholars that took the test is forty-six. The number of third grade scholars that passed the test is sixteen. The number of third grade scholars that failed the test is thirty. That is a sixty-five percent failure rate. From prekindergarten through the second grade you learn how to read. From the third grade on you read to learn. T4 is now sitting amongst thirty scholars who can't read to learn and they advanced to her fourth grade classroom.
Next up is the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) testing results. This test was administered to the fourth grade scholars about a week and a half into the school year. The results of this test will set the academic baseline for all of the scholars that T4 will be working with this school year. Once this baseline is set T4 will have the task of getting each fourth grade scholar to show academic growth over the initial test. In math forty-one scholars took the test. Seven of the forty-one tested out on grade level. That is seventeen percent of the scholars taking the test. In reading thirty-four scholars took the test. Only one of the thirty-four who took the test tested out on grade level. That is three percent of the scholars taking the test.
Last up is the biggest failure in mandatory testing in the state of Indiana. This test is a product of the lowest life form on earth, the politician, plus the Indiana Department of Education, and pointy headed intellectuals with a PhD. By the way I recently found out, from a Wine Drinking Wednesday friend, what PhD stands for, piled higher and deeper. So what is this biggest failure, Indiana's Learning Evaluation Readiness Network (ILEARN) and this is certainly a testing process created by a piled higher and deeper person.
Here are the fresh off the presses results of the ILEARN test. The results you are about to see are from the third grade scholars that are now in the fourth grade. The percentage of scholars passing English Language Arts (ELA) is eight percent. The percentage of scholars passing Math is ten percent.
"I'm too hot, called a police and fireman. make a dragon wanna retire man." Welcome to the insanity of education. A place where sixty-five percent of the fourth grade scholars failed to learn to read in the lower grade levels and got promoted to the fourth grade. Welcome to the insanity of education. A place where fourth grade scholars are tested to determine there academic baseline and the results show that the baseline they are currently at is at a third grade or below level. Welcome to the insanity of education. A place where eight percent of the third grade scholars passed the ELA portion of ILEARN and ten percent of the third grade scholars pass the math portion of ILEARN and they are promoted to the fourth grade. Welcome to the insanity of ILEARN where it clearly states on the test results what to do with scholars that are BELOW PROFICIENCY. "Indiana students below proficiency have not met current grade level standards. Students may require significant support to develop the knowledge, application, and analytical skills needed to be on track for college and career readiness." The scholars that T4 just inherited did not meet current grade level standards and they got promoted into her classroom.
"I'm too hot, called a police and fireman, make a dragon wanna retire man," and I'm about to add some fuel to the fire. School leadership, while doing a fourth grade classroom observation, observed what was going on, and then informed the teacher, "you need to us more rigorous fourth grade lesson plans." They are at a third grade or below academic level and more rigorous fourth grade lesson plans need to be used. What? Maybe the leadership person that made this recommendation could come into the classroom and demonstrate how to teach a rigorous fourth grade lesson plan to fourth grade scholars that can't do fourth grade work. Do you know what the chances of that happening are, ZERO. The blank statement, "You need to have more vigorous lessons," was made and out the door leadership goes probably thinking, "Well, I did my part, now it is up to the teacher to do hers."
Too long but I'll give you one example of what T4 is up against. Fourth grade math worksheet. Take a number that is in written form and change it into standard form. Here is the number in written form, six hundred and thirty-four. The scholar's answer did not contain a six, three, or a four. Why? The scholar is reading at a C level when he should be at an O level so he had no idea what six hundred and thirty-four meant.
Welcome to year number eight.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
The Magnet Is Off
Sunday, June 9, 2019
Again, it's raining. With all of my outside projects on hold I decided to write for a while. As I mentioned in my last post my school year is over. T4 and the scholars will be in school until Thursday, June 13th. I believe awards day for the school will be on Wednesday, June 12th, so I might drive to school to attend the event. I think I'll text T4 later in the day and bounce off her the idea of me returning for awards day and go from there.
I'm scrolling through the blog notes on my cell phone to see what items remained that I wanted to talk about. There are a few that I put under a category called school drama so I'll start with those. One of the F scholars, at the time I wrote this note, was living in a motel. I don't know for certain if this scholar's parental unit moved before getting evicted or was evicted but living in a motel was where this parental unit moved to rather than the streets. The F scholar, for obvious reasons, was having trouble arriving to school on time or actually arriving at all. One day this F scholar pulled out her cell phone as she felt the immediate need to call her parental unit. The gist of the phone call went something like this. The scholar absentmindedly took the motel room key with her to school. Knowing she had the key, she needed to tell her parental unit so she called her from the classroom. In a motel, no money to pay the rent, one step short of homelessness, but everyone has a cell phone.
This one occurred while sitting at my half round table in the hallway. There was some commotion in the fifth grade classroom. From what I can gather, the teacher just assigned the fifth grade scholars a reading assignment. As she was making the assignment this voice shouted loudly, "Do you expect me to read all of this?" Anyone care to venture a guess as to what the consequences were for this blatant disruption of the classroom? For those of you that have been following along for a while I'm sure you know the answer. For those of you that recently joined me here is the answer, NOTHING. Why nothing? Schools are trying to close the pipeline to prison that is the result of discipline being taken in a school.
One more and then I'll discuss my last day at school. This is a tough one for me as it involves a scholar that I spent quite a bit of time with doing math. I don't know how this started but this scholar reached the point where she shouted, "You shut up," in the classroom. This drew T4's attention, T4 put a stop to it, and in the process the scholar stood up, started crying, and walked out of the classroom. I looked over at T4, indicated to her that I'd retrieve the scholar, and do what I could to de-escalate this situation.
When I stepped outside the classroom the scholar was heading down the hallway. I asked her to stop but she ignored me. I then said to her, Tthe farther you walk down that hallway the more trouble you will get into. Why don't you turn around, sit at the table by our classroom, and tell me what happened?" That worked and she sat down. All of this drama started because of an eraser. Yes, that simple, an eraser. Then the scholar stated crying and out came the crux of the matter. The scholar is speaking, I'm paraphrasing. "My parents are divorced, my Dad don't speak to me, my Mom has a new boy friend and I don't like him." She is in the fourth grade and today she walked into school dragging all of that baggage behind her.
Monday, June 10, 2019
The plan for my last day, besides doing the last morning work math worksheet, was to spend a couple minutes with the scholars that I worked with the most. T4 agreed to let me speak to them privately and she even brought in some snacks for them to eat. When the scholars rotated to specials T4 told the scholars that I wanted to meet with to have seat at the hexagon. When the classroom was empty I said to these scholars, "Do you know why you are sitting here with me?" My question was met with silence. "I'll tell you why," I said. "Just about every day I sit at this hexagon and I answer all of the math problems on our morning work math sheet. As soon as I sit down, it's like this huge magnet is turned on and scholars are pulled toward the magnet and sit down by me." When I said this the scholars had that look on their faces that said, "Mr. Schultz, what are you talking about.
When I continued, this is what I told them. "When I sit at this hexagon some scholars sit down with me but they are not here to do math, there are here to clown around. Other scholars also come and sit by me. These are the scholars who are sitting by me for one reason, to copy my answers to all the math problems. They are cheating and I don't like that. Then there is the group of scholars who are sitting here with me right now. This is my favorite group of scholars. You didn't sit by me to clown around or copy my answers. You needed help solving a math problem, walked over to the hexagon, sat down by me, and asked me for help." Then I told them, "You worked hard at math all year. Everyone at this hexagon kept trying, everyone sitting here got better at math every day, and because you never gave up you get to sit with me and eat a snack while the rest of the class is in Art classroom."
This is the last thirty minutes on my last day in the classroom. There wasn't much going on so I asked T4 if there was anything I could do for her before I left. "If you don't mind, I need copies of some work sheets. Some are word search work sheets, others are math work sheets. Go through the two books and pick out some. I'll need sixty copies of each worksheet."
I was in the copy room making the necessary copies when I heard some noise out in the hallway. I thought it was one of the scholars from the special education life skills classroom so I ignore it. Then I heard someone so angry they were growling so looked out into the hallway and saw T4-M and he was mad. It's decision time. Keep copying or get involved. I kept copying but was watching the hallway closely to see if someone was going to retrieve T4-M. I didn't see anyone so I got involved. I found T4-M standing in a stairwell. His fists were clenched, there were tears in his eyes, and he was so angry he was literally sweating. When I asked him what happened he responded but because of all the crying I had no idea what he said. So I put my hand on his shoulder and asked him to walk with me to the copy room where he could sit down and get himself under control and he walked along with me. Within a minute or so, T4 walked into the copy room and had her little chat with him. Now I know what happened. This fine young scholar decided to write, "You are ugly," on another scholar's year ending poster board and he got caught.
I'm now back in the classroom sitting at the hexagon with T4. Remember, I don't make this stuff up. As were are talking one of her M's got her attention and asked her this question. "Is it true that a doctor can change a boy into a girl." I'm silent, looking at T4, and waiting for her response as I want no part of this conversation. Finally, T4 said to the M, "God made you a boy, why would you want to change that?" A short while later a T4-F made an attempt to get me to return to the classroom for one more day. I told her I couldn't as my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse was out of school. Because I was in school, I continued, I couldn't go on a bicycle ride with my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and her friend Ray. T4-F promptly responded, "Mr. Schultz is your wife cheating on you?"
It's now 12:20pm, recess was in ten minutes so now was the time to make my announcement. I was going to stand but T4 insisted that I sit at her throne to give the scholars the news. I started by telling them that it was day number one hundred and sixty-five and I asked them if they knew what that meant. As I was waiting for a response I heard T4 say, "it's always a story" and I turned, smiled at her, and waited for a scholar to answer my question. One of the T4-F's raised her hand and said, "Mr. Schultz, is it the one hundred and sixty-fifth day of the school year?" I told her she was close but it's the one hundred and sixty-fifth day that I've been in this classroom and it is also my last day with you. There was a collective grown from the scholars and then the magnet started to kick in. First one scholar approached me and gave me a hug. Then lots of scholars approached me to give me a hug. This group hug was so big I thought the throne that I was sitting on was going to collapse under the weight of all those bodies.
When the scholars were walking to recess I stood up and walked out of the classroom door. As I was walking down the first floor hallway I heard crying. When I reached the library door I saw a T-PK standing over a scholar that was curled up in a ball right by the library door crying. I stopped to see if T-PK needed any help, looked at the scholar on the floor, saw who it was, and said to T-PK, "I know the scholar let me speak to him." It was an OtherT-4 M. When I asked him what was wrong he responded but I had no idea what he said with all of the crying. I then told him that he needed to move away from the library door because if someone opened the door he'd get hit by the door. I convinced up to get up off the floor and asked him where he would like to go. Other T4-M said, "Somewhere where no one will bother me." I walked him into the main office, gave him two options on where to sit, he chose one and sat down. With him seated I continued on to the front door of the school. When I stepped outside the door I knew the magnet was off until next year.
This is to the teacher. On the first day that I stepped into your classroom you told me that only six of the sixty fourth grade scholars were on grade level for math. You then told me that it was going to be a very challenging year. I'm not sure if you told me this just to warn me or to try and scare me off but there is one thing that you didn't know about me on day one. I'm old, gray haired, wrinkly faced, occasionally grumpy, have a dark side, and I don't scare easily. We spent one hundred and sixty-five days together and I'm glad I'm typing this and not standing in front of you as I'm already getting emotional.
Thank you for allowing me to enter into your classroom life. Thank you for allowing me to have the freedom tell my stories, read to the scholars, and bug you just for the sake of bugging you. This is my fifth year writing this blog and you are the only teacher that knew I was writing it. Thank you for allowing me to share the real life experiences that took place in your classroom. Finally, thank you for having the confidence in me to help the scholars that were the farthest behind in math show improvement. You said it correctly at the beginning of the year, "It was going to be a challenge." Hopefully, I lived up to your expectations and I had a positive impact on these young scholars.
School year number seven has come to a close. School year number eight will begin around August 1st. I'm now on vacation. Thanks for following along. See you in August.
Again, it's raining. With all of my outside projects on hold I decided to write for a while. As I mentioned in my last post my school year is over. T4 and the scholars will be in school until Thursday, June 13th. I believe awards day for the school will be on Wednesday, June 12th, so I might drive to school to attend the event. I think I'll text T4 later in the day and bounce off her the idea of me returning for awards day and go from there.
I'm scrolling through the blog notes on my cell phone to see what items remained that I wanted to talk about. There are a few that I put under a category called school drama so I'll start with those. One of the F scholars, at the time I wrote this note, was living in a motel. I don't know for certain if this scholar's parental unit moved before getting evicted or was evicted but living in a motel was where this parental unit moved to rather than the streets. The F scholar, for obvious reasons, was having trouble arriving to school on time or actually arriving at all. One day this F scholar pulled out her cell phone as she felt the immediate need to call her parental unit. The gist of the phone call went something like this. The scholar absentmindedly took the motel room key with her to school. Knowing she had the key, she needed to tell her parental unit so she called her from the classroom. In a motel, no money to pay the rent, one step short of homelessness, but everyone has a cell phone.
This one occurred while sitting at my half round table in the hallway. There was some commotion in the fifth grade classroom. From what I can gather, the teacher just assigned the fifth grade scholars a reading assignment. As she was making the assignment this voice shouted loudly, "Do you expect me to read all of this?" Anyone care to venture a guess as to what the consequences were for this blatant disruption of the classroom? For those of you that have been following along for a while I'm sure you know the answer. For those of you that recently joined me here is the answer, NOTHING. Why nothing? Schools are trying to close the pipeline to prison that is the result of discipline being taken in a school.
One more and then I'll discuss my last day at school. This is a tough one for me as it involves a scholar that I spent quite a bit of time with doing math. I don't know how this started but this scholar reached the point where she shouted, "You shut up," in the classroom. This drew T4's attention, T4 put a stop to it, and in the process the scholar stood up, started crying, and walked out of the classroom. I looked over at T4, indicated to her that I'd retrieve the scholar, and do what I could to de-escalate this situation.
When I stepped outside the classroom the scholar was heading down the hallway. I asked her to stop but she ignored me. I then said to her, Tthe farther you walk down that hallway the more trouble you will get into. Why don't you turn around, sit at the table by our classroom, and tell me what happened?" That worked and she sat down. All of this drama started because of an eraser. Yes, that simple, an eraser. Then the scholar stated crying and out came the crux of the matter. The scholar is speaking, I'm paraphrasing. "My parents are divorced, my Dad don't speak to me, my Mom has a new boy friend and I don't like him." She is in the fourth grade and today she walked into school dragging all of that baggage behind her.
Monday, June 10, 2019
The plan for my last day, besides doing the last morning work math worksheet, was to spend a couple minutes with the scholars that I worked with the most. T4 agreed to let me speak to them privately and she even brought in some snacks for them to eat. When the scholars rotated to specials T4 told the scholars that I wanted to meet with to have seat at the hexagon. When the classroom was empty I said to these scholars, "Do you know why you are sitting here with me?" My question was met with silence. "I'll tell you why," I said. "Just about every day I sit at this hexagon and I answer all of the math problems on our morning work math sheet. As soon as I sit down, it's like this huge magnet is turned on and scholars are pulled toward the magnet and sit down by me." When I said this the scholars had that look on their faces that said, "Mr. Schultz, what are you talking about.
When I continued, this is what I told them. "When I sit at this hexagon some scholars sit down with me but they are not here to do math, there are here to clown around. Other scholars also come and sit by me. These are the scholars who are sitting by me for one reason, to copy my answers to all the math problems. They are cheating and I don't like that. Then there is the group of scholars who are sitting here with me right now. This is my favorite group of scholars. You didn't sit by me to clown around or copy my answers. You needed help solving a math problem, walked over to the hexagon, sat down by me, and asked me for help." Then I told them, "You worked hard at math all year. Everyone at this hexagon kept trying, everyone sitting here got better at math every day, and because you never gave up you get to sit with me and eat a snack while the rest of the class is in Art classroom."
This is the last thirty minutes on my last day in the classroom. There wasn't much going on so I asked T4 if there was anything I could do for her before I left. "If you don't mind, I need copies of some work sheets. Some are word search work sheets, others are math work sheets. Go through the two books and pick out some. I'll need sixty copies of each worksheet."
I was in the copy room making the necessary copies when I heard some noise out in the hallway. I thought it was one of the scholars from the special education life skills classroom so I ignore it. Then I heard someone so angry they were growling so looked out into the hallway and saw T4-M and he was mad. It's decision time. Keep copying or get involved. I kept copying but was watching the hallway closely to see if someone was going to retrieve T4-M. I didn't see anyone so I got involved. I found T4-M standing in a stairwell. His fists were clenched, there were tears in his eyes, and he was so angry he was literally sweating. When I asked him what happened he responded but because of all the crying I had no idea what he said. So I put my hand on his shoulder and asked him to walk with me to the copy room where he could sit down and get himself under control and he walked along with me. Within a minute or so, T4 walked into the copy room and had her little chat with him. Now I know what happened. This fine young scholar decided to write, "You are ugly," on another scholar's year ending poster board and he got caught.
I'm now back in the classroom sitting at the hexagon with T4. Remember, I don't make this stuff up. As were are talking one of her M's got her attention and asked her this question. "Is it true that a doctor can change a boy into a girl." I'm silent, looking at T4, and waiting for her response as I want no part of this conversation. Finally, T4 said to the M, "God made you a boy, why would you want to change that?" A short while later a T4-F made an attempt to get me to return to the classroom for one more day. I told her I couldn't as my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse was out of school. Because I was in school, I continued, I couldn't go on a bicycle ride with my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and her friend Ray. T4-F promptly responded, "Mr. Schultz is your wife cheating on you?"
It's now 12:20pm, recess was in ten minutes so now was the time to make my announcement. I was going to stand but T4 insisted that I sit at her throne to give the scholars the news. I started by telling them that it was day number one hundred and sixty-five and I asked them if they knew what that meant. As I was waiting for a response I heard T4 say, "it's always a story" and I turned, smiled at her, and waited for a scholar to answer my question. One of the T4-F's raised her hand and said, "Mr. Schultz, is it the one hundred and sixty-fifth day of the school year?" I told her she was close but it's the one hundred and sixty-fifth day that I've been in this classroom and it is also my last day with you. There was a collective grown from the scholars and then the magnet started to kick in. First one scholar approached me and gave me a hug. Then lots of scholars approached me to give me a hug. This group hug was so big I thought the throne that I was sitting on was going to collapse under the weight of all those bodies.
When the scholars were walking to recess I stood up and walked out of the classroom door. As I was walking down the first floor hallway I heard crying. When I reached the library door I saw a T-PK standing over a scholar that was curled up in a ball right by the library door crying. I stopped to see if T-PK needed any help, looked at the scholar on the floor, saw who it was, and said to T-PK, "I know the scholar let me speak to him." It was an OtherT-4 M. When I asked him what was wrong he responded but I had no idea what he said with all of the crying. I then told him that he needed to move away from the library door because if someone opened the door he'd get hit by the door. I convinced up to get up off the floor and asked him where he would like to go. Other T4-M said, "Somewhere where no one will bother me." I walked him into the main office, gave him two options on where to sit, he chose one and sat down. With him seated I continued on to the front door of the school. When I stepped outside the door I knew the magnet was off until next year.
This is to the teacher. On the first day that I stepped into your classroom you told me that only six of the sixty fourth grade scholars were on grade level for math. You then told me that it was going to be a very challenging year. I'm not sure if you told me this just to warn me or to try and scare me off but there is one thing that you didn't know about me on day one. I'm old, gray haired, wrinkly faced, occasionally grumpy, have a dark side, and I don't scare easily. We spent one hundred and sixty-five days together and I'm glad I'm typing this and not standing in front of you as I'm already getting emotional.
Thank you for allowing me to enter into your classroom life. Thank you for allowing me to have the freedom tell my stories, read to the scholars, and bug you just for the sake of bugging you. This is my fifth year writing this blog and you are the only teacher that knew I was writing it. Thank you for allowing me to share the real life experiences that took place in your classroom. Finally, thank you for having the confidence in me to help the scholars that were the farthest behind in math show improvement. You said it correctly at the beginning of the year, "It was going to be a challenge." Hopefully, I lived up to your expectations and I had a positive impact on these young scholars.
School year number seven has come to a close. School year number eight will begin around August 1st. I'm now on vacation. Thanks for following along. See you in August.
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