sorcyress | Entries tagged with teaching

I just taught the largest class I've ever taught, and it went really well! \o/

See, a few months ago the school decided to have "Social Justice Day" and sent out a general info call, including a "if you'd like to present something, please let us know". So I responded that I could do a thing or two about gender, and they said great, and that actually went really well!

As part of preparing for that, I put out a call on Facebook for "what information should I remember to tell the high schoolers" and got some good questions and discussion points and ideas. And also, I got a text message from the director of Pinewoods camp, mentioning that PCI is doing a diversity series and would I be interested in doing my presentation for them as well.

Yes. Yes, I would very much be interested. That is, in fact, part of what the presentation was *for* something thorough and big and adaptable that I can take other places and share with other people. So that was tonight and there were about fifty people in attendance. Which...is the largest audience that's ever come specifically to see me teach something.

(I've _performed_ to larger audiences --doing Powerpoint Kareoke in the intermission of the Arisia masquerade comes to mind-- but I've not _taught_.)

Starting about an hour before the workshop, I've spent all evening oscillating between cool-collected-and-I-got-this and OH GODS OH GODS impostor syndrome. It's been a bit of a ride, trying to reconcile the fact that I actually really do know a thing or two about the genders, and I'm always willing to share those things, with the fact that, lol, fifty people just showed up to hear me babble what a scam.

But honestly, what it all boils down to is sorta this feeling of "oh hey, my gender is _teacher_" because I settled out the end of it with this incredible feeling of euphoria wrapped around my heart. It was where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do and it turns out I haven't totally lost the ability to teach on zoom --I even mostly remembered how annotations work!

I've now done three variations of this talk (which I call informally "Gender 101" and officially "Getting More Comfortable with Gender") and I'm going to have a fourth in about a month, when I run the workshop for my ~actual coworkers~ as an official school PD. I believe I get paid for that one too. I should be keeping track of how much money this one little powerpoint has netted me so far.

($144. So far I have made over a hundred dollars talking about gender. Y'all, I am _professionally_ queer.)

I really really enjoy living the life I live. I'll try and remember to link y'all to the workshop when it's published --an advantage of zoom is that it's easy to record!

~Sor
MOOP!

((This is a pretty self-based entry, so there's names and terminology and stuff I don't bother to elaborate or footnote or expand on. If there's anything you can't guess from context, feel free to ask for specifics. Unless it's the name of the school I work at, which I don't share online.))

I am feeling weirdly morose today, for ~~no good reason~~. We did have a Very Hard PD in NEST today where we talked about grading and what freedoms we have. What would it look like if we asked the students how they wanted to be graded? How would that change things?

Am I willing to put my money where my mouth is and try out a class where I do promise the students a passing grade? I don't know. That's a lot. I'm terrified of trying to negotiate some of that with a class of students where they don't speak the same language.

And it's _so hard_ to decouple passing grades from graduating classes. If I could just say to a student "yes, you did a really good job with effort and showed that you are willing to put in the work, but you still Just Don't Know The Content so you get a passing grade but have to take Algebra 1 again next year" like...that would be such a good option! That would help a lot with the ability to run classes faster or slower, and try to actually pace them to student needs. But as things stand, if a student passes, they go to Geometry. A student cannot go to Geometry without a working knowledge/background of Algebra.

How do we fix a broken system when we're in the middle of a broken system?

And I mean, I feel like I can do a _lot_ of this nonsense with my Discrete/Data classes (where I am not beholden to anyone but myself and the kids will never take math again) and a fair amount with Calc (where the students do need a working Calc knowledge, but aren't going to Major Examinations or anything.) But Algebra1...it is _so_ foundational to the rest of their high school career, and then we compound that with the fact that Here Comes MCAS and honestly fuuuuuck that noise, it's SO PROBLEMATIC.

Anyways, it's the first PD where I've had to blink back tears since the trans 101 one at the start of the year, and for a very different reason. I just...I want this, I do, but I feel like such a coward that I can't figure out how to make it work with the other constraints. I wonder if Emily would be willing to meet with me and have a talkdown/solution brainstorming session sometime? You know, in the copious free time that a classroom teacher and a department head collectively have.

(I mentioned to Jessie that it would be so different if I didn't _have_ to pass them on at the end of the year, and could keep them in the program, and her response was to encourage me to talk to Emily about actually having that kind of class. Which like...wow that would be So Much but it would also be So Good.)

SOOOO yeah. I really really love my job. But education is a fundamentally broken and flawed institution in this country. Buy a teacher dinner next week, we fucking deserve it.

~Sor
MOOP!

Today was an interesting sort of day for Calculus class.

See, right before the end of third quarter, they took a test that they bommmmbed. The overall average, across 35 students, was a 60%. So I started this week by giving the test back, going over the whole thing quickly as a class, and saying that we'll do a bonus point retest opportunity today(Friday).

(We also had a short quiz on the more recent stuff we've been working on, because why not throw it all in the blender at once?)

My first Calc class was relatively fine, and no significant anything going on. Students worked, I asked a couple questions, it was all cool. My second class, which is the weaker one in general¹, has been a little more...exciting. Which hits me in the teacher feels: Do I be severe and unyielding, or do I try and be empathetic?

Like, three quarters of this class has *told* me about their explicit anxiety disorders, or bad home lives, or rough dating experiences or whatever. I know what these kids are carrying and it's a lot. And that's where we get to the part of being a teacher that I do feel I'm being successful about, the ability to look at what's going on, and listen to the students, and talk to them about what they need.

Yesterday I spent an hour working one-on-one with a student who struggles to make it to school. We got her caught up and ready. That was good and worked out well! She said she was so excited to know what she was doing, that that's the thing she loves about math! We talked about how much you have to practice sometimes, but how just about anyone can do just about anything, sometimes you just need a little extra work and time.

One of my students started the class by saying "I'm sorry I couldn't come to extra help time yesterday, can I take it later?". We talked about the situation, and I had her just do the test redo questions today, and she'll do the quiz after school. When she finished the test, I was able to ask her if she needed decompress time or math help time...and then I was able to to spend a few quiet minutes looking at recent quizzes and confirming with her that she was doing the right thing and on the right track. This student absolutely *could've* taken the quiz today, she had almost everything right, but her weasels were telling her that she was a failure at everything and it costs me so little to give her the space and time and reassurance to fight them off.

A third student has missed the last two days of class --they were here for the test review, but not for going back over the quiz stuff. When I was passing stuff out, I asked if they wanted to try and they said yes. Fifteen minutes later, with their eyes panicking, I came over and just started with a "talk to me". They were able to ask for resources to study/catch up with the material, and we worked out a plan for them. They'll do the quiz as soon as they're able, and I'm glad their pride wasn't too much to keep them from accepting help. I'm glad my attention was enough to see that they weren't doing it.

I don't know how they'll do on the test redo. (I am feeling tentatively good about the quiz). But I feel good about how they'll do in the long run, these beautiful sad children who are learning how to ask for help and balance their emotions and try and try and learn and grow.

Kindness costs so little, and we are all we have in the world. Try and be gentle, when you can.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: but has all my favourite students! And so far this year I have not had to tell anyone in this period not to bite each other, so that's a plus.

The first three(?) years you're teaching at my district, while you still don't have Professional Status¹, you have to do two evidence submissions a year -one in December, and one in late April. The evidence file is a big ol' pile of "proof that I am a good teacher". There's about 35 standards set by the district, that you ought to be working towards.

(Those standards sit in four strands, which are how you get ranked at the end of the year -Unsatisfactory, Needs Improvement, Satisfactory, Exemplary. You don't get Professional Status unless, by the end of your third year, you're hitting Satisfactory and Exemplary in all four strands. Last year I went from 2 unsatisfactory and 2 needs improvement in the mid-year, to 2 needs improvement and 2 satisfactory. And I got hired back, which is really the important part.)

Last year, it was due December 15th. I turned it in on January 16th, after some really explicit and pointed nagging from my boss. It was...not optimal.

This year the mid-year file was due December 14th. I signed it in at 9:37pm. The big file with too many words is a *third* the length of last year's, which is a _really good thing_ --it means I'm being better at "show don't tell" and also means that my boss doesn't have to slog through sixteen fucking pages of information. My evidence file actually turned out to be *shorter* than my Unit Four was, by about 2.5k words.

I make up for it in moving pieces. Unit four needed a summary, the lesson plans, a cover sheet, and a signed thing from your mentor. My evidence has 25 separate files covering 18 different pieces of evidence that I Am A Good Teacher And You Should Not Fire Me Please. I got to learn how to use the scanner in the office! I got to walk around the school while all the lights were off and it was eerie as shit because it's only lit by glowing red exit signs!!

I still have _no idea_ if I'm doing this right, or how to best optimize it. Unfortunately, the person who could best tell me is my boss, and she actually *can't* give me all that much advice here. But I feel a more confident with this one than I did the end-year last year. (I feel a _lot_ more confident than last year's mid-year, that thing was a mess.)

And I am incredibly heartbreakingly impressed with myself that I have managed to hit under the deadline for two *really serious* professional things in two weeks. Not having either my Unit Four or my Evidence hanging over my head is making me feel giddy, and it's barely been twenty minutes. Maybe now the _really shitty_ month can be over and I can just enjoy things for a bit.

And grade.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: The guarantee that I get to stay. That the union will totally and entirely have my back. That I can't get fired unless I actually fuck up. That the dream job becomes a dream career.

That I can come out as agender and start using the correct pronouns at work instead of wanting to cry every time I think about how much it hurts to lie like this.

I thought about tweeting this, but no, this is a little too much for Twitter (and *way* too much for Facebook). Give me a space where people have to actually type something to show me they care. (I didn't even realize that is something I was curmudgeonly about, but there you have it.)

I have an interview tomorrow afternoon. It's for a full time position, high school math¹.

I am incredibly frantically stressed about money, and trying desperately to work in as much spare time doing odd jobs as I can. This would be massively easier if I still had my ADHD medication, but I don't, I forgot to refill the prescription before I lost my health insurance and I can't afford the $250+ out of pocket².

My current job is stressing me out itself, because while it's sometimes fun³, it's not something I'm trained to do, and public school teaching is far too aligned with bullshit standards and endless testing to be done just for "fun". This is to everyone's detriment, especially the students.

My current job is echoing against a previous job, where I was taken advantage for about five months. That was one of the worse periods in my mentalscape and I did not like it. I am remembering how bad it felt, and the echoes are already hurting, even if the job itself isn't yet.

I have an interview tomorrow. Full time position, high school math. Wish me luck and stability and a sharp mind and nice clothes. Wish me not getting lost on the bike ride there, and not fucking up because I want this. I want this to work, and this really isn't a week where things are working for me.

I'm not going to write any more right now, because the current students come back from recess in two minutes and I don't want them to see me cry. But please.

I'll do everything I can to make it work. I just have to hope that's enough⁴.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: please don't ask for more details online, I won't give them.

2: No, I will not let you buy them for me. Three more days. I'll make it, I'm stubborn. I survive.

(I cannot let myself say strong, because this isn't kind of strength. It's just a refusal to give up.)

3: Fun is not exactly the right word here. Fun, and inspiring, and encouraging curiosity and creativity and asking questions and sharing ideas and working together to make things interesting and make the students excited. To help them learn the things they want to learn and get better at the things they want to get better at. To find kinds of work that they *want* to do and *want* to challenge themselves with. Smart-but-lazy is all well and good, but what if we could take that brain and give it something worth WORKING for?

Fun is close enough to cover all that. Too much of school is not fun.

4: And if it's not? There are other positions --your current principal was telling you about a temp math position, remember? You will do grad school and get your masters and that will help too. In the meantime you will work odd jobs and for the bananamines and too many endless days of substitute teaching but that's okay. You are stubborn. You will keep going. You'll find your story.