Blog Post 2

I was so excited when I was hired at Baker Demonstration School to be the new technology teacher. I had just finished my Masters of Art in Education from National Louis University the year before and had two thirds of a year as an assistant teacher in the media lab at Middleton School in Skokie. I had a very positive experience there. Ann, the Librarian, gave me different jobs to do that called for research and exploration. I learned a lot about some educational tools and technology. I already had years of experience as a web site designer but little training in educational technology. So…when I was hired at Baker I was very pleasantly surprised and more than a little scared.

Baker had a first year teacher mentor program and my mentor was a woman named Mary (the names in this story have been changed to protect….well…ME!). She got me started with creating goals for the year, but as time went by and I started to struggle, she was more critical than supportive. I was teaching grades one through eight adding up to about 250-270 students. I didn’t have enough experience for the job but I didn’t want to quit. I also was afraid to admit that I didn’t know what I was doing. I tried asking for help from my mentor but it became increasingly obvious that she was a very angry person who did not want to be a mentor right from the beginning.

Halfway through the school year I had my review with a temporary administrator who we will call Penny. The reviews for first year students are only supposed to cover class room management. If we have problems in other areas there is supposed to be a support system in place to help us succeed. When I walked in to that review I walked into an ambush. Penny proceeded to tell me all the things I was doing wrong. She had nothing positive to say and told me other teachers were complaining as well. Basically she told me I couldn’t do anything right. No one had actually come to me and talked about my better meeting their needs. I had asked for help and not received it. It took me two sleepless nights and a conversation with another educator that I trusted to realize that I needed to either quit, because the job wasn’t for me…or if I wanted to continue to be a technology teacher I had to grow a pair,,,get a spine…be proactive! I chose to say…(sorry for this) Yes I Can!

It was a transformational experience and very freeing. I went to the Head of School told him about the review and overall lack of support and what I planned to do about it, including documentation of the whole experience. He approved of my plan and asked to meet with him again to let him know of my progress.

First I asked the Penny to come down from her office and meet with me in my office. I told her that I had heard all of what she said in the review but that nothing positive was given me to work with. She apologized for the lack of positive feedback and said she must have forgotten to tell me my classroom management was exemplary. That was nice, but to little to late…(that’s just me being snarky).

I went to teachers and asked to go to their meetings and plan with me and collaborate. I got lists of their students add the student pictures in and was more quickly able to learn 260 some odd names. I checked in with teachers and students on a regular basis about what we were doing to avoid problems or misunderstandings. I offered training sessions for different technology tools. I go to their rooms if they can’t come to me. I reorganized my desk to find information faster and overall be a better organized teacher. If I had questions I went to the few teachers I trusted and they helped me work out the kinks.

This was a time of very meaningful learning for me. I had a choice to rely on someone else to solve my problem…probably not in a good way or I could take the bull by the horns and be my own advocate. It has changes the way I handle just about every thing I do. It’s all about perspective...mine has changed for the better. I enrolled in the TIE program and National Louis to upgrade my teaching and life skills. I joined educator groups like ISTE an ICE. I bought subscriptions to trade magazines such as Edutopia. I also started going to conferences and learning from my peers all over the world. My perspective has changed for the better and my skills continue to expand. I have a long way to go and will always be learning new things…that’s what it means to be a life long learner. I will never go to Penny for help or advice but at least I can work with her.

This year I am helping our new Spanish teacher with her struggles and am also a shoulder when she needs to vent. There is no more mentoring program at Baker and I’ve decided to help someone in need, program or not. I wanted to give someone else the chance for the good first year experience that I did not have. Funny enough, helping her is also helping me.

Welcome to my Blog...Here is My First Post

I am the technology specialist at Baker Demonstration School where we have a no grades policy. We do our progress reports with long narratives instead of the tradition grade assessments. Our school is progressive and my tech lab is a project based learning environment. One of the problems I’m trying to work with is the lack of accountability by our middle school students. Our seventh grade is particularly difficult this year. Keeping twenty two hormonal teenagers who have no fear of grade based repercussions, on task is proving to be almost impossible. The same thing is happening in all the specials classes such as Art and Music. We as a team have been frustrated about the waste of time and resources and lack of ability to teach our curriculum.

This issue is pretty huge and affects all the specials classes and the middle school teachers as well. I plan on trying to have a deep discussion with the seventh graders about their behavior. I can have them do some roll play with me as a student and them as teachers or try the same thing with them playing all the roles and me facilitating. I would like to get the other specials teachers and middle school teachers involved in the process. I also think it would be a good idea to include our Head of School and our Curriculum Director. It would be wonderful if all the people that are affected by this problem, including the students themselves, worked together to find a solution.

I believe that part of the problem is the size of the class, twenty two students, and their lack of respect. I feel that we don’t have enough measures put in place to help them understand the consequences of their behavior. I also feel hampered by the unspoken idea that the specials classes are not as valuable as others and therefore less attention is given to our need for guidance.

My thought for this group of students is to find out what the seventh graders are really into. What would catch their attention and keep it. I need to scaffold projects around those interests and make sure they understand that there will be consequences for inappropriate behavior. We need to have a warning system in place and maybe a reflection paper for those who do not heed the warning. Anything past the reflection piece could include being sent to the office and a letter to the parents explaining the issue. At the very least splitting the seventh grade into two groups alternating with the other specials teachers would help. We could control which students we together keeping the more disruptive ones from feeding on each other.

As I mentioned above we don’t get a lot of support in this area. The middle school teachers are often too busy to meet with me or any of my colleagues in the specials team. Administration seems to think this is not a very important issue. The specials team has difficulty being heard by those who could make change. We could instill a system that is better than just the narratives…maybe…I can’t believe I’m saying this…grades! They could go hand in hand. I just feel that not having letter grades to assess students does not mean that there are not repercussions for bad behavior.