Out The Window And Inside

The assignment:

1. Look outside. Write that for two minutes.
2. What's stressing you out? Write that for two minutes.
3. What's one thing you can do about it? Write that for two minutes.
4. Look outside again. Write that for two minutes.

The idea was to show how we can compose in mysterious fashion, sandwiching inner feelings between two accounts of the outside world. What follows is what I wrote over four classes.

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The First Class

The sky is open and light blue. Not the deep blue of August or the aquamarine of the Caribbean Sea. No, the light blue, trying-not-to-be-grey of October Syracuse. A blue that says, it will soon be winter, that says, enjoy this moment which is already gone. The leaves seem already to be falling. Blades of grass reach up in one last wish for love.

This job is stressing me. Another teacher in the system resigned yesterday. That teacher was brand new in August and will be gone by November, a leaf on a tree falling from the branch, drifting on the autumn wind, settling somewhere new.

Envy does me no good. Better to be happy for someone living that dream and feel it as fuel for my own choices. My autumn winds may be coming. Naomi Shihab Nye writes:

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

The sky is bluer now than it was. It's almost summer vacation blue, the blue of hope and faith, the blue of believing. That's the blue under which grass still grows and leaves reconsider falling, the whole world alive as if all of us are ready to be reborn.

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The Second Class

I need to slow down. The sky tells me so. There is no wind to push my sails and take me anywhere. The day is still. Even the birds just stare. A plane arcs across the sky, it's engines throttled down. No hurry. We are all coming in for some landing. The grass will catch us. The ground is soft and forgiving.

There's too much to do and too many people after my attention. I want to be left alone with my pen and the blank page. I want to be alone, in solitude, all by myself. The stress of all these people is like the Nikki Giovanni poem:

Sometimes
when I wake up
in the morning
and see all the faces
I just can't
breathe

My heart beats too fast. My lungs go shallow. My mind races ahead out of this moment into nothing, into darkness.

And so I write. I breathe through the pen. I can't send these people away, stop teaching, quit the job, but I can sit inside this body, crawl inside my head, and accept how things are. I'm my own man and despite the stress I choose the life I want and what I will feel as I'm rocked by outside forces.

Out by the side of the road an orange sign with black letters stands as a warning. The way through is passable but not smooth or easy. Drivers are waved through one at a time. The tires kick up dust that rises and must fall somewhere. The drivers pass onward under an almost perfect blue sky to places I'm imagining and finding in my dreams.

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The Third Class

It looks peaceful out there, but a kid just said, "it's brick." I'm old and don't know exactly what that means, but it can't be good. It's cold as October should be. I can live with that. Cold isn't bad. Not when the sun shines. Not when the sky is blue. Not when I'm breathing and getting through the day.

It's tough being around negative people who complain to and about me. I get that it's not really about me, but it feels that way when people are cruel. They're all hurting. I get that. But I wish we could get along for just this hour. I want them to understand that it's easier that way, but they don't believe.

I can complain and beg them to change, but what good will that do? It's me who must stop expecting them to be other than who and how they are. Their lives are theirs. The more I accept that and let go, the more peace I'll find.

The leaves are changing. Snow will come. The sky will turn ashen grey. The sun will set and rise again no matter what I do. If I'm happy, the leaves still die. If I'm sad, snow still comes. And no matter my anger and frustration, the world still turns on its axis from light to shadow and back into light. Out in the field, the geese accept all this. Who am I to argue with geese? I watch them all take off into the blue sky and almost smile.

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The Fourth Class

It's calm outside. The road construction guys are on a break. Even the leaves just hang instead of falling. The grass is in no hurry. The clouds chill in a cold sky. The geese have flown or gone into hiding. Nothing is moving. I stare and feel nothing but relief.

I've had negative people crowd my life today. Their problems weighing me down now, making me tired. I wonder what I've done to deserve all this. Clint Eastwood tells me, "deserve's got nothing to do with it."

The negative people go. They remain only if I choose to hang onto them. If I let go thinking about all that, let those thoughts go out the door with those people, then I have the chance to feel better. It's totally up to me.

A dump truck pulls down the street. Going, going, gone. It is heavy, loaded full, and moving slowly. Somewhere down the line the driver will back up and dump that heavy load. The truck, lighter, will go on to the next job. There is always another job, another day. As for now, the world outside the window is calm, quiet, and trying to teach me all I need to know.

Working Against My Interests In The Schools

Students here are required to take a test that's supposed to measure reading ability. The data is mostly used to grade my teaching. Students take the test in September, January, and May. Growth targets are set, and I'm graded on whether they have or have not achieved those targets.

As students sit to take the test I say, "do the best you can and take your time," though it would be better for me if they all bombed it. I need them to show growth. If they did terribly on the thing in September, there's nowhere to go but up.

There are a couple problems with that.

In September students are ready and willing to take such tests. My students are more docile early in the year and will try their best even on "a boring test."

I also know a teacher in another district who was fired probably for telling kids not to work hard on the September test. She didn't tell them to bomb it, but she sure as hell told them it was okay to half-ass the thing. I don't need more reasons for management to dislike me, so I say, "do the best you can and take your time." I answer their procedural questions and explain why I am not allowed to clarify what any of the words mean. Then I say, "do the best you can and take your time." Students usually work at it and score well.

Which really screws me over.

The best things I can do are to accept the situation and stop worrying about how I'm working against my own interests. Things usually work out and as the song says, I will survive. At least I have so far.

Still, it's amazing how many things we teachers choose to do, have to do, or feel we have to do that go against our best interests. Doing lots of schoolwork after school hours, giving tests that are used against us, and a hundred other things. Some of it is unavoidable if I want a paycheck and healthcare for my family. The rest, well, I'll look more carefully at these things and make decisions.

For now, I tell myself do the best you can and take your time. Then I put my head down and do what has to be done. Soon enough, it's quitting time.

Culture In The Schools

Re-reading Atul Gawande's New Yorker essay, I had an idea how to use checklists at school to make our work better and perhaps shift more attention to caring for students. This is a small school for at-risk students who need additional care because they receive too little elsewhere. Almost anything is worth trying, but I'm not going to suggest my idea. 

I must be some kind of terrible employee, eh? 

School culture matters and is dictated from the top. In the classroom, I'm the leader responsible for crafting culture. I start by considering each student to be worthy of kindness and inclusion. I temper that with continual judgment based on observation. Most of my work is helping students be more kind. I do that work through writing, reading, and discussion, but it's kindness, compassion, and understanding I teach as much as literacy. A culture of kindness is the starting point from which we can learn. 

To create that culture, I'm kind to students. I'm not all lovey-dovey, but I work to be thoughtful. I hold a firm line for our behavior. I accept who we are but not everything that each of us does. When they transgress, I talk with them about it, I try to help them see the problem and move them to new ways of doing things. Sometimes I resort to straight-on discipline (referrals and requests for suspension), but mostly, I work to get them to buy into the culture we need. 

(By the way, when I transgress, I come back with an apology and explanation. I suggest they keep an eye on me. Notice if I make the mistake again or how I change because of it. What's good for them has to be as good for me. That too is part of the culture.)

I rarely yell at students or call them out before others. My talks are short and usually quiet rather than lectures or tirades. I never say "because I said so" or "because I'm the teacher." I try to listen to their explanations and thoughts about what they are doing and have done. I answer questions as honestly and completely as I can. All of this to establish a culture in which people are honest, thoughtful, and don't try to solve things through fighting. 

I've tried setting up all sorts of rules. No phones. No hats. No swearing. But my rule-making created bad culture. Instead, I model my classroom on the culture my wife and I create in our home for our children. 

Many people who hear I have two teenage daughters tell me how tough it must be. Nope, I say. Well then, just wait, I'm told. I nod and shrug as I move away from those people. They don't understand the culture of our home.

Last night, after dinner, I asked the girls to scoop the litter box, dry dishes I was washing, and start the dishwasher. They obliged without complaint. Today they will vacuum the den and sweep the bathroom. When I asked, they said, no problem. 

Why was this so easy? It wasn't because I'd be angry if they argued. It wasn't because we pay them for these jobs. It wasn't because they're perfect children, though they are quite wonderful. It was because of the culture. 

When my older daughter is done with swim, she texts us. I often reply that I'm already in the parking lot reading my book. She knows I'll be there for her. My younger daughter often asks if we will give her friends rides home from school. We always say yes. It makes her happy and provides additional time with friends. Why not say yes? That's our culture. 

Our kids say yes to tasks around the house knowing this is how we do things. We all ask for what we need and give what we can. It's not sainthood but it is a culture of understanding and kindness established before they were born. My wife and I have always worked this way. 

In the classroom, I replicate most of this. A kid comes in too tired to keep her head up and I find her a quiet place to sleep. I tell her she'll get a lousy grade for class participation that day, but it's no big deal. She will feel better the next day. Sometimes I have her put her head down on the desk. The crazy thing: the rest of the class quiets to let her sleep. That's culture. 

If I have ideas from Atul Gawande about how to improve the school culture, why keep them to myself.

Of course it's the culture.  

Culture is dictated from the top and yesterday I received clear instruction from the administration about our culture. 

If I try to impose my will in the classroom by yelling or ordering, we have more conflict and do less learning. Yelling at students leads them to mistrust me. It makes us adversaries or even enemies. It creates a culture of fear and loathing. 

If I yell and demand at home, those warnings about teenagers come true. My kids will sneak out, tell me to go to hell, and worse. Even if the cat litter still gets scooped and the dishes are still dried, it will all feel wrong. Thee culture would be one in which I don't want to live. 

The school culture is clear to me. From 7:30 in the morning until 2:45 in the afternoon, 186 days a year, I live in that culture and am to accept it quietly. Within that larger culture I create a classroom culture that best serves students and my skills. And we keep the door closed.

Grading In The Schools

Our hall monitor and I are talking about school. Kids are done with classes, so we are here on our own, grading, putting things in order, the usual. I've confided that this is my time to look busy. I'm not busy at all, but I need to look busy because most everyone else is terribly busy and will ask me to do some of their work. I'm not into that. 

Maybe this makes me seem like a bad colleague. 

Teaching is a good job, but grading sucks. I don't know anyone who enjoys grading or all the time it involves. One guy said he enjoyed reading student writing, and maybe he did, but I only enjoy reading as they're writing and working through the process. Once the piece is done, grading is mostly a bother. I write comments but they don't teach. They are to justify the grade which is usually lower than the kid wanted. 

Grading is something I work to avoid. I've found ways around most grading and, no surprise, seen no ill effects on learning. When I do have to grade stuff such as the final exam, I suck it up and grade the damn thing. 

But that doesn't mean it has to take much time. 

A teacher here is lamenting the time it will take him to grade the finals. "I'll be at it all week." I nodded and shrugged hoping he wouldn't ask what he then asked. "They take forever, don't they?" I nodded and shrugged some more. I hate to lie, but if I tell him I've finished grading, he won't believe me but word might get out that I'm done, and I can't have that. 

I am ordered to give a final and grade it. I don't want to run afoul of my admins (I prefer they forget I exist). I want to do my job well. I'm not looking for shortcuts around the directive. I actually like giving final exams. It's four days during which kids have incentive to work hard and be quiet. This year, to make things more peaceful and like real testing, I barred phones and headphones during the test. It went great. 

The other teacher imagines I have a huge stack of finals to grade, but I don't. 

Kids finished the final in dribs and drabs. As they finished the final, I graded it. The multiple choice is cake. Takes a minute. The essay has a strict rubric (from the state exams), and I've graded enough of them that I can do one in three minutes. Then there's a piece of free-writing graded largely on how much they wrote and how well they thought. That takes two minutes but only because I like reading them. Each final takes no more than six minutes to grade and I finished them as they came in. 

Don't tell, but all my finals are graded and recorded. 

Years ago I watched a teacher calculating grades from a paper gradebook with calculator. She was frustrated. It was taking forever. I asked, why not use a spreadsheet? She said she didn't want to take the time to learn how. I nodded and shrugged, bowing out of the room. She looked flustered and rushed. She had a lot of work to do. I went back to my room and probably read a book after closing my door. 

This year, my spreadsheet has calculated the grades. I haven't entered them into the school's system yet. Better to do that closer to the due date. Until then, I've got my computer out to do this writing. Around the computer I have paper printouts of grades, a thick folder full of final exams, and a binder full of plans for next year. In a tab I have my spreadsheet and I click into it whenever anyone comes in to talk with me. I look busy as hell, so they don't stay long. And I am busy. I'm writing this. So don't bother me.