Insight

Over the past week I've been spending more time with friends and meeting their friends. One of the things that this has prompted is me having to answer the question "what are your plans?" and "do you want to teach as your career?" This has forced me to think a bit about that answer. It used to be that I was dead set on going to law school in order to go into education policy. But the more time I spend in the classroom the more it seems to be the place I belong. I'm comfortable there, I feel most at ease and in my element. Going into policy or law school might not be completely out of my element, but I tend to get nervous and get things like performance anxiety. Teaching has forced a lot of that out of me. I rarely get nervous public speaking now, and even today I played the piano with other people in the room (it was not a performance, but I didn't used to be able to even play with other people around). That is beginning to change. And I feel like it is changing because this is what I'm supposed to be doing. What if policy doesn't really change anything? I hate working in offices and doing research papers without feeling like I am actually changing things. Maybe I'm supposed to be in the classroom, maybe that's my role.

I'm going to articulate this better later, now I have to start showing Blood Diamond for the kiddies.

Reason to close the building #1,267

The "Tower of Power" (or the Tower of Terror as I like to call it) is going to be demolished. Possibly even as early as this summer. It will be knocked down so that a new school can be built for Ward 7 (Woodson is the only HS in Ward 7, unlike Anacostia which has 2).

Now aside from the lack of ability to control the tower (too many staircases for kids to run and hide in, needing a security guard on each of the 7 floors at all times -and usually needing 2 per floor to keep it actually monitored - which of course has never and will never happen), having kids walk up 7 flights of stairs to class in 4 minutes or less after lunch, the obvious fact that it is hideous, the whole building only having a few exits to escape from a fire, etc. etc. we have YET another reason to close the building.

Over the weekend the pipes burst on the 4th floor. Now apparently this is a common occurrence. Last year the school was forced to relocate for 2 weeks to another school due to massive amounts of flooding (although apparently the school they used before is now being used by a charter so there isn't anywhere for Woodson to go if we need to be moved). You can imagine how moving to another building affects attendance (the students are even less likely to show). Luckily for me, my room did not sustain any damage (although rooms around the corner from me did. The 2nd and 3rd floor (B&F basically) were hit the hardest. So now I will have to be very careful in where I put things in the room in case a pipe bursts above or (heaven forbid) in my room. 4 classrooms had to be closed for the day, since there is too much standing water, materials were obviously destroyed in some rooms - including a few computers, but the 2nd floor was pretty much cleaned up when I arrived (apparently it took over 14 hours to do that). So there ya go, yet another reason why this crappy building needs to be torn down and a new one put in its place.

Of course that does leave the question that everyone has been asking... where do we go while they build the new building?...

OH MY GOD!

God bless Apple Computers. I just bought a mac mini and hooked it up to my new HD TV with an HDMI cord (so the resolution is really great). But here's the real kicker. I can use that computer FROM MY LAPTOP w/remote screen from Apple. I hate to sound like a commercial but HOLY CRAP. I can do it from anywhere apparently (so I may just try doing it from work tomorrow, just to see if it works) and I can like access the computer and get it to do what I want. Anyways it is amazing so far.

On another note I got 5 gold fish. I decided on goldfish because they are hardy and they get big, and I want bigger fish for some reason. Anyways they're really cute. I have one classic golden one, a googly eyed one, two spotted gold fish, and a white one w/an orange spot on it just like spot and then I got 1 algae eater. Anyways they're cute and swimming around like crazy.

Ok I think it is time to start working on lesson plans. Whoop de doo... It would be nice to know how many kids are in each of my classes. *sigh*

WOW! Honestly I don't think I would have predicted this...

Congratulations to my FRESHMAN CLASS (If you have heard any of my stories... then you know this is quite something...)!!

They pulled off a MAJOR COUP by turning in some of the best finals I have received to date. They really did it, they wrote amazing fictional news articles recounting their "experiences" in the Belgian Congo which we had been studying from an excerpt from King Leopold's Ghost over the past week and a half. Honestly I have to say I did not remotely expect such high quality in these articles. Not only did they have accurate information, they were clearly organized, with well constructed sentences, and very few grammatical errors! They also went above and beyond the call of duty many times, adding extra anecdotes and stories to their articles. I can't believe it! They did this in one class period, and this is the kind of quality work that I wouldn't have been able to expect even if they had had a week to complete it just one month earlier. I have no idea how much credit I get to legitimately claim for this transformation... but SHA BAM!!!!!! I'm so pumped. They have put me in quite the good mood today. I had 4 students get 100% and one person even got a 125 for writing a really really good and really really detailed article. But in the end 15 people got LEGITIMATE A's. 15!!!!! This is the class that had 20 people failing for turning in such crappy work (or turning nothing in at all). And nobody who was present for the exam got below a C- (of which there were only 2). Honestly I am SO PROUD of them. At this point I think I will only have 9-10 failing, instead of 20. Congrats kids! You stepped up at the last minute and showed some incredible growth. Now if you had only done this 2 months ago......

Oh Grace... Man I love dogs

I just uploaded my photos from this summer and I found a picture of little Gracie. Look at this adorable dog. This is Grace. She belongs to my old roommate Allison. Allison bought Grace while I was living with her over the summer. Grace is an awesome dog, I visit her and her big sister Sophie sometimes. But look how cute she is! She's barely grown over the past 6 months, maybe she'll be one of those rare dogs that stays a puppy forever!

On that note, I've been planning to get a dog (and possibly even 2). The idea is to get one this June and train it over the summer when I have a lot of time on my hands. I really really want a dog even though I like the cats that I am taking care of right now (they're going back to their owner in a week or two). But in the end, I really am a dog person. I need an animal that will love me at all times and let me pick it up and hug it, and not just when it feels like it haha. I also really like taking dogs for walks, and in DC it seems like dogs tend to be a great way to get to know other people! (Everyone seems to have a little dog they take on walkies around the neighborhood.)

I'm looking at several different breeds (I know this might surprise some people who would assume that I would just buy a dachshund... and yes, they are most definitely on the list!)

So here are my thoughts so far (in no particular order):

• Daschunds
• Cairn Terriers
• West Highland Terriers
• Welsh Terriers (Or maybe Lakeland Terriers... unsure which one I like better)
• Yorkshire Terrier
• Pomeranian
• And maybe even a Wishbone dog (though apparently they are hyper as all get out, and that might be bad for the apartment haha)
  

I'm beginning to think I may even get 2 if possible because I want them to have a friend when I do start working again in the fall. I have to keep it small because the apartment is not that big and I don't want a dog that will be sad because it is cooped up during the day. I have looked into getting a rescued dog or a dog from the pound, but finding a small dog in that category seems hard. I will have to research breeds and breeders this spring and then look at "reserving" a dog around then so that I can buy it and then actually take it home in June when it is a few months old. How exciting!

Oh and I posted some pictures on my dad's .mac page if you would like to see them (they're also posted on facebook I think.) Here's the link: http://web.mac.com/charlesfuchs/iWeb/Site/DC%20Website%20Photos.html

End of First Semester! A jumbled recap

I have officially finished teaching my first semester. The students have taken their finals, *hopefully* turned in their projects, and now all there is to do is grade the huge stack of work that I have left to grade by the end of next week. While I do not think that I was wildly successful, transforming their lives beyond recognition and making them perfect little angels, I do think that I was a good enough teacher for my first attempt.

I am disappointed in myself on a few counts though. It was sometimes very hard for me to get work done at home, and I preferred to surf the net, read, watch a movie or a TV show, cook, and go to the gym instead. While none of these things were particularly bad things to do (except maybe all the TV show watching), I was spending way too long on them to purposefully avoid doing work.

This was especially true with the lesson planning. There were too many days where I did not plan out a long unit, and instead went with the day-to-day planning instead. In fact I would say I did this the majority of the time. This clearly made my lessons not as good as they could have been, and while I think that none of my lessons were disastrous, there were certainly days where I resorted to actually using the text book *shudder,* or having non-activity/project based lessons. I really need to get with the program on this front and start really making good unit plans that really have a specific purpose that unifies them and makes them interesting. I also need to come up with creative activities that promote interactive learning and higher-order thinking.

While these are difficult things to do, and I do not expect to be able to do them all in my first year, I know that I could have done better had I just applied myself a bit more and really put more hours into creating the lesson plans.

So I still have a long way to go. But this makes me excited for next year and getting to teach my world history courses again. I intend to become more involved in getting my students registered in the right courses so that I don’t have so many problems as before, and I am going to basically try and cut out world history I and make world history II a two year course. The awesome thing is that since they are not tested on world history content, and are instead tested on reading and writing skills by the district, I can basically do whatever I want without any higher-up consequences. And I will be adhering to the standards, just the ones that I find important, and frankly the ones that I can do justice too. I do think the World History I standards are important, but I just don’t know enough to really teach them, and I can do so much more with these world history II standards.

My students have overall been really great. Even the crazy (and crazy huge) freshman class has improved beyond belief. I mean when I first got them I could barely get a sentence out before they were all talking and it was total chaos. I had to give them “a serious talk” every day about their behavior and their grades. And towards the end I very rarely had to do that, and they were policing themselves. Not little angels by any means, but they began to realize what they could and could not do if they wanted to do well in my class. And I think I got through to a lot of them. I certainly wasn’t the only one, but considering how wild they were, I was very impressed with the overall improvement, I think I did a good job with them, all things considered.

The 10th graders were overall very strong. The only students in danger of failing really are the ones who had too many absences and then did not put in the effort to make up the work. This is something I also need to get on top of, because I need to be a little more organized overall so that I can effectively deal with these situations and make it a bit easier for them to get back on track. That being said, their missing class isn’t my fault, and they have to be willing to pay the consequences for their actions. I mean today one of my students asked if she could take the final during 2nd period because she had to “do something” with her mother during the afternoon. And she would be missing her science final all together. I obviously said no, and what did she honestly expect me to say? You can’t miss the last day of class if your class is having their final exam, unless a) you have an excellent excuse or b) you don’t mind getting a ‘0’. The fact that her mother was going to allow her to miss class is ridiculous; somebody needs to get their priorities in order.

In terms of content, I am practically convinced that there is no other class I would rather teach than 20th century world history. While US Government sounded like a great course, there is too much that they don’t know, so I have to seriously rethink how to teach that class. But since I’m teaching it again this coming semester, I should hopefully be able to figure things out more, and damn but this is a great year to be teaching this course, and next year will be even better, so maybe I will try and keep it instead of giving to Ms. Scott would just mess it up even more anyways... I wonder which teachers will still be at B&F next year (apparently people leave in droves from time to time). If some of them leave, maybe I can get in on hiring some young teachers like myself for the core program and making this a staff that I could imagine staying with for longer and actually propelling us into a new era.

But hell we don't know anything about what is going on with this school next year, we don't know what building we'll be in (they're tearing Woodson down apparently), we don't know if we'll be with Woodson anymore, we don't know what our enrollment is going to look like, hell we don't know if we'll even be an autonomous school anymore. So I have no idea what to expect. I'll just have to ride out the storm and do my best to be a good teacher, and hopefully a much much much better teacher, in the coming years. I mean as far as I know I can only get better now right?

Wasting Time

[When this post was written, I was sitting in an all school assembly run by my Director]

I am currently sitting in an auditorium for a B&F assembly. This is supposed to last from 2:00 – 2:30. We shall see if that holds. Now this assembly is just another example of how we here at B&F have forgotten the #1 principles of economics: efficiency. Apparently I, as the most anti-capitalist in the program, am also the most efficient with my time (minus the science teacher Ms. Young – I am sure she is better with her time than I am). I don’t stand for wasted time. It drives me crazy. So here are some examples of how we waste time.

• Morning “Collaborative” Meetings: Every morning we have a “collaborative” meeting from 8:10 – 8:45+ . Teachers are supposed to arrive at school by 8:10 every morning. So each morning we should have all the teachers in the meeting. But do we? Hell no. Ms. Young the science teacher, Ms. Quo the math teacher, Ms. Lopez the Spanish teacher, and me. We are the teachers that arrive on time every day. And if we really go for every single day, then it is just me. Now every morning, Ms. Riley basically tells us a few announcements and then we discuss random things and never come to any conclusions or rational decisions. Basically it is time that I could be spending preparing my classroom and preparing lessons but instead I have to just sit and listen to Ms. Riley tell me things that have never once been helpful. She uses tons of jargon and offers no helpful tips for running the classroom. The few times I have tried to make things happen I get blank stares and/or they get mad at me. And if I ask questions or question one of the rules they make up, or question how they say they want us to run the classroom (heaven forbid) then I basically get treated like I am stupid and know nothing. And you’ll just have to take my word for it, I am not condescending when I bring up these suggestions, I sincerely ask the questions and put in my two cents. But nobody understands me except for maybe Ms. Young, they act like I am from outer space.

• Random assemblies and programs: We have had the occasional assembly, or grade level meeting, or presentation. All of them have basically been a waste of time. The director goes through random rules, she makes speeches, she berates the students, and it just goes on and on. I understand that we have problems w/rules being broken and generally bad behavior, but there must be a better way to go about getting these rules to happen. These large assemblies just don’t help anybody, and they waste what little precious class time we have. Not only that, the students tend to resent them because there is no real positive message being passed on, and it is so repetitive that the kids are sick of hearing it. They know what they are supposed to do, the question is how do we convince them that it is a good thing for them to do, that it is in their best interests. These kids don’t care about the Academy in terms of what makes the academy look good, so when Ms. Riley just tells them to do this or do that for the academy it doesn’t do anything. We need to really show them why these things are important, and I know I have had a hard time getting through, but we have to keep trying.

• School Plays: We had this weird play/variety show that involved like 50+ kids (although only maybe 4 did anything and the rest just “danced” on stage). But basically the week before winter break several of my students were missing class on a regular basis to be in this show, and when I saw the show the only thing they did was stand around on stage. And they missed 3 classes, which is the equivalent of 1 week in regular schedule days. Now a play is all well and good, but the rehearsals should be AFTER SCHOOL. Not on class time.

• Then there is the wasted time that I see occurring in several of the other teacher’s classrooms. Now I walk in, or walk by some classrooms and they’re just sitting and talking. I have had students take REFUGE in my classroom during 2nd period because they aren’t doing ANYTHING in their class. They’re just sitting. And this is partially because some teachers simply check out and think that the semester is over. Right before winter break students were complaining because apparently I was the ONLY teacher who was carrying on as if we were continuing to have class. I don’t have nearly enough time to cover everything I need to cover, and I’m sure many of the other teachers are in the same position. So how can they NOT be teaching? We need to expect that EVERY DAY counts if we want the students to think the same thing. I mean it was no wonder that none of my 10th graders came on the last day of class before break, because the teachers hadn’t planned anything for them to do, and basically told them it was OK to not come.

If we disrespect the student’s time with such obvious wastes, then how are we supposed to expect them to respect our time? And if the Business and Finance Academy really wants to be a top school, then we really need to get our act together and stop wasting all this time.

Well I think I really do have a candidate to support...

So I decided that I needed to really learn more about the candidate's actual platforms as much as possible so I can finally decide who I support based on issues alone. I went to the Edwards, Clinton and Obama websites, and I looked at comparative websites. While most of these comparison websites are just based on what the candidates say they will do if they become president, that's all anyone can really go off of. I figure the closer to my own opinions the better, accepting the fact that they would probably all be quite similar in what they do once (I suppose I should say if... but that feels so defeatist! hehe) elected into office.

So the candidate I have decided that I support is.........

Ms. Hillary Clinton

When looking through everything she comes the closest to my points of view on just about every issue. None of the candidates will be far left enough for my taste, but when looking at what she claims she will do to combat international poverty I was finally sold, because there was a clear difference in what she said and what the other two candidates said. She was far clearer on numbers (in terms of what $ amounts she will provide to what kinds of programs), and she said she would relieve all debt for "poor" countries, which none of the others said as far as I can see.

If she doesn't get the nomination I won't be devastated. I think all the candidates are pretty strong this year all things considered. So I guess we'll just see what happens. It's just nice knowing that I actually have reached a decision on who I support. Though I suppose I could be convinced to support someone else if someone had some really good hard facts and not just "hope."

Anyways... Go Hillary! Way to win New Hampshire.

Why block scheduling should be abolished

I am currently waiting for the cats I agreed to babysit to arrive (now 40 minutes late...), so I am going to update/rant.

So as I may have mentioned the semester ends next Friday (the 18th). This will end "1 years worth" of class for my 10th graders and 1 semester for my 9th. Unfortunately, this is a load of horse manure, they have received far less than that. For one, if they miss one day of class then they have basically missed 2 days because they miss one block class. Therefore it is a lot easier for students to fail a single class, just missing a week and a half is enough because you end up missing a lot of class time and fall very far behind.

Apparently there are "studies" that prove that block scheduling is more effective than regular scheduling. But I would like to see these so called studies. The only things I can think of are that you get more class time per class (80 minutes every day of the week) and the kids have fewer classes to juggle at a time.

But what if you want to read a book or two in your history class? You basically have half the time to do it outside of class than you would regularly because you have 20 weeks to complete a full 40 weeks of material. So that severely cuts down on the amount of homework you can give. You have to do fewer projects as well, doing a lot of the work in class.

The biggest problem though is continuity. When my kids leave after next week I won't get them back until the following year to continue from where we left off. Now how much history will they remember going in to the next year? Even if I did my job, the answer will be very little. And frankly, who can blame them? I have trouble keeping information in my head, let alone stuff that I may not be enthralled with. But it isn't as big a deal in history as it is in say MATH and science. I mean who can keep math equations in their head 6-8 months and then be expected to just move forward? It is ridiculous! Students can't reasonably be expected to practice for 4 months what they should be doing year round. Basically it provides a very incongruous experience for the kids and I honestly think it just doesn't work.

Now I do like having 80 minute classes, since that's how I've been taught. And I would have to learn how to create a 50 minute lessons if we changed. BUT I think there is a way to maintain a combination of year round schooling and block scheduling. This is what I had in high school and I think it worked rather well. Basically you have a "modified" block schedule. This can be done in a number of ways but the way my high school did it was to have regular 55 minute periods Mon, Tues, and Fri. Then on Wed. and Thurs. you would have 90 minute periods. So on Wed. you would go to period 1, 3 and 5 and on Thurs. you would go to 2, 4, and 6. This worked rather well, and I think you could modify it even more to accommodate the 8 period schedule. This way science classes can still have labs, you can have longer periods once a week, but not every day. Thus having year round classes.

In the end I don't know if I could teach long term in block scheduling, but its fine for now. I just seriously think if DC wants to improve its test scores and long term viability it will have to ditch this block program. Block may work in other areas, but it doesn't work in DC, not at all.

Chicago!

I am currently in Chicago sitting on Leah's couch. Chicago has been nice, though I wish I had come a day or two earlier to get some more time here. I went to a movie with Ian and Brian then out to dinner w/Leah and Will, and then we went to Jon Williams' B-Day party in Hyde Park. I always feel awkward going back to a place that I feel I am done w/, and going back to HP was no different. I felt like I shouldn't be there at first. But in the end, college is very different from high school, so I got used to being back in that area and realized there isn't the same stigma attached to returning to your college as there is w/high school.

Today my flight leaves at 4:50, and then it is back to DC and back to school. I'm not as prepared as I would like for school on Monday, so I will probably try and work on that in the airport and then once I get home as well. Only two weeks left to the semester! I have final essay prompts to write and a final exam to plan! Time is going to be so crammed, whoever thought that a block schedule was a good idea needs to have their head examined, and then removed (ok maybe I have watched too much Sweeney Todd...)

In World History I we are going to be covering early colonialism (in 2 weeks?! *sob*) so I'll probably just give them a final essay on that. And in World History II I have to figure out how to cover major human rights abuses of the Cold War in 2 weeks. Which ones to pick?! I have no idea... they are going to do short presentations for their papers so that will help, but goodness knows I have to do a lot of this if I want it done in a more complete and comprehensible manner. And then there is test review, and apparently MLK day is going to knock out a day... man do we waste a lot of time up in this joint.

Leah is going to California today to see her sister. It was nice that we just kind of fell into old rhythms even though we hadn't seen each other for 6 months. But we do keep in touch reasonably well (thank you internets), so it isn't all that surprising that we could just pick up where we left off. That being said I agree w/Leah that we should be able to teleport, because that would make seeing each other so much easier!!! Come on Star Trek, why haven't you come true yet?

So goodbye Chicago, it was a nice short visit. Hopefully I'll be able to come back again soon, otherwise Chicago people will just have to come down to DC! (See a few monuments... visit a few museums... sleep on my couch... come on you know you want to)

Don't know how to start... wow this is random

Well I'm just going to have to start writing here if that is what I want to do. Today I am going to get new glasses because I currently only have 1 non broken pair. Yesterday one of my pairs lost a nose piece while snowboarding and I couldn't find it (it had been superglued in several times already so it wasn't surprising) and my old pair of sunglasses got run over by a car (poor things).

I am planning to watch the caucuses on the news this evening if possible. I'm not sure who I like, but since I have no say I figure I will just wait and see who other people pick.

• I think I'm an Edwards fan, although I think this is because he can say things more freely due to the possibility that he won't win the nomination.
  
• But I also like Hilary, I think she plays to the middle which is disappointing, but I think that she's a pretty major liberal underneath and she actually talks about Universal Pre-K!!!! Which is the one policy/plan that I hope to see put into practice before I die, if nothing else.
  
• I think that Obama is more conservative than he allows, although I guess that's just because he talks to Republicans... something which I believe is overrated. If we have to talk to them to get things done fine (like if they have a majority somewhere) if not... then fuck the bastards

On another note, I'm getting way into scrabulous on facebook. It's bad, and I'm bad at it (really bad if you don't count the help of the computer). But I think I'm getting better.

Break has been good, I've seen the people I needed to see; I went snowboarding a few times; and I have taken a break from children. Unfortunately it has been a bit too big of a break because I have done almost no work whatsoever. Although I did grade all of period 1's work, and now only 16 of them are failing (5 pulled D's out of their asses!). I gave them a major project that if they do well on will possibly raise their grade by 1 full letter. But they have to be awesome. We'll see if any of them do it. Some of them have emailed me about it, so that is a good sign. But one of them already has like a B... so the project wasn't really designed to save her grade.

My plan for this thing is to start writing more about the classroom. What day to day teaching is like, what my students are like, lesson plans, etc. Sort of like a chronicle of my teaching experiences. That way when I look back I can reflect on how things change (or don't).