Growth (or something like it) In The Schools

As in other schools, my worth as a teacher is determined almost arbitrarily. My school has students take the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) in September, January, and May to measure how effectively I've gotten them to learn reading and 'riting if not 'rithmetic. 

This week, my administrators and the person who facilitates testing stopped to see me. They were both interested in having a couple more kids take and do well on the test. I was confused because I don't much care about unreliable tests that measure very little. But rather than chalk up their interest to rah-rah, go-team nonsense, I came to understand they were looking out for me. 

I need to show growth acceptable to the algorithm in order to be rated effective and avoid being put on an improvement plan. Need might be too strong a word. I've been on improvement plans before and they are largely just additional paperwork for my admin. I don't want to be the reason for more work, but I didn't develop this ridiculous system and won't buy into it. 

I spend a lot of class-time developing reading skills. I don't teach much of this. I structure time for students to read and take everything out of the way. No book reports or testing. We write a brief note (post-it size) after each day of reading. I talk with kids about their books, but mostly try to listen and get them back to reading. The problems kids have with reading are that there's no backlit screen, they aren't used to staying with something, and teachers usually spoil the hell out of even a good book. 

The SRI may measure reading growth or not. I don't give a shit. I know that many of my students haven't read a book in years if ever and when they finish a book they are surprised at what they've done for themselves. I have a few students who have read half a dozen books this year. One has finished more than a dozen after claiming to have never read a whole book. 

Today is the last day for SRI testing and the facilitator is back hoping to get a couple more kids tested to prop up my scores. I'm grateful I have people trying to help me, but I hope they won't mind that I choose not to get excited about any of it. I've got more important things to do, like reading my book. 

Walking Out Of Class

I walked out of my class today. It wasn't anything bad. No one was bleeding. There was no smoke bomb or stink bomb. I walked out for a simple reason: I had to pee. 

Ours is a school filled with at-risk kids. That crowd can get out of hand fast. I've had it happen in my class a couple dozen times a year. This is why the usual thing is to get the hall monitor to watch the class while we are gone, but I don't usually bother. It depends on the group, the day, my mood, the phase of the moon. Today, I wasn't worried about it. 

In the hall, another staff member was talking to the hall monitor. "Oh," she said to him, "I guess you have to go watch Brian's class." I waved them off. Don't worry about it. I don't take long to pee. On the way back to class, the staff member was looking at my class. "They're all reading," she said, amazed. I shrugged. Of course they are. "How do you keep them working when you're not there?"

I don't think of what we do as drudge-work and I've engineered things to work this way. 

The first part is crucial. There's not much I want to do more than write and read. I project the idea that writing and reading is the best kind of work. It's not drudgery. We get to write. We get to read. What could be better? They don't love writing and reading as much as I do, but enough of my enthusiasm rubs off. 

The second part goes back to a lesson I was taught in my first year of teaching by my friend Faith who might not remember and hopefully won't mind me telling. 

"Every so often," she said, "walk out of class. Stand around the corner by the lockers and listen. Then come back." There was no need to say anything. Just go back to conducting class. 

I tried it the next day with ninth graders as they were reading. I put down my book, walked out, and stood around the corner. I listened. After a few moments, someone said something. I waited until they were quiet again and went back, picked up my book, took my seat, and kept reading. It was like I had just been given fire by the gods. 

There's more to it of course than just walking out and walking back in, but not much more.  The big part is trusting not just in them but in what I have done with them. The fear is that they will go nuts behind my back. I have to get over that fear. My experience has been that they go nuttiest when I'm there. It's performance art and no good without me there to react. 

When I leave, they mostly do what we've been doing. They'll look at their phones some, but we do that when I'm there. I teach them how to balance phone stuff and school stuff because that's important to learn.  

By this point in the year, they hardly notice me leaving or coming back which is good. Who really wants to think about me having a pee? Better to reading or writing. If I do class right, I'm not important enough to notice that much. 

Vampires & People Who Just Need Blood

From the teaching desk

It’s difficult and tiring being around depressed people so often. That's part of my job, teaching at-risk students, and I feel more for them than myself, but it wears on me. I am tired and out of balance. Depression feels contagious. Today I’ve worked with five kids in four hours who have been so out of the light they’ve brought darkness to my world.

"To a passage so poorly lit
There's moths flying away from it"

—Neko Case, "Prison Girls"

This part of the job is tough to explain. The common thinking is I need to buck up and get over it, but depression isn't something we swat away with happy thoughts and a smile. Depression feels to me like mercury, a poison that enters the system, never leaves, and accumulates.

Last period a student slated to take a state exam soon gave up preparing for it. "They aren't even going to let me take it," she said. "My family is moving and my old school isn't going to let me take it there but the new school won't let me take it there either." She swore and I felt her sinking into the darkness. I said, "Schools don't move fast. You’ll be allowed to take it. That's good because you have the opportunity and it's bad because now you have the responsibility to take it." She swore again. I said, "you've shown you know how to do this. I’ve seen that. Take one deep breath, close your eyes, imagine something calm, and when you open your eyes, hold onto enough of that calm to get started." I tried to show her how, gently, understanding she was sinking. She swore again, not at me maybe at fate. I patted her shoulder. "You are capable of more than you believe."

All that was fine even if though it didn’t work. Maybe there will be some cumulative effect, like mercury, but not poisonous. In that moment though, it was as if she were sinking into the floor, distorting its shape, making a dark hole into which I too was sliding. She was the fifth student pulling on me out of the light. Three quarters of an hour later, I'm hanging on, trying to pull myself up, but I'm pretty tired.

This isn't the toughest part of the job but it worms into my system. It's tough to be around people who are so depressed and try to be of use to them without losing my balance and giving up.

In teaching, there’s not much I can do about this other than take care of myself and get help when I need it. I see my therapist every other week or so. I leave school stuff at school. I find solace in writing and reading. Today, reading Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work, I found something he calls “The Vampire Test.” He tells of how Picasso “was notorious for sucking all the energy out of the people he met” sending them home “nervous and exhausted” while he used all the energy he had just sucked out of them to fuel his painting.

Sculptor Constantin Brancusi, “hailed from the Carpathian Mountains, and he knew a vampire when he saw one” so he refused to have anything to do with Picasso.

I like the story and the message that we should banish vampires from our lives. I would add only that there is a difference between a vampire and someone who needs blood. Deciding between vampires and those in need is an important part of my job. And even when it turns out that someone is simply in need of transfusion, I first have to make sure that I’m healthy enough to help them. For the time being, I’m going to work on climbing up out of this hole and into the light. Once I’m back on the surface, back in balance, back in the light, then I might be able to help again.

Until then, I’m going to keep writing.