Coming into my job as a teacher, I planned to give homework every night. I was and for the most part still am convinced that homework is a critical part of a child's learning of the material. Despite this belief, I have given no more than one homework assignment per week. Some weeks my students have escaped without any homework. My reasons for not assigning homework are several. First, I have only recently figured out a manageable way of collecting and grading homework. Trying to take up, grade, and return 110 pieces of paper was far too time consuming to do on a daily basis. I have now moved to a system in which I visually check homework, grade for completion, and mark the score on a checklist. The second reason why I have not given homework regularly is a lack of resources for assigning homework. I do not have enough textbooks to send home with students, and I am limited to 400 copies per month, a number which does not allow for many assignments. I tried giving homework using a class website, but I found that too many of my students lack reliable access to the computer and the internet.
• Dinner with your family every night or at least 4 times a week. This is shown to decrease eating disorders in females, decrease smoking and drug abuse rates in males and recent research suggests it teaches life-long good eating habits—more fruits and vegetables.
• Early to bed. Research suggests that children need 10-12 hours of sleep a day to be ready to learn.
• Limited television, video games and computer time, especially an hour before bed time.
• Reading time every evening. This is a great time for the whole family to sit and read together.
I recently read an article by a fellow blogger. The article addressed the position that some areas of the United States are essentially third world countries. Interestingly and perhaps not surprisingly, the state of Mississippi was ranked as the state most on par with third world countries. In light of this article, I was prompted to address the following question: Is Mississippi essentially a third world country?
My girlfriend visited me in Mississippi during my second week of teaching. What follows is her comments on her experiences in Leland/Greenville.
My first visit to MS was skewed as I only got to see the quaint little town of Oxford. I was confused by all the stereotypes I had heard of MS as Oxford was no different than any other southern town I had visited. The Delta, on the other hand, was a different world. I flew in to the Mid-Delta Regional Airport (a slab of concrete in the middle of a cornfield) on a propeller plane. At the airport I was informed that there were only 8 individuals on the plane and I was going to be moved for weight balance. That is not a comforting statement to hear before getting on a plane. The other 7 passengers and I entered what they called a plane and headed off. The Delta welcomed me with one of the only things I feel it does best: a beautiful sunset.
The week was spent on house arrest as I did not have a car nor a place I wanted to go. I experienced pee-colored water, 2 channels on the tv (offering choices of sesame street or judge judy), and a lot of mosquitoes (which I heard gave someone West Nile Virus the week before). Each afternoon when Chris returned, we enjoyed a walk to downtown Leland. I had always wanted to live in a town where I could walk to places I needed to go. The only problem was that no businesses actually existed that one would want to walk to.
The fields reminded me of summers I spent on my grandparent's farm in
WI. There were familiar smells that if I shut my eyes would make me
thing I was back on the farm. The peaceful lack of the city hustle and
bustle was calming.
I was amazed at the difference on opposite sides of the creek. Mansions
soared with ivy growing up the sides while the other side of the creek
hosted shacks with weeds growing up to the roof. Men just walked around
in the middle of the day with nothing to do.
One Saturday, we completed everything that was possible to do in Greenville. We went downtown and completed the downtown walking tour. After an attempt to go to the visitors' bureau, we realized that nothing is open on weekends. It would seem logical to be open to visitors on the weekends, but everything works a little different in the Delta. That same trend continued when the firehouse museum and other museums were closed. The catholic church was beautiful and convinced us from its exterior to return for a service so that we could experience the inside as well. Warfield Point Park was a quick fun stop, but deserted (like every other place). The bridge to Arkansas offered hope of different sites, yet was eerily similar to the other side.
It felt like I went on vacation to another country. It is hard to
believe that the things I saw occurred in the same country that I live
in.
I
recently finished reading Ruby Payne's book, A
Framework for Understanding Poverty.
The text, based upon Payne's personal experiences with member's
of poverty, came about in response to an Assistant Principal's urging
that she share her keen insight on the plight of the world's poor.
While the ideas in the book seem to some extent to be based
largely upon Payne's interpretation of personal experiences with only
a dabble into concrete research based analysis, I did find that many
of her insights seemed pertinent to my experiences with students from
poverty. While some of her commentary seemed to confirm
observations I have made in the last few months, other parts brought
out fresh views which I had yet to consider. I
will highlight a few of the ideas presented in A
Framework for Understanding Poverty
and comment on their applicability to my situation as a teacher in
an environment of poverty. 1)
There is no time like the present. In fact, according to Payne,
there may be no other time than the present. Payne highlights a
number of 'hidden rules' of the three different economic classes
(poverty, middle, and wealth) and examines the differences between
the rules among the classes. One of these hidden rules is the way
people of different economic statuses approach the concept of time.
Payne contends that people in poverty are limited largely to a view
of time that only focuses on the present. Largely as a result of
their environment, people in poverty operate in a mode of survival, a
mode of living that requires great attention to be payed to facing
the threats of the moment. Unfortunately, operating solely in the
present is one of the characteristics that keeps people from breaking
free from poverty. My
experiences thus far have provided some evidence to confirm Payne's
position. The majority of my students seem to behave in a manner
that demonstrates no regard for the future. For instance, most of
them fail to see any connection between their current performance in
school and their future outcomes in life. Students will tell me that
they want to be a doctor or lawyer but then proceed to sleep in class
rather than work on the education that might make such goals a
reality. The focus is on what is expedient for entertainment or
social status at the moment. With
these observations noted, I will say that I believe this present
tense mindset is not necessarily restricted only to children in
poverty. Looking back on my own actions and feelings as a middle
schooler, I am not sure that I can confidently say that my peers and
I weren't driven by the present of the moment rather than future
considerations. I think the difference between children of poverty
and children of privilege is that those from poverty never outgrow
the mindset of the present. I believe Payne's observations about the
different class's perceptions of time may be most accurate for
adults, but in the case of children I am not convinced that the
differences are as extreme as she might believe. 2)
The show isn't over until the fat student sings. Throughout our
summer training, a huge emphasis was put on the need for a leader in
the classroom. We were told that students are much like a pack of
dogs. There must be a leader of the pack. If the leader is not the
teacher then the leader will be a student and classroom management
will in turn be a nightmare.
Ruby
Payne emphasizes the value of human entertainment by noting that
people in poverty rely heavily on friends and family to provide
entertainment. The need for human entertainment arises in part out
of a poverty stricken individual's lack of resources for acquiring
other forms of entertainment. Payne contends that an individual's
value to a group is therefore based on that individual's ability to
entertain the group. I
believe the need for entertainment arises in the classroom. It may
be true that a classroom requires a leader, but it seems to me that a
more pressing issue is the need for an entertainer. In some ways,
becoming the classroom leader is dependent on first being the
classroom entertainer. The one in the room who is most entertaining
is the most valued in the room and has the ability to demand the most
attention in the room. The individual that is most valued and can
demand the most attention is in the best position to lead the room. I
have spent the first month of school attempting to be the leader in
the classroom. Generally, my attempts at leading have come in the
form of disciplining and intimidating. When doing a science
demonstration this week, I temporarily set aside the persona of boss
and went to that of showman. I built up my demonstration with wild
claims. I used props to accent my presentation. I kept a certain
amount of mystery and suspense about what was going to happen. More
importantly though, I kept every students' eyes on me. I was the
leader not because they were scared of a writing assignment but
because I was, for a moment, the most entertaining person in the
room.
Though
Payne may not have explicitly stated this, her comments helped me
realize that bringing an element of entertainment to my lessons may
be the most efficient way to take control of my class. 3)
Do you see what I see? One of the most interesting sections of the
book and, unfortunately, one of the least elaborated on sections
dealt with the art of reading a person's eyes. We sometimes think
people can look into our souls, but, according to Payne, there is
some substance to the art of looking into people's brains. According
to the book, a person's eye position can be used to determine whether
the person is recalling a visual experience, piecing together a
visual experience, contemplating personal emotions, etc. The
beauty of being aware of this phenomenon would seem to be a teacher's
ability to tap into a students current thought process. If the
teacher can tell that a student is recalling a visual image then the
teacher might say, “Tell me what you see”. In contrast, if a
teacher was aware that a student was thinking about an auditory
experience then the teacher would be able to say “What do you
remember me saying in class?”.
I
think that developing this skill will take some practice, but I am
excited about giving it a try. 4)
Final thoughts: Overall, I believe Payne offers incredible insight
into the world of poverty. Reading her book has allowed me to gain a
better understanding of the mindset of my students, an understanding
which will undoubtedly assist in my development as a professional
teacher.
Like a number of MTC and TFA teachers, I am living in a community other than the one in which I teach. I thought I would provide a brief description of both of these communities to put into context the environment in which my journey is taking place.
A little over a week ago, Teach for America announced the creation of a new teacher training institute. The institute, one of only a handful in the country, will be located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. The announcement led me to reflect on the ways in which this training institute will affect education in Mississippi and other alternative route teacher training programs such as the Mississippi Teacher Corps.
It seems obvious that the presence of a teacher training institute in the Mississippi Delta is a positive event for the education of the area's students. Teach for America has a proven reputation of providing high achieving, enthusiastic teachers for areas with a high need. The Mississippi Delta is an area of high need, and Teach for America is a large part of the solution. I could not help but wonder though whether Teach for America could be the entire solution.
The Mississippi Delta lacks quality teachers. Teach for America recruits herds of potentially qualified teachers and provides them with the training to be qualified teachers or at least as qualified as a first year teacher can be. By placing a teacher training institute in the Delta, TFA is making a concrete commitment to the region, a commitment seen also in their nearly 30% increase in teacher placement in the Delta for the coming year.
What role does the Mississippi Teacher Corps play in the future of education in Mississippi? It is easy to view TFA's expansion in the region as a death blow to MTC. After all, MTC provides participants with a free Masters in Education. More properly stated, funding provided by the state of Mississippi allows MTC to provide participants with a free Masters of Education. From a strictly economical view then it seems to make a whole lot more sense to replace MTC teachers with TFA teachers thereby saving the state of Mississippi the cost of paying off the MTC tuition bill. Could I be witnessing and participating in the end of days for the Mississippi Teacher Corps?
The short answer is yes, and it is not an all bad thing. Programs such as MTC and TFA should have as their end goal a death wish. The goal of Teacher Corps and TFA should be not only to provide quality teachers but also to serve as a catalyst for education reform. This reform in turn should lead to a self-sustaining system of education. In an ideal world, MTC and TFA teachers provide a quality education to young Mississippians who go on to be the teachers, principals, superintendents, and school board members of the next generation, a generation that no longer needs to bring in hundreds of recent college graduates to feel vacancies in the state's education work force. If this is the end of the need for MTC then one would hope that the program could take joy in the fact that its services are no longer needed and gracefully bow out.
Of course, people can be funny when it comes to hanging up the cleats even if the time for retirement is obviously upon them. As a result, I wouldn't expect a program like MTC or TFA to go quietly into the night. Too many have invested too much to let these programs take a bow. Luckily, I feel that a forced retirement is probably premature for MTC.
Teacher Corps is being faced with a bigger, stronger, and more efficient competitor in the form of TFA. Rather than go extinct it is time for MTC to adapt.
Teacher Corps value to education in Mississippi and its ability to survive will depend on its carving out of a unique niche of its own. A couple of ideas, parts of which have already come up in MTC reunion discussions, for such an adaptation follow:
1) Target other parts of the state - The problems with Mississippi education may be most strongly expressed in the Delta, but they are certainly not absent from other parts of the state. Let TFA take care of the Delta. Let MTC take care of the urban schools of Jackson, the Katrina battered schools of the Gulf Coast, and the rural settings of the eastern part of the state. This is an approach that MTC has already begun to take by placing a large number of teachers in Jackson.
2) Recruit teachers that will stay in Mississippi - TFA is notorious for bringing in recruits who teach for two years and then go on to some other profession. If the deeply entrenched problems of education in the state are to be broken, the state needs quality teachers who commit a career to the region. MTC can set itself apart from TFA by recruiting teachers who are committed to a long term teaching career in Mississippi.
Of course, I would only be doing half the battle if I neglected to put forth some positive ways in which these adaptations can be achieved. Brief suggestions for bringing these adaptations into reality follow:
1) Target other parts of the state – Part of this battle is mental. The administration of MTC has a history of placing teachers in the Delta, and it may be these administrators’ habits which serve as the biggest obstacle to achieving the goal of placing teachers in other parts of the state. There is obviously a need for quality teachers in parts of the state other than the Delta. Once MTC administrators fully recognize this need, as I believe many already have, placement of teachers into other parts of the state should work in the same manner as placement in the Delta has in the past. The second part of this battle is the constrictions faced by the masters degree aspect of MTC. Since MTC requires teachers to attend Saturday classes at Ole Miss throughout the Fall and Spring semesters, placement of teachers becomes limited by the need to place teachers in a reasonable proximity to Oxford. Placing teachers any further than 3 hours from Oxford creates an unreasonable Saturday commute for the teachers. Luckily, the solution to this is simple. In the day and age of technology, physically meeting for classes is unnecessary. Just as many undergraduate courses have transitioned to an electronic medium, so should MTC graduate courses. Video tape lectures, create discussion boards where participants can gather advice from each other, and start placing MTC teachers on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, a location where they would now only be a mouse clicks drive away from their Saturday courses.
2) Recruit teachers that will stay in Mississippi – I believe this goal could be accomplished in two ways. The first and probably most effective way to achieve this goal is to significantly alter the profile of the successful MTC applicant. Rather than recruiting recent college graduates whose heads still dance with visions of law school, recruit individuals who demonstrate a commitment to teaching as a career. Instead of the recent college graduate, recruit the graduate school graduate or the person searching for a career change. Instead of expecting no prior education training or experience, recruit the individual who has taken several education courses and is still drawn to the field. Find recruits that may have gone on to be teachers without Teacher Corps and put them in a position that increases the likelihood that they end up following their teaching aspirations into the state of Mississippi. The second method by which to recruit teachers that will stay in Mississippi is to increase or at least alter the incentives. Perhaps the program alters the free masters degree to require a three or four year commitment. While the masters coursework could still be limited to two years, teachers could be responsible for paying tuition should they leave the profession of teaching in the state of Mississippi prior to their full 3-4 year commitment. As an alternative, perhaps the program offers continuing education beyond the Masters degree. A free or reduced tuition program leading to a doctorate of education or a masters in education administration might do the trick.
These suggestions are of course merely some of the many routes the Mississippi Teacher Corps might pursue in rethinking their role in Mississippi education. Whether these approaches are the most appropriate is debatable. What is known is that a debate should take place. To this end, I hope these suggestions serve as a catalyst for a more substantial discussion of the future of alternative route teacher education in Mississippi and might serve as a springboard for delaying MTC’s time of dying for a bit longer.
Author’s Note: The basic premise of this argument, namely that TFA provides a more cost effective means of recruiting teachers to the Delta, was based upon the supposition that the cost to the state of offering free masters degrees to MTC participants outweighs any funding provided by the state to TFA. Obviously, should it be determined that on a per teacher basis MTC does not cost the state more than TFA then certain aspects of this article would have to be rethought; however, the author would still defend the need for MTC to pursue its own niche in Mississippi education. Detailed information regarding the amount of state funding provided to TFA was not readily available. Anyone with information regarding this matter is invited to share it with the broader readership of this blog.
Teacher Corps summer training has been a whirlwind of early mornings, challenges in the classroom, and a few glimpses of hope. All of this has contributed to the successful completion of the overarching summer goal, namely my development into a competent middle school teacher.
Summer training provided an excellent balance between real world teaching experience (I taught at least one lesson every day) and classroom based teacher education (I completed 9 credits towards a masters degree in education). While there are necessarily limitations on the amount of growth a teacher can experience during a two month summer period, I believe the combination of these two avenues of learning have come as close as possible to preparing me to take on a full time teaching position.
I will highlight some of my favorite aspects of the summer training and my least favorite aspects of the summer training.
Favorites:
1) Real teaching experience – A large part of the success of Teacher Corps training must be owed to the fact that participants find themselves teaching at least one lesson per day. This teaching is not student teaching or assistant teaching. It was my responsibility to develop a lesson plan and put the lesson plan into action in the classroom. Obviously, the best preparation for teaching is teaching, and Teacher Corps ensured that there was not lack in this department.
2) Support – Teacher Corps runs its own summer school. That means that everything from the principal down to the first year teachers is controlled by the program. The advantage of this setup is that there is an endless amount of support for new teachers. Each classroom contained a TEAM teacher (a teacher with 2 or more years of teaching experience). Additionally, each classroom contained 3-4 second year teachers during the first month of training. Extensive feedback from second years, TEAM teachers, and other first years served to make me aware of my weaknesses as a teacher. Extensive support from second years, TEAM teachers, and other first years served to ensure that the criticism always remained constructive and never became an overwhelming stress.
3) Role Plays – Given that Mississippi schools are in general rural in nature, the number of students in the summer school was naturally limited. Small class sizes, while great for the students, did not provide realistic experience with classroom management and behavior issues. To remedy this limitation, role plays or simulated classroom management situations were undergone. In the role plays, TEAM teachers played the role of misbehaving students while first year teachers practiced their classroom management techniques. Since classroom learning depends largely on the prerequisite of classroom management, role plays were quite possibly the most useful aspect of my summer training.
Least Favorites:
1) Time management – One thing that was stressed throughout summer training was that as teachers it is our responsibility to ensure that the maximum amount of classroom time ends up dedicated to student learning. Unfortunately, I felt that this advice was not always applied to the summer training. The summer training put a large emphasis on the observation of the teaching of other first year teachers. While other first year teachers did have techniques that proved useful to observe, I believe that the time committed to observation of other first year teachers could have been more wisely allocated to the observation of more experienced teachers or to extended lesson planning time.
2) Lack of students – While the role plays contributed to our preparation for classroom management, there really is no substitute to having an actual, full class of students. The summer training would benefit greatly from finding a way to enroll more students in the summer school. This could be achieved in two ways. First, subsidizing the price of summer school would eliminate financial obstacles to attendance. Second, more enrichment students should be enrolled. Enrichment students would be students who merely wanted more exposure to the material rather than to make up credits from a failed course.
Of course, a better analysis of my summer training will not be possible until I have actually put my training to use in the Fall.
The end of the summer brought about a Saturday afternoon of presentations from the MTC interns. Each intern chose to focus on a different aspect of Mississippi culture or society. Though only one of the presentations dealt directly with education, I believe all of them touched on issues that affect Mississippi education indirectly.
The first intern project we viewed, a video by Tahina Vatel, provided a short documentation of the MTC summer school. I was initially excited by the goal of the video, namely to give a voice to the often overlooked summer school students. While the video did include several short interviews with summer school students, I found that given the stated objective a surprising amount of time was dedicated to face time for teachers. I think first year teachers’ experiences are well worth documenting; however, more camera time for the students would have helped the documentary fall more in line with its stated goals. The documentary was prefaced with a statement that it is a work in progress. I look forward to viewing a later version of the film in hopes that more attention will be turned to the students. Readers can find the current version of the documentary at mtcorps.net
The second intern’s (Kelly Tellis-Warren) presentation focused on teen pregnancies in Mississippi. The statistics displayed the great disparity of teen births between whites and blacks. While these stats serve to give concrete evidence to a problem prevalent not only in Mississippi, they also serve to reveal one of the many issues that will seep into the classroom. As a seventh grade teacher, I expect the number of pregnant students in my classroom to be low or non-existent; however, the ramifications of teenage pregnancy run deep through the education system. Children from teenage pregnancies often lack sufficient prenatal care, often come from homes lacking a father figure, and often lack parental support with homework and studies. Given that many of my students may be products of teenage pregnancies themselves, these are all ramifications I will face.
One of the biggest problems with teenage pregnancies is its cyclic nature. Having dealt with underserved Girl Scout troops, my girlfriend is often faced with wide eyed responses when she tells her girls that she is 22 and without child. After all, in a culture where thirty year old grandmas are not uncommon waiting till 22 to have children puts you way behind the curve. As a teacher, I would like to explore ways in which to break this cycle. As was made clear in the intern presentation, sex education is non-existent in Mississippi. Assuming that it is legal, I will be making an effort to incorporate sex education into my classroom lessons – one small benefit of being a science teacher.
The next intern project highlighted the notorious Parchman prison. Famous for its many references in blues songs, this prison has seen its share of complaints regarding human rights. In relation to education, Parchman prison will obviously be a place I will be working to ensure that my students do not end up. In many ways, I felt that the shortcomings of the prison system mirrored the many shortcomings of the education system. I am beginning to get the feeling that the state of Mississippi is a place where shortcomings pervade all. One issue brought up regarding Parchman was the presence of a prisoner work program. While the work program was presented as an abuse of prisoners, I felt that the program was an excellent use of convicts. Rather than allowing convicts to be a burden on state taxpayers, why not put them to work in order to offset some of these costs? I would be curious to know how much money is generated by the work program in comparison to how much the prison system costs to operate.
The final intern project focused on the Mississippi Freedom Project’s Freedom Schools, products of the 1964 Freedom Summer. I have previously blogged about the book ‘Letters From Mississippi’. Anyone interested in this topic should give the text a read. While I was familiar with the Freedom Schools, the project did an excellent job of highlighting current organizations that carry on the mission of the Freedom Schools. One of those programs just happens to be the Mississippi Teacher Corps.
I have a teacher routine! Sit down, get started, and I’ll take a nap because you know what to do. Well, not quite. Having a productive learning environment that runs itself is still a ways off; however, I have established a classroom atmosphere in which my students know what to expect. Thanks to a not so hidden camera in the back of the classroom, I was able to get a student’s eye view of my routine in action. This is the second lesson I have videotaped during my time as a middle school science summer school teacher. My first lesson, while solid, was plagued with annoying personal habits and some definite room for improvement (see “June Videotaped Lesson”). While still not perfect, my second videotaped lesson yielded several obvious changes for the better. Foremost… my routine. My July videotaped lesson is a perfect example of the routine I have established in my classroom. My routine runs as follows: Students enter the class. Students begin work on a Do Now assignment posted on the board. I entertain the students, often at my own expense, for about 3 minutes with an engaging introduction to the lesson. Using the overhead, I provide a 6-7 minute lecture on the lesson’s material while the students take notes. An independent practice or hands on activity follows. The class returns to the overhead for another 5 minutes of notes. More independent practice follows. We wrap up with a short quiz or discussion and get ready to do the same thing again tomorrow. When I first saw the word “routine” on my evaluator’s notes, I thought I was in for a criticism for being too predictable. Surely the students would prefer a learning environment that keeps them on their toes? Actually not. This predictability in my lessons allows the students to focus on learning the material rather than trying to guess what we are going to do next, and by varying the independent practice between worksheets, group work, labs, art projects, etc, the lessons avoid the pitfall of becoming boring. The second great accomplishment I noticed in my July videotaped lesson was the absence of any annoying personal habits. The only time I said “right” in the entire lesson was in response to one of my student’s insightful answers. The third accomplishment of this lesson was the lack of any awkward feeling in watching myself on film. I am not sure if it is normal to get over such a feeling in only two on screen performances, but I am actually coming to enjoy the look of myself in a tie. The Oscar goes to… Every movie star has a critic though, and sometimes the star himself is the most demanding critic. The biggest problem in this lesson was my time management. I have recently begun teaching some block periods (100 minute periods rather than the traditional 50 minutes). While my videotaped lesson fell into the traditional fifty minute style, I have noticed that ever since teaching a block I have had a tendency to over plan my fifty minute lessons. While being over prepared is better than finding yourself with fifteen minutes left in class and nothing for the students to do, giving a student thirty seconds to complete the end of lesson quiz before the bell rings is not exactly desirable either. The solution to this problem is simple. When aware that I am running low on time, I must prioritize the remaining activities. Cutting independent practice time short by two minutes in order to ensure ample time for the quiz is a far better solution than quizzing students on their ability to balance five chemical equations in thirty seconds. Overall, I believe my teaching ability has improved since June (despite the fact that I gave myself a quantitatively higher score on my June lesson than on my July lesson). Teaching is a process of learning, and it is amazing how much I have learned in two months.
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ashton said:
You bring up an interesting point: if left to its own devices without governmental assistance would Mississippi qualify as a... read more
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Chris said:
From what I can tell, the yellow color of the water is most prominent in the Greenville area and seems... read more
on A Third World Country In America?
We just had parent conferences this last Wednesday and parents asked, where is the homework? ...I was shocked because these... read more
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