Financial Anti-Literacy

I am just going to be taking some notes while this financial "literacy" "lesson" is going on.

• 9:15 - Carryout EVERY DAY is apparently a great way to save money.  Who knew?  Never mind the cost to your own bank account, the environment and your health.  Who knew long term costs don't actually affect you (and that doesn't negate the fact that it is also a short term cost)?
  
• 9:45 - since when is POPEYE'S a wise financial decision?
• 10:22 - Keep it legal people.  Keep it legal.
• 10:29 - Glossary = cheating
• 10:38 - Don't trust the internet.  Espeically paying bills and online banking.  (Ummm... new era lady)
• 10:48 - 2nd time we have brought up that you shouldn't bring a baby in when you ask for a loan.  I mean ok, but twice?  Really it needed saying twice?

wow. 4 hours of precious class time wasted.

Beginning to lose it

Thank goodness we have a FOUR DAY WEEKEND that starts tomorrow!

Today I managed to wake up at 7:50 AM (2.5 hours later than normal) which already wasn't good since we're supposed to be at work by 8.  So I called the director and informed her that I would be on time for class, but not any morning meetings.  I got to school by 8:30 (I am that good).  Kids were normal.

Then during 3rd period the fire alarm goes off - apparently a kid pulled it and an announcement was made for us to stay in the classrooms.  So we sit in the classroom and continue to work, being blasted by this fire alarm for a good 20-30 minutes (or at least that is what it seemed like).  It went off for a few minutes and then came back.  I was really beginning to lose it when that happened, the sound is just so awful and it just keeps going and there is nothing you can do but sit there and try to survive the high pitched jarring sound.

Then about 15-20 minutes into 4th period the fire alarm goes off again!  But this time the announcement tells us to evacuate.  When we get outside I have to corral the students onto the basketball court, which is no easy feat, by threatening them with suspensions.  I acutally ended up getting 100% of my students to not leave the school grounds.  I then met up with some of the other teachers and we proceeded to find out that the banner wishing the 10th graders luck on the DC-CAS on the opposite side of the building from me (where I teach Saturday School) was lit on fire on both sides and there was also an even more severe closet fire somewhere near the gym.  So 2 fires.  We stayed outside in the sun until 3:15 when the kids were released.  Also my fellow teacher (and rockstar) managed to pick up the fire marshal.  Oh yeah, she's that good.

Anyways it is very difficult to get anything done when this keeps happening.  I can't believe we are returning to this kind of insanity after holding it at bay for so long.  Stupid spring, the minute the weather even looks like it is improving the kids go insane.  Well actually that isn't quite fair, a few kids go insane and spoil it for the rest of us.

Fire (?!) #2

Well we may have had a second fire, though we didn't smell anything and were only oustide for 20-30 min or so.  It wasn't a drill, that much I do know.  Rumors say that something happened in the gym.  Fire trucks did come, we got out of the building much faster than normal and actually got the kids onto the basketball court.  I forgot my jacket, and froze to death.  We were having a debate team meeting... we don't have many left before the competition.  We're back folks!!!  Yay spring (that was sarcasm fyi)

Update 12:31 PM: Apparently there was a fire, and something looks black and you can smell smoke on the other side.  It must have been easy to put out though since we weren't outside nearly as long and there wasn't water all over the floor.  We really are back - the fire starters have reemerged after laying dormant for so long. 

Guilty as charged

On Friday afternoon the entire school had a meeting to discuss the shockingly low attendance rate on Friday and why it is occurring.

Our entire school has a definite cycle where on a half-day students don't bother coming to school.  This is for a variety of reasons, but the main one is probably because they don't think we will be doing anything of use on the half-day.  Now unfortunately they are largely right.  Classes don't do much of value on the half-day.

The question is: why aren't teachers doing more on half days?  The answer: because students aren't showing up, and if you do too much that day you will probably just have to re-teach it to the class when they show up the next class day.  So we have this cycle of low expectations that has to be broken, and the students aren't going to be (and shouldn't have to be) the first ones to break it.

Thinking about this I realized I am guilty of fulfilling this low-expectations of turn-out on the recordkeeping day this year.  I planned a survey and work period for projects into my curriculum because I knew many students wouldn't show up.  Therefore students still got credit for coming, but we didn't cover any new material.

This compromise is probably too large, and I will do better to make half-days more essential for the class to try and force them to come.  But here's the dilemma: If I do that, and then the rest of the classes are a waste of time, then it will really just further reinforce the idea that it is useless to come to school on those days.  Therefore we really need to come together as a staff and make this happen.

Now I'm going to go die on the floor laughing at the idea that a bunch of teachers who can barely muster up the energy to show up to work on time will actually teach a real lesson on a half-day.  Man this staff is making me pessimistic.  Good thing I have a meeting w/Ms. Rhee at the end of this month to try and change them by force.  If bottom up won't work, then top-down it is!

The past few days

Today is a 'record-keeping day' which means students only have a half day of school, which means that barely any of the students show up. The few students who are here are quietly working on their project and need little help from me, which generally makes me extremely bored. Since I have finished all my grading and have already inputted my grades I am going to write about the past few days.

Wednesday - April 1st

• I wrote a short email to Michelle Rhee requesting a meeting to discuss the future of the Academy and some of the suggestions I have about how to fix it. And 40 minutes later the meeting was set up. A+ for efficiency. I want to meet with her because I believe the Academy is in major trouble and I think that with a few changes (namely: leadership) and/or a proper focus we could turn it around and give the students what they deserve. I think this will take a lot of effort on the part of our staff (which I am not convinced they are willing to give) and therefore I want to see what options there are in mandatory meetings over the summer (like what other schools do) amongst other things.

• The DC Debate League lost the building they were going to use for April's competition and sent out a blanket email asking debate coaches to ask their principals if it would be possible to use our buildings. I asked our principal (without expecting much) and he was very gracious and said that it should be fine. So now it appears our school is hosting our first debate competition! (This would also be the first competition we have ever attended)

• I was asked if I had suggested I wanted to join the staff of our host school. I do not believe I had ever expressed that wish to the principal, but I have certainly thought about it. This possibly means that if I have to escape then I have at least 1 fallback option (although it would be very awkward to be in the same building as my current program but not on the staff)
  

• I had a long conversation over email with the woman who runs the Model United Nations program in DC about how I can join that program next year, and she had a lot of good ideas and I intend to implement them next year.

Thursday April 2nd

• We had our first fire (see previous post)

• Two students decided to act like wannabe gangsters in my 4th period
  

Here's how that went down:

• Student 1 (happens to be the student who instigated me getting hit in the face last year) walks into my 4th period class (which he does not have with me) and begins yelling at Student 2 who is sitting across the room. A female student is trailing him and telling him to back down and leave the classroom (happens to be cousin of student 2). The female student is actually trying to be helpful and diffuse the situation.
  
• Student 2 stands up aggressively and whips out his cell phone
• Student 1 yells "I have people too!" and other things about how it wasn't ok that student 2 had threatened to kill him and his family
• Student 2 says something along the lines of "I will f***ing kill your mother"
• Student 1 yells "don't bring my mother into this!"
• During this time I am trying to get student 1 to leave the room and telling student 2 to sit his ass down while standing between them
  
• The students are about 3 feet away from each other
• I am about to call the Director to help me deal with them since they are clearly not listening to me in the slightest
• She happens to be walking towards the room (not sure if she already knew something was happening or it was just very lucky)
• She tells the students to give her their cell phones (they're still both on them calling "their people")
• Student 1 yells "hell no I ain't giving you my phone"
• Student 2 says nothing but is not giving up his phone
• They both end up heading towards the office after the Director as she yells at them about how she was done with them disobeying her
  
• Student 2 ends up back in my classroom at some point, I didn't actually see him come in, but he sits quietly in the back doing nothing and I have nothing to say to him.

I don't really know what to make of this situation. I have been extremely lucky and this is really the first time this year I have almost had a serious fight (as opposed to a joking around kind of fight). I do not like what the students were saying at all, they both seemed very serious. I have no idea where this problem came from. I warned my class that if they were participating in this that I had no sympathy and would have very harsh consequences for anyone caught up in this feud. I'm don't really know what I could do, but they could tell that I basically would have no love for them if they got mixed up in that petty, ego-tripping business.

Today I am giving the students a survey about their perceptions of me and my classroom. So far everything is positive but with these kinds of surveys you have to worry that they're just feeding you what you want to hear and not the truth. I really need them to be honest with me if I ever expect to grow as a teacher. I don't quite know how to communicate that I like hearing what is wrong and what they don't like because then I can make sure to either not do it again or change it in some way to make it better.

Another reason why I am a terrible person

I can't help but laugh along w/the students after the counselor slowly walks by with her all green, possibly leather suit and she creaks the whole way extremely loudly.  I blame it on the lack of sleep.

That's the old Woodson we know and love

Well today we had our first real fire.  And apparently it was a doozie because the whole building smells like smoke, and after the fire department was done (which took almost an hour) there was water all over the floors.  The kids being NTB, decided to light a fire on a rainy and cool (if not cold) day.  So we had to stand outside, getting drizzled on, in the cold, for over 2 hours.  And as fun as that was...  Yeah, no.  Bad children.