Pretend you are one of my MGS31s.  This is the course code for the first term of three terms (slower track) Geometry.  If you are in this class in the fall term, you are officially off-track, which means you have failed [at least] one semester of Algebra 1 or this class last term.  You are also at least a junior, in a class which is taken by many freshmen who took Algebra 1 in middle school.  You are not feeling good about your mathematical acumen or this class.  And the section you have been assigned to is early – 8:04 a.m. – a time at which teenage brains are still struggling to stay awake.  This has been scientifically shown.  It doesn’t matter that your teacher is Ms. Menard, who LOVES geometry (what is WRONG with her, anyway?) and is determined that you will love it too.  You will resist her efforts, despite your longing to be on-track, earn this damn math credit, and graduate high school on time.  You will come to class late, sometimes snooze, or text to stay awake, and defiantly NOT participate.  Ms. Menard’s okay – sort of, in a nerdy math teacher kind of way – but what she represents is not.  And she is, after all, only a teacher, and as a 16-year-old with bigger problems, doing what SHE wants is not your priority.

I have a room full of you and your peers every morning.  I don’t believe that you can’t  ‘do math’, and I do believe that you can learn to appreciate Geometry, which is, indeed, the greatest thing since and before sliced bread.  I have taught struggling students before, and I am determined to use everything in my arsenal to engage you.   But despite the fabulous Logic Game that Needs a Name, despite the Mathalicious baseball lesson, I am unable to reach you.  I get compliance from about half of you, and understanding from approximately one-quarter of you.    From the rest of the class, I get resistance, lateness, and/or absenteeism.

I am teaching Discrete Math this term for the first time, a course which I am putting together as I go through the term, as well as Algebra 2.  So I’ve already got two other preps, one which requires a lot of planning time.  I have scads of geometry lessons, so I have tried to re-use material, with moderate tweaking.  But the same ole’ same ole’ isn’t working, and truth be told, it didn’t work that well when I taught Geometry at that high need school in my early teaching years.  The end of the 2nd marking period has passed; I’m almost done with this class – why not coast?  The kids are.

But I can’t bear it.  I can’t stand starting my day with failure.  And I don’t want to waste my precious time (not meant sarcastically) on a half-assed job that I know I can do better.  Over the summer, I signed up to be a beta tester for some project-based learning units at Curriki.org.  I didn’t have time or inclination to look at them in the beginning of the term, but in my search for something different over the last few weeks, I returned to them.   They are fully written units, Common Core aligned (bonus!), complete with pacing, worksheet masters, and rubrics.  There are links, suggestions, resources, and student editions of each for the six units.  Theoretically we should be one or two units into the course, but to be completely honest, we are just beginning to talk about triangles.  So I decided to try the first unit.   The good thing – and bad thing – about teaching off-track students in a large school is that no one pays attention to what you are doing with them, especially at 8 am.  So I can experiment to my heart’s content.

The first project is entitled “Selling Geometry”; the students need to create a marketing campaign directed at teens to convince them of them of the importance of Geometry in the world.   They will be developing this campaign as we study geometry basics (angles, line segments, triangles) and rigid motions.  I like the creative aspect of the project; it appeals to some of the students who shy away from the math.  Over the weekend, I prepped for the unit.  I found apps (free, of course – no budget) for our iPads with which the students could create presentations.  I created – with the help of some tweeps – a team-building activity to start out with.  I tried to envision exactly how my classroom would look during this project – my first principal, Brad Haggerty, taught me that if you can make your expectation is crystal clear to yourself, you can communicate it effectively to your students.  And away we go – wish me luck!  Updates to follow.

I am the local evangelist for the #MTBoS.  At least once a day, the phrase “this teacher I know on Twitter” or “this blog I read” or “the online community of which I am a part” comes out of my mouth.   For example, the fabulous post on two column proofs by Math With Bad Drawings not only sparked a debate among my office mates, but I also passed it along to my Assistant Principal, and it is becoming the cornerstone of our Geometry curriculum revision effort.

I mentor a new teacher in my department whose courseload is all Algebra 1 (which I do not teach), so I have someone to which I can refer all of the great Algebra 1 ideas I read on line, like this great post on combining like terms at Simplify With Me.   When I sent her @jreulbach’s post on 4 4’s, she used it the next day with great success, which sent her fragile first year teacher ego soaring.

I’ve passed along MathMunch (jeez – I’ve got the poster on my office door!), read Dan Meyer’s The Unengageables post out loud to groups of teachers  (no wonder I’m so popular), and run a local professional development session on Desmos.  Looking back through my email, I see that I am frequently sharing the incredible resources that is on my screen, in my phone, at my fingertips, every day.  I’m still the only person I know actively tweeting (my children don’t, my students [most of them] don’t, my colleagues don’t), but I’m getting the word out.   My teaching and my life have been greatly enriched by this MathTwitterBlogoSphere – and I will continue to share the wealth in my local community.

Oh my, oh my!  The days are so long and so chock full of EVERYTHING!  I’m going to try and narrate a day in the life of this crazy teacher.   I’m going to tell it from start to finish – because the school day starts when I leave my house, and ends – well, it’s still going on – because I am working on a Notebook for later in the week, answering messages on Skedula, and thinking about how I am going to present equations of lines and parabolas in a brand new light tomorrow.

I left the house in darkness (6:13 am or, as my daughter calls it ‘ass o’clock’); the sun was just beginning to rise as I got tot school.  I usually leave everything prepared for Monday morning on Friday, but I am writing a new unit in Discrete Math (a new course I am putting together as I go), and thus needed to make a copy run first thing this morning for the lessons that were finished over the weekend.  Luckily, there was paper, toner, and the copy machine was working.  The Fates are smiling on me so far.  In the office I run into Mr. R, who tells me that his daughters (who are 12 years away from college) used to love school, but now hate it because of all the Common Core work they have to do, and blame their teacher.  Sigh.

My office, located in a former boys bathroom, is comfortable temperature-wise, which is a change – last week it felt like a sauna when the heat was on.  I put together my copy requests for the coming week (the school Copy Center is one of my favorite features at school), chug a bit of coffee (it’s still not quite 8 am), and head down to my Geometry class, pushing an iPad cart topped with compasses, straight edges, and lots of scrap paper.

My 2nd period Geometry class is a challenging one – it is the first of three semesters (a slower pace), and all of the students in it are off-track – they have failed at least one term of math somewhere in high school.   I am trying – REALLY TRYING – to bring the material alive for them, but they are a difficult audience – it is early in the morning, they are highly suspicious of anyone telling them math can be enjoyable, and their skills are weak.  Today we are having differentiated construction practice and a quiz.  Each student will take the quiz when they are ready (they need to produce 7 constructions).  They can review on the iPads using mathopenref.com, GeoGebra, or an app called Geometric Construction Tutor Lite.    Once they finish the quiz, students can opt to work on a project from Creative Constructions or explore GeoGebra.  Everyone gets busy, which gives me the opportunity to work one-on-one with those students who have been struggling with the constructions, despite the cooperative groups in which they have been sitting.  The kids are engaged and focused all period long; I hope the results on the assessment reflect their effort.

I love my 3rd period prep; it is usually a time when I debrief/brainstorm/dish/howl with my office-mate Albert, a gifted 2nd year teacher, who is a super-mathy, super-funny, and literally half my age.  We argue about how much detail is required in 2 column proofs (or if 2 column proofs are required at all, another point of endless debate), work Exeter math problems on our wall-size whiteboard, and do the Peanut Butter Jelly Time song and dance.

Next are my back-to-back Discrete Math classes, a new course which I am teaching (and writing) this term.  The current unit is Voting Theory, something which I haven’t taught (or studied) before, but which is very real and relevant to the students, and has thus far gotten a lot of kids talking and volunteering opinions.  In fact, Thomas W., who barely passed my Algebra 2 class last year, and  NEVER spoke unless practically forced to, has been raising his hand at least twice each period.  These classes have an interesting mix of juniors and seniors, and a wide range of motivation and skill level – I have students who are several math credits short for graduation, and others who perhaps failed the second term of Algebra 2 or Pre-Calculus and are taking this course as a filler math class until their desired class is offered again in the spring.   The 4th period class is large and lively – EVERYONE wants to be heard, and side conversations – on topic –  spin off from the whole class discussion frequently.  We are using a hypothetical school mayoral election to examine the different ways votes can be counted, which led, in one discussion, to the proposition that all elections are popularity contests, even political ones.  The 5th period class is more reserved, but they had a high level debate on Friday (during my formal observation, bless them) about whether a Borda count made sense in this type of election, and whether the candidate with the most first place votes deserved to win if all of their other votes (in a preference schedule) were last place votes.   But I could not get a response from this same class that did me so proud on Friday; attendance today was poor – a side effect of teaching off-track seniors – and perhaps my delivery of the material was not as smooth as I would have liked, the downside of teaching something brand new.  In the 90 minutes in which I taught these two classes, I went from very psyched to reflectively revising tomorrow’s lesson.

LUNCH TIME!! I am a lucky gal.  My husband makes me a wonderful lunch every day, and I try to honor that lovely meal by not working.  Today, however, this was not possible.  My two honors track Algebra 2 classes immediately follow lunch, and with our departmental midterm coming up on Friday, I wanted to make sure that I reviewed as many homework problems as possible during class, as well as some practice on topics that they struggle with, like absolute value inequalities.  So my lunch was eaten while doing math – not the worst thing in the world.  And two very lovely things happened during this period: first, the younger sister of one of my former students came by with a gift from her sister, currently an Honors student at SUNY Oswego – her Geometry notebook from my class.  (I got these notebooks for all of my students through a grant from Donorschoose.org.)  Shortly thereafter, another student, Victoria T., came by to ask me if I would write her recommendation for the Brooklyn College Scholars Program – she wants to become a math teacher.  Big warm fuzzy!  Did I mention that the student at Oswego is double majoring in Math and Adolescent Education as well?  Great reasons to have my lunch interrupted.

I finish my teaching day with 2 sections of Algebra 2, Honors track.  Jam-packed classes – 34 students each.  Totally different vibes.  The 7th period class – they are diligent but humorless, at least with me.  They ask questions – occasionally – but don’t like to answer them, or share work on the board.   It’s easier to get through the lesson with them because I haven’t quite figured out how to draw them out, and there is not a lot of discussion (not happy about this, but it’s efficient, anyway).  But my 8th period – well, that’s my reward for making it through the day (if you have been reading my blog this term, you may have heard this before).  They walk in asking questions, volunteering to put work on the board, helping each other.  They laugh at my ridiculous math nerd jokes, and even have started making their own.  And today, when we proved that 2 complex numbers were multiplicative inverses of one another – there were actually ooh’s and aah’s.  Really.   Julius M. even said, “That is so cool!”  I love those kids – they bring a big smile to my math teacher-y face.  I wish we had more time to practice, to explore – there are so many activities I want to use with these students to bring meaning to the abstraction that is Algebra 2, but I am barely halfway through the pacing calendar, and more than halfway through the term.

I managed to leave school pretty quickly today – to come home and finish planning the rest of the week in Voting Theory.  The lessons are done, but not the SmartBoard files, and I want to have guided worksheets so the students don’t spend all their time copying down preference schedules.  One hour of tutoring, putting together the Hanukah package for my daughter who won’t be home for another 2 months , an hour of #alg2chat, and here it is – time for bed – because 5:20 a.m. (or ass o’clock, you know) is just a few hours away.

 

This is such a good question, Kate, because I think about this.   My posts tend not to be about specific lesson details but rather about overarching themes that resonate with me for a period of days or weeks (unless I am reporting on a specific event like the Greer Conference at Exeter or Twitter Math Camp).  I read a wide range of blogs with different foci – some are very specific in lesson and resource sharing (mathequalslove, for example), others are broader and curriculum-based (emergentmath.com), still others are emotionally open and [sometimes] provocative (@sophgermain) and others document trends, pose questions and push the conversation about math education ever forward (dy/dan).   The Math-Twitt-o-Blog-o-Sphere is so rich in talent, smarts and generosity that I am, at times, humbled by my participation in it.  But I try to give back to the community what I can from my own experience, while engaging in this rewarding reflective practice myself.  So, to answer your questions:

1. What hooked you on reading the blogs? Was it a particular post or person? Was it an initiative by the nice MTBoS folks? A colleague in your building got you into it? Desperation?

The first blog I ever read was Math Teacher Mambo.  I came across this font of enthusiasm searching for geometry resources (aka Desperation), and, as a new teacher, was blown away by the quality of her work and her willingness to just PUT IT OUT THERE.   I didn’t yet realize, however, what a rich resource was waiting for me.  I don’t know when I first came across Dan Meyer’s blog, but I am certain that it was not only the blog, but also the discourse that ensued from each of Dan’s posts that fascinated me and gave me an idea of the nature of the online teaching community.  It is ironic that you mention ‘a colleague in my building’ – because I am fairly certain that I am the only teacher in my department reading these blogs (another reason for my participation in #MTBoS).

2. What keeps you coming back? What’s the biggest thing you get out of reading and/or commenting?

I keep coming back for two reasons: growth and community.  Or to put it another way, enrichment and validation.  Even though the wealth of ideas is overwhelming at times, pushing me to continually seek out new organizational tools (Old Reader? Evernote? Index Cards? Yet another Moleskine?), every week I fortuitously find some type of resource  – a classroom strategy, a game, an activity, a professional practice – seemingly tailor-made to my current pedagogical needs.  And each time I participate in the online community, whether by blogging myself, commenting on another blog, or reading through posts and comments, I feel more supported by a network of people spanning not just the country, but the globe.  For this NYC girl who, like most New Yorkers, tends to be a little geo-centric, that’s a great feeling.

3. If you write, why do you write? What’s the biggest thing you get out of it?

I write to have a voice in this rich community whose participants I admire .  I write to reflect on my experience, to process and synthesize my thoughts on math education in general, and my own practice in specific.  I write because I know that some people read, and I love the comments that people post.  And here’s something most people reading this blog don’t know about me.  In a former lifetime – my first adult lifetime – I was not only an English major, but an aspiring academic who got an M.A. in English and American Lit before realizing that literary criticism was not the same as loving literature (maybe even the opposite?).  During those years, I spent a LOT of time writing, was quite good at it, and enjoyed it.  So one motivation for writing is that this side of me doesn’t get regular exercise as a math teacher, and it is a side that I value and, to be honest, cherish.  I like flexing my verbal muscles – and if, in doing so, I make a contribution to the #MTBoS or help even one person in the way that others who share have helped me – well, that’s plenty of reason.

4. If you chose to enter a room where I was going to talk about blogging for an hour (or however long you could stand it), what would you hope to be hearing from me? MTBoS cheerleading and/or tourism? How-to’s? Stories? 

I think what I would like to hear most is how to use one’s blog to effect change and/or increase the efficacy of one’s teaching – next steps as a blogger.   I think what people who don’t blog, or who are just starting out, need to hear are the successes and power of the online community – how networks have developed and what they can accomplish.  There are so many blogs to read, with so many different purposes – sharing those stories would be interesting, informative, and entertaining.  I love hearing about the interconnectedness of it all – even being aware of that quality, and would like to know even more about how to nurture this grassiest of grassroots movements.

And, by the way, thanks for asking!

If you’ve never driven to Long Island and back from New York City, let me tell you, it’s [usually] not a fun experience.  You will most likely experience (a) bumper-to-bumper traffic, (b) road construction, (c) or both.  You might even get distracted, and turn into Kennedy Airport, as I did once, where there is no option for exiting but circling the entire airport.  Plotting routes around Long Island commouter traffic is a local pastime – and an obsession for some.  [Hey – I sense a math project in there ….]   But I live in Brooklyn.  I am fortunate to have a very short commute to work – 2 buses, total trip time approximately 25 minutes (mostly because I am traveling at 6:15 a.m., or Ass O’Clock, as my daughter calls it).  I barely have time to skim through my morning email on the bus, much less listen to podcasts.  So I save up my listening for a monthly medical appointment for which I need to drive out to Long Island – the land in which I grew up and try not to visit too often.

For some reason, my phone had not been synching properly with my computer, so I fell behind this summer on my Infinite Tangents podcasts.  I found Infinite Tangents when I just coming out my Twitter lurking phase last spring.  I listened to the first few podcasts, and followed Ashli’s (@Mythagon) instructions to make a recording of myself answering a few questions.  Imagine my surprise to hear my own voice coming out of my car radio the following week, describing what I did during my lunch hour at school!  I was, of course, an instantly devoted and diehard fan.   I listened to all of the episodes available, and enjoyed putting faces to voices at #TMC13.

Today, I listened to Ashli’s 2 part interview with @wahedabug (finally know how to pronounce that!) which made me want to get on a plane to Hawaii and go observe her classroom!  For the time being, though, I will visit Sadie’s blog regularly.   Even though I had the pleasure of meeting both of these amazing women this past summer, the interview gave me an insight into how both of them think as educators, and planted new seeds in my mind – the continual gift of the #MTBoS (Math TwittoBlogosphere).

Road construction on the last mile home permitted me to whet my appetite for the interview with Lisa Henry, the powerhouse that smoothly ran Twitter Math Camp 2013.  I can’t wait to hear tales from her treasure trove of experience, and probably won’t wait until my next drive to Long Island to do so.

Justin – you know I love and admire your daily posts, not to mention your artwork.  This started as a comment on your blog, but then I started to ramble, and felt the need to expound in unfettered detail, yet again.

I teach an off-track Geometry class comprised of juniors; they are already on a 3-term cycle, and if they are taking Geometry in the fall, it means they failed either a term of Algebra sometime during that 3-term cycle, or failed the first term of Geometry last spring.  And the class takes place early in the morning.  They are not the easiest bunch of kids to motivate.

I have discovered that while the students are working to make sense visually of Geometry, many of them not only can’t solve equations, but lack basic arithmetic skills.   And if they have made it to their junior year with such low levels of mathematical achievement, you can imagine (a) what their academic self-esteem looks like and (b) how much time they have spent sitting in some form of a tortured state in math classes.  The upside to teaching in this class  – and this will sound odd, I know – is that the school has low expectations and does not truly plan for these students to take the NYS Regents exam (which does suck in a very real sense, I am aware) so I can take my time, do exploratory, hands-on activities, and take a day every two weeks to do some differentiated skill practice.   If I can get some of these kids to feel a modicum of mathematical accomplishment this term, I will have my own sense of efficacy.   I have had several of them in the first term of three term Algebra, and can see that they are trying, really trying.  They do not like repeating classes over and over again.    But the task is Sisyphean for all of us.  I use groups, manipulatives, graphic organizers, iPads – anything I can think of to engage and enthuse.  And I am seeing a very wide range of success and motivation.  I’m not sure where to go with this class; it is very much a case of me doing a LOT of the heavy lifting.  I would love to completely transform the classroom into a community of learners in which the students were motivating themselves and each other – you know, the stuff of those inspirational teacher movies.   I’ll keep trying, but I feel like the whole thing needs to be stood on its head.

Which brings me to the second part of the title: Something’s Gotta Give.  I read Paul Lockhart’s A Mathematician’s Lament last spring, and took a huge gulp/cringed when I read this line: “All metaphor aside, geometry class is by far the most mentally and emotionally destructive component of the entire K-12 mathematics curriculum.”  I was forced to take a long, painful look in the mirror as Lockhart described with convincing arguments and accurate detail what goes on in most high school geometry classrooms, including mine.  Why do I love 2 column proofs?  What purpose is there in writing out Angle Addition sentences? Or proving all right angles congruent?  I began to relax some of my strictures if students could convince me of their understanding without rewriting definitions verbatim.  If my current Geometry students (or any, for that matter) can describe to me in words, or perhaps pictures, why two triangles are congruent, or how they know which angle of a triangle is the largest, that, to me, is evidence of learning and understanding; I don’t need it in 2 columns with numbered steps.

 

Then last week I read three things.  The first thing was Dan Meyer’s column on Lifeless Geometry Proof which linked to Ben Orlin’s hilarious column on Proofs that 2 Column Proofs are Terrible.  Not only did these reinforce what I had already been thinking about, but they sparked a debate in my office (aka The Bat Cave)  about why we should spend at least six straight weeks in the fall term, and probably another six in the spring, teaching two column proofs. My dear friend and cave buddy, Al, is about to earn his masters degree in Math and is a Math for America fellow.  Even though this debate began because he was moaning over the geometry papers he had to grade, he amazingly stuck fast to the position that this was the curriculum we had to teach, so what choice did we have?  I thought, all we have is choice.

The other thing I read was sent to me by my amazing progeny, Geo, currently an art student at MICA.  It was an article from Wired magazine about schools that allowed students to direct their own education.  I’m not sure I am ready to go that far, but it echoed a presentation I heard this summer by Bruce Dixon, founder of the Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation on Reimagining Education.  The future of education will be – needs to be – something that looks VERY different from what we are used to.  I have taught high need students for all eight years of my teaching career and I know that traditional classrooms don’t do the trick.  Yes, poverty is the enemy, yes, families need to do more work, but still.  Things will have to change in a big way, and I’m kind of itching to be part of that change.

I know that students like my classes because ‘they’re not like all the other math classes’.  There are definitely days of direct instruction – notes, guided examples, independent practice – but we also have estimation, individual and group whiteboards, patty paper, legos, Mathalicious, MathMunch, and Solve-Crumple-Toss (considered ground-breaking in my school).  But I know it’s not enough, not when I look at Sharenza in my Geometry class who has made a 180 degree turn-around from the disdainful, angry student I had two years ago but still can’t add and subtract, not when Stephan in Discrete Math who, for all his concentration and extra-help, still struggles with graphing a line.  I try hard to imagine this bright educational future when I teach in an 80-year-old building with few upgrades, and an unsynched iPad cart (with less than a full class set of tablets) because there is only one MacBook in the school with which to synch all the departmental carts, and an office in a once-boys’ bathroom.

Exhausting work, this is.  But I feel compelled.  Compelled because of the kids, because of the #MTBoS, of the folks I met at Exeter and Twitter Math Camp last summer, those who have become people I like to banter with, and those who have become friends.  Compelled because, honestly, maybe it’s a diversion from facing mid-life and scary health issues.  Or maybe just because when Paul Lockhart took aim, I became determined that my beloved geometry would not destroy any more students, but rather recruit more true believers in the beauty of math. 

Let me tell you about Justin.  He’s pretty quiet.  He was in my Honors Algebra 2 class last fall, didn’t keep up with the material, actively resisted my efforts to engage him, refused to come for help or to attempt homework.  He predictably (and sadly) failed the term.   I wasn’t happy about it, but I knew that I had tried to meet him more than halfway.

Fast forward to Fall 2013.  Justin is in my Discrete Math class, a sign that he needs to make up a math credit for graduation.  He is still quiet, keeps to himself, but does most of his work well.  He participates in my favorite way – by both asking and answering questions thoughtfully.  I am pleased (as I hope he is) that if he has a memory of my math class, it will be based on this positive experience rather than last year’s.

But not all students in Discrete Math take advantage of this ‘second chance’ math class.  Because it is not tied to a Regents exam, we can dig in to topics in greater depth, and spend a lot of time in groups, working on projects, exploring ideas.  Half of the grade is based on group/project work, a lot of which is done in class.  My expectations are high, and I do not give grades away, but a conscientious student who is focused in class and works cooperatively with others (or alone if the situation warrants) will do just fine.

First marking period report cards were distributed today, so my classes had a mix of happy, disappointed, and disgruntled students.  In particular, 2 young men in Justin’s class were not pleased with their grades.  I spent several minutes speaking to one of them before class, encouraging him to use the online grading system to monitor his average and which assignments he was missing (he has not yet logged on this year, and not for lack of internet access).   At first he seemed to be pleading with me for sympathy, and when he saw that this was not going to change his grade, he became angry and literally slunk off to his seat.

The students were in the middle of a structured linear programming assignment, the next to last in a series which will lead to an independent project.  Feeling like I have been doing too much hand-holding, I circulated quietly and directed all questions back to the groups; in most cases, students hadn’t asked their group mates before seeking my help.  [I actually kept a little distance, trying to avoid those proximity questions.]   Unfortunately, both disgruntled students were in Justin’s group.   I sensed the negative vibe every time I came by, and decided to give them the personal space to be annoyed;  I wasn’t going to engage in a public discussion about someone’s grade, and I was hoping that a little cool-off time would help them both come around to acknowledging their own role in their disappointing grades, and their responsibility in changing them.  They are seniors, and they need to learn how to do this, and quickly.   And of course, I invited anyone who had a concern about their grade to speak with me during my prep periods.

At the end of the period, some of the groups were nearly finished with the assignment, which is not due until the end of class tomorrow.  Other groups, like Justin’s, had a way to go, in most cases because of lack of focus.  I announced that groups that were finished early would have the opportunity to work on something for extra credit.   And the bell rang.

Justin’s Spanish class happens to take place in the same classroom during the next period.  He came over to me and exploded:  “I am so frustrated!”  (I had never seen such an emotional display – no – any emotional display – from this child.)  He went on to rant, “Those guys did NO WORK today.  All they did was complain how YOU WEREN’T DOING ANY WORK because we were in groups. THEY JUST DON’T GET IT!”  I am using all caps because this is exactly how Justin was speaking – he was pacing, waving his hands, morally outraged in defense of my class.  He told me that he was afraid to actually do his work because he knew they would copy it.  I assured him that I would take steps during class tomorrow to insure that this was not the case.   And to ice this very lovely cake, he finished with, “They think they will just do the extra credit to make up for this – but they don’t get that you can’t do extra credit until you do the regular work!  I AM SO FRUSTRATED!!”

Now, I don’t take pleasure at a student’s unhappiness.  But it was very gratifying to see how mature Justin has become, and to witness his growth as a student.  And remembering some of the glowers I got last year in Algebra 2, his indignance on my behalf really made me proud of him.  So there was AT LEAST one very, very good thing today.

(In addition to that, there was this lovely cupcake from my student assistant Tia, some shared booty from her birthday celebration.)

 

First of all, I have to remember that today was a good day on many levels (because the day has ended poorly and I am trying to focus on the positive).  Good things that happened today:

• Segment Addition Score in Geometry;
• Solve Crumple Toss with Rational Expressions, Equations and Inequalities – the high basket was conceptualized by my students, who were hoping someone would open the door mid-game (how many times will I thank @k8nowak in this blog?);
• Getting Paid Interest on Hours Owed from the NYC DOE (amazing but true)!

I will try to remember these things, even though the day ended with an almost fight in a classroom (luckily the Assistant Principal of Security happened to be walking by), a deflationary error in the grades I submitted (luckily I was able to correct them in time for report card printing) and my student teacher – M.I.A. – withdrawing via email (not quite a Post-It, but close).  Overall, a plus day.

I’ve been trying to write this post for several days; my motivation came from attending on Wednesday the first session of a teacher leadership program for which I have been selected.  But papers to be graded, an errant student teacher, and my required nightly support from the #MTBoS all delayed my writing.  I shall digress no more.

I was hugely disappointed and frustrated by the program I attended.  I applied for a spot in this program, solicited administrative support to gain admission, and worked with a colleague because ‘teams of teachers’ from each school were a requisite for participation.  In short, getting in took time and effort.   But the meeting was chaotic, piles of materials were distributed with little clarification on their purpose (including 4 books on protocols and facilitation for which NO explanation was given), and the discussions took place around tables in a room that became prohibitively noisy.  We were repeatedly brought to attention with clapping rhythms (the meeting was run by elementary school teachers WHO I NORMALLY ADORE), given conflicting messages about groupwork and goal-setting, and unclear direction on a homework assignment.   The ‘aim’ of the meeting (and the program) seemed to be (a) how to get groups of teachers – very possibly unwilling ones -to cooperate and work towards a successful School Quality Review and (b) how one’s role as a ‘teacher leader’ would manifest itself in the new evaluation system under the ubiquitous Danielson Rubric.  But in execution, the session was a model of what not to do in a classroom.

In retrospect, I should not be surprised at the agenda I encountered, but only at my own ability to project my own goals on a program whose objectives may not completely coincide with mine (maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at this, actually; wishful thinking is very powerful).  As such, one thing this meeting did accomplish was to clarify what it is I am seeking in my continual search for the professional development my school doesn’t (or can’t) adequately provide.

I WANT TO BE A GREAT MATH TEACHER.  AND GET TO DO GREAT MATH IN THE PROCESS. That’s all.

Many things fall under the umbrella of this goal – reading about, implementing and sharing ideas in a professional learning community (for me, the #MTBoS), collaborating with other teachers at school, delving into the Common Core in a way that will enrich my classroom, learning about and incorporating technology in an intentional and progressive way, as well as supporting my school so that the great teaching to which I aspire can take place.  AND learning more math, practicing more math, wallowing in more math.   So I must be very clear in my choices of professional development – they must lead to the goal of which I am so confident I am willing to put on my CapsLock in the harsh public glare of the interwebs.

I know that I don’t want to be an administrator.  I have always known this (done that management thing in another lifetime), but dipping my toe into the DOE’s leadership program has reinforced this conviction with steel and concrete.  And, more than anything, I don’t want to spend time doing something that is not in service of my personal and professional goals.    So what do I do?  Find a way to renege on the commitment I made to spend a year in this program?  [Goes totally against the grain of this goody-two-shoes-turned-badass-nerd-math-teacher.] Stick it out and find a way to turn it into GREAT MATH TEACHING?  [Will require HUGE stretch of imagination.]

I have been trying for the last couple of years to really live my life the way I want to.  Yes, I have to go to work and pay bills, but beyond that I don’t want to waste time on things that I ‘should’ do, a philosophy has been hard-earned with age and cancer.  Time is not infinite, only infinitely precious.  I get way more joy from the creativity I must summon to help Liza and Julius make their shots, or to quilt, than I ever will from a book on protocols.     I’m not sure how to always keep that in front of me, in my sights, but I know that’s what has to guide me.

 

 

 

I fall somewhere in between an experienced Twitter user and a newbie.  I love the connected feeling it gives me.  I love that after #TMC13, there are faces and personalities and smiles to attach to the tweets (I just mistyped ‘sweets’ by accident – what a lovely Freudian slip!).  I love that when I am stuck planning, or want to bounce some ideas off of someone, or am just feeling a little isolated even in the great metropolis known as Brooklyn, I can open up my Tweetdeck, and there everyone is.  And since I walked myself through David Wees’ fabulous post on how to use Twitter (http://davidwees.com/content/eight-videos-help-teachers-get-started-using-twitter) about 2 weeks before Twitter Math Camp, I am getting more comfortable with just jumping right in there.  I try hard to acknowledge people as often as possible, knowing how it feels to watch (or lurk behind) the conversation pinging back and forth like a badminton match.

Still, there are times that the whole process is overwhelming – I don’t know how to balance concentrating on other work – grading, planning, my LIFE, and tweet at the same time.  So there have been days where I have looked longingly at the Tweetdeck icon on my dock, and forbade myself from clicking on it.  I don’t know how others do it, to be honest – makes me feel a little OLD.  Or just realistic.

But I have to say – there must be a connection between the fact that in the last 6 months, I attended 2 conference in which I met motivated, connected teachers from all over the country – the globe! – and have been on Twitter regularly, and that I am [thus far] having the most productive teaching year yet.  I still have those dark moments in which I doubt my efficacy, but for the most part, I am aware that I am passionate and committed to my students and my craft, and that I am part of a global community with whom I have that in common.

It is ironic that I love chatting with my math tweeps even though there is a lot we don’t know about each other.  And when you are ‘of a certain age’, there is a lot in your history that makes you YOU.  But the vitality of the community, and the common bond we share of loving math, loving our job of teaching it [or trying to], and the motivation to do the best we can in the classroom every day is powerful. Because teaching is not just a job, we need this online support as fuel for our continual efforts.  

I am grateful that I have joined in the chorus.

What makes my classroom uniquely mine?  Well, it’s a bit of a story (isn’t everything?).

In the school in which I formerly worked – a school with super high-need but loveable students, amazing and close-knitted staff, and a revolving door administration which grew more incompetent and eventually hostile to the teaching staff with every revolution – I had my own classroom for 3 years.  It was wonderful, and became a haven when things at school went really south.  It was a sunny and colorful room,  kind of patchwork, proclaiming all over that this was a room of MATH – from my posters of under-recognized mathematicians (Hypatia, Al-Kharizmi) to the neon place value number line to the myriad student workpieces hanging on the walls.  I had a double locked closet for all my precious DonorsChoose-acquired supplies and manipulatives, and a great big desk in the back.  It was a lovely room, but the school became a prison for me – so what good did all that real estate do me?

Now in my seriously overcrowded mega-high school, where we have two shifts, an annex, and veritable rivers of students in the hallways during passing, I have no classroom to call my own.  In fact, during my first term at Midwood, I was in 4 different classrooms.  So ‘marking territory’ is a challenge, although some teachers manage to do it (I have zero seniority compared to the veteran staff members with over 20 years at the school).  What you will see in my classroom that is unique are two things that I do – or try to – as frequently as possible.   First – I NEVER write the date on the board.  At least, I never write it directly (unless there is a standardized test being administered).  The date, from the day I started teaching 8 years ago, has always been a math problem, and frequently different problems for different classes.  For example, tomorrow’s date might be October [35/sq rt 25], 2013.  When I was a graduate student, one of the professor’s on whom I modeled my teaching, Erika Litke, did this in class every day – from the moment you walked into her room, you knew MATH was what you should be doing.  I have never wavered in this, and I’m kind of proud of that.  I love to hear kids in the back of the room trying to figure it out.  There were, one year, a pair of 9th grade boys – not my students – who came literally tumbling into the room on top of one another, each trying to figure out the date first.  They would calculate, punch each other a little, and tumble out.

The other thing I try to do to make the room my own – but not as consistently – is to post a historical image on the first screen of my Notebook file commemorating the date.  So while the kids are working on the Do Now, they are also trying to figure out what historical event is represented by my photo.  I choose events that range from the kid-friendly (Roald Dahl’s birthday [9/13], for example – R.L. Stine’s birthday is this coming week) to pop culture references (Disneyworld opened in 1971 one day last week, and Bobby Riggs played Billie Jean King on September 20, 1973) and to more important events, such as the Stock Market Crash on October 19, 1987 or the National Guard-accompanied integration of schools in Alabama on September 10, 1963.   There are wonderful moments, such as the day when Donald C., an otherwise shy student, looked at the clip of the tip of South America, and exclaimed “this must be the day that Magellan, a Portuguese explorer completed his circumnavigation of the globe!”  And then there are the days that I feel kinda old, like when I had this birthday boy up on the screen last week (September 27), and no one knew who it was.