October is a long, rough month. There are no days off. There is one teacher planning day at the end of the month and one early release day (where school ends at 1:20 instead of 3:50). My lessons this month have dealt with energy transformation, waves (electromagnetic radiation like microwaves and ultraviolet waves), and light. The students are becoming restless, especially the 7thgraders. Let’s talk about my high and low lights—
(+) My 7th grade advanced science class is the best. I held student-teacher conferences as the class was working in the computer lab. I assigned them a packet to complete while they do an online experiment simulation that relates to a concept we learned, and then I talk to students one-on-one about their progress in my class. In my advanced class a lot of my students are able to articulate what they have learned and have expressed that they like my class. I played guitar for them when we were learning about sound waves, frequency and pitch, which they LOVED. I’ve developed great relationships with this particular class and have seen the highest learning gains in this class.
(-/+) Speaking of building relationships, several of my students seem to trust me. They tell me a lot of stories and what's going on in their lives. It's rough to hear though. One of my rough kids, Rafael, told me he came late to school because he had to visit his cousin in prison. The boy is 12, barely 5 feet tall but is tough, a total fighter. He loves participating in class, needs constant attention and is a complete handful. Another student of mine told me that his 14 year old ex-girlfriend is pregnant. He is 14 himself, failed 7th grade and had failed another grade earlier (not sure when). I asked him if he was the dad and he said he was almost sure he wasn't. I also have a group of girls from my advanced class who always ask to have lunch together or stay after school to study/do homework. Overall I'm feeling more and more comfortable in front of the classroom and my students are definitely starting to see it and are opening up more and more everyday.
(+) I have star students who want to learn so much. Gerson and Francheska are two of my favorites. They behave so well and they really give their 100% effort in my class. Gerson has been in the country for 6 months (he is from Honduras) and is able to do most of my work in English. When he is having trouble answering free-response questions I tell him he can write it in Spanish. After class, we do a Spanglish overview of the lesson so that I see that he understands and he is exposed to the English language. Francheska is such a sweet girl who asks to take the text book home to study. She has stayed after school just to ask question to better understand the material. The sad thing about Jose de Diego Middle school is that this is not normal. I wish at least 50% of my students would express this kind of eagerness to learn.
(-) A boy had his pants down in my class. According to other students, he was trying to touch himself. Yeah, you read that. I freaked out. When I saw this happening, I wrote a referral and sent him out of my room. Later that day he called the principal a faggot and was suspended for 10 days. I haven’t seen him since and am dreading Monday when he comes back. He is in my 2nd period class which will be switched to 8th grade on Tuesday so he won’t be my student after that and will go to the other science teacher who is a male. It’s for the best because this student can’t learn from a young female teacher.
(-) The superintendent of Miami-Dade Schools came to observe me at a horrible teaching moment. It was a Friday afternoon, last period of the day and a day after testing. The students were restless, I was tired and my lesson was boring. I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. My students were in their seats but not all of them were focused. Moments before and moments after they were constantly talking, I had a student climb into a shelf, I had another student rummaging through notebooks and I had another student throwing M&Ms at the front of the classroom. Worst end to one of the worst weeks I’ve ever had.
(-/+) So it’s official… I start teaching 3 8th grade science “research” classes on Tuesday (11/2). It’s not a typical science class—they will be doing science labs EVERY day and it would be their second science class. Instead of having an elective like P.E. or art, they get a science research class. Many of these students are trying to fight this because they would rather be in P.E. and I don’t blame them. But the district is mandating this class because we have to improve our science scores. Our kids are far from mastering science and we need to step up our game. Now, I don’t know if this is the best way of doing it but I have to do my job. I have to make this class so fun, interactive and wild so that they want to be there. It will be so challenging and I am trying to believe in the idea of this class. I will keep 3 7th grade classes and have 3 “double dose” science classes. So I am now going to teach a total of 6 classes and have no planning period. This also means I get an extra $4,800 dollars, which isn’t much but no one teaches to become rich (P.S. below is a post my friend put about how shitty teachers get paid… in Miami-Dade the base salary is $38,500). Hopefully I won’t burn out. But I feel okay right now. My science coach thinks I can do it. She says I’m kicking butt, which is assuring but I still feel all over the place at times.
(-/+) All of my classes improved on the science assessment tests. My advanced class went from a 33% to a 50% and although these scores are both really low, at least they grew. I still have a lot of work to do, but they are learning something in my class.
Interesting email I got from another teacher to end this post with:
**Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put thing in perspective and pay them for what they do—babysit! We can get that for minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That ...would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan--that equals 6 1/2 hours). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations. LET'S SEE.... That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year. Wait a minute --there's something wrong here! There sure is! The average teacher's salary (nationwide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids! WHAT A DEAL!!!!**
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