First-Year Fellow-ette No more.

It's time to retire AGW.

Well, folks. From the miserable beginning to the musing middle to the absolute high point (that I didn't even write)--it's been a long ride. There were observations, "S"s that I thought were "U"s, secret traps sprung by my principal. Kids whipping up lighters, inviting their "goons" into my room, and threatening each other.
And wonderful moments of learning, bonding, feeling inspired or relaxed (though the later not much).

And then as a coda there was the almost happy ending when regents results came in. And the bittersweet emails from students when they realized I wasn't returning this fall.

This blog will still hang around so that people who type "disgruntled teacher" or "first-year teacher" or "New York City Teaching Fellows Sucks" or "NYCTF quit" or "Bad NYCTF" or even "Teachers Gone Wild" (pervy!) in google blogsearch can still see the entire damn experience, real and raw...just lying in wait for their perusal.

My final thoughts about inner-city teaching, urban teaching, or what have you are a few. First, I really think that the dumbing down of the curriculum, which seems to be a universal problem is a bad way to go. Duh. Oh, and "using the vernacular" to reach kids is a REALLY bad way to go. There ought to be a universal, semester-long grammar curriculum for ninth graders with constant assessment in the forms of quizzes and tests, and class sizes should be no more than 15, ever.
Easier said, I know. But what kids need, more than books that they can "relate to", or group work or do nows that are timed with a kitchen timer, is pride in themselves and where they're going. A sense of community can be instilled in any school beyond its name. "School for Arts and Sciences" is crap unless it's built up to be more by everyone involved. Unless every day, kids walk in and see pleasant facilities, an atmosphere of special care. And if schools like mine are going to become dumping grounds, then they need a patented approach and curriculum for dealing with troubled students.

The program for motivated, not necessarily gifted students, at which I now teach on Saturdays has given me a lot of hope, hope I didn't have last year. So that's a very happy ending for me. Now, on to more frivolous blogging.

I Spent My First Rosh Hashanah in a Church School

Surrounded by posters advertising the goodness of Jesus.

Fortunately, I was doing secular work: teaching my first grammar class at a program called College Bound, which prepares teens for law careers and helps them get into top colleges-- even though many of them come from tough, tough neighborhoods and backgrounds.

The head of the entire program actually demo-ed the first lesson (would that such things occured in the Public School System) and I saw that the kids were infinitely ninth grade: they giggled inapproriately, occasionally sassed the instructor, whispered, fidgeted, showed undisciplined thinking.

But oh my god, were they eager to learn, to participate, to be polite and respectful and successful. I've never seen anything like it, except during Regents week; even as the class stretched into its fifth hour and the students were bored and hot and hungry, they still tried. rather valiantly.

I can't wait for next week, where our subject will be, well... the subject!
And it was most definitely a better way to spend my time than a shofar-less saturday at shul.

Amazing dream...

I had an amazing dream about my former students early this morning, while my flatmate was making eggs and I was, well, dreaming.

We were in an auditorium, and T, the "skinny greek" literacy coach was in charge of whatever was happening. All my worst behavioral offenders, plus some of their buddies who I came to know intimately, were there, and they started throwing things. Small things, at first, and then a bike lock, and some other stuff. and T. kept catching them and laughing. And then M, the most disturbed child I will ever teach, threw a BASEBALL bat, and T. told him he had "gone too far."

Then I woke up.

Musings on education...

I'm still an urban teacher in a sense. Most every Saturday, I'll be instructing a host of freshman in an "enrichment" program not unlike Prep for Prep in a highly regimented grammar course. I'm excited, slightly nervous because they're freshman, and I know just what they're like at that age now. And I know they like to test, test, test all figures of authority.
However, the routine, the curriculum, and the discipline, are all hand-fed to me by the program. I have the liberty to ask any unprepared or unruly student to step outside the room, which is nice. I think nothing can ever compare to the little monsters my freshman at my former HS were... even though they ended up being my best class, they were a wild bunch at first.
So I'm actually quite excited. And the "he said WHAT?" stories will be back on AGW... with, hopefully, not as much of the frustration. Stay tuned.
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*As always, I have the instruction of young minds on the brain. Eliot Spitzer, speaking in a "town hall" the other night, said that without educational reforms, there will be no resurgence of a middle class. (Incidentally, he went to my preppy prep high school and worked on our school paper, and he's a smug bastard, but so dead on.)

*But education isn't even a priority for our nation
...so how's change ever going to trickle down? The manpower it takes to educate and train youth is staggering.

*Meanwhile, in the higher eschelons, injustice still wears a suit, has a Y chromosome and a pallid skin tone, and is given affirmative action that sees color: the color green.

*Read all about the "Price of Admission" and weep.