teaching

My boss, the vice principal, threw me under the bus today. Let me start by explaining that I have been evaluated through observation and the test scores of my students. My evaluation has come back, and I have been rated as being among the top 10% of teachers in the school. 

I have a student in my class who has been a constant discipline problem. It began in September when this student got a few zeroes for not turning in assignments. She asked me for extra credit, and I explained to her that I do not do extra credit: you either meet the standard, or you don’t. I gave her the opportunity to do the assignments that she missed, and she refused, saying that those assignments were stupid. She then posted on Twitter things like: “Fuck my science teacher, he won’t give extra credit” and “I’m gonna get rid of my science teacher.” I wrote her up for that, and reported it to the principal. Her parents requested a meeting with the vice principal, and immediately went on the attack.

That was when I found out that these particular parents and their children do this every year. They pick one teacher, and spend the year making that teacher’s life miserable. In the past 6 months, these parents have filed over 100 complaints against me. For example: Last month, this student punched another student in the stomach while a third student held the punchee’s arms behind his back. I gave her a referral, and the parents wanted to know why I did that instead of emailing them, and filed a complaint.

In one of the many parent-teacher conferences I have had with this parent and the vice-principal, he accused me of giving his daughter bad grades because I didn’t like her. I showed him some of her work, to show that she turns in shoddy work. He then said that I was probably just putting her name on things that I had done poorly myself, in order to frame his daughter. He then told me that I was a damned liar, and that he was going to get me fired. Not wanting to sit there and be abused, I got up to leave, and was told to sit down by the vice-principal. I was later told that we have to listen to and take whatever a parent or student wants to say to us, and getting up from a parent/teacher conference is cause for termination.

That brings us to today. He was angry because she got detention for calling me stupid and for sleeping in class. He was also angry because his daughter has a D in my class, and because I was making her write reports in Biology class, claiming that I am not a writing teacher and have no authority to make students write in a science class.

He asked the vice principal to move her from my class because he was afraid that I was trying to hurt his daughter. This is the second time in two weeks that he has claimed this. Note that not once have I been near her in anything but a classroom setting, along with 25 other students. The parent stood up, pointed to me, and said “Don’t you fucking eyeball me, boy.” and then stormed from the room. The vice principal told me that if I can’t get along with this parent, I will be terminated.

I went to the other vice principal about an hour later, and I told him that if that child is not removed from my class by Monday, I am resigning. They removed the student from my class, but I just don’t know if I can teach. I don’t think that this career is for me. The problem with the education system in this country is this:

Parents who think that their little snowflake is an ‘A’ student, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar who is picking on them. Then they threaten a lawsuit, and the school backs down, because teachers can’t sue, but parents can. As a teacher, I was told by other teachers that the only way to stay out of trouble and keep your job is to give nearly everyone at least a C, try not to report students for anything, and keep the parents happy. Who cares if the kids learn, the parents don’t want smart kids, they just want kids with good grades.

Here is a video of a black student attacking a white one, all the while making racial comments. The school is a short distance from mine, and I actually know a few of the students that attend the school, including a student who appears in the background of this video.

As a first year high school teacher, I can tell you that I have seen this sort of thing myself. Last month, a black student called a white one an “ignorant cracker” and a “honky.” The white student replied that the black student should “remember that it wasn’t that long ago that I would have been your boss, and you would be picking my cotton.”

The white student was suspended, the black one was not disciplined. After the incident, teachers were told by the vice principal that racism and racial comments would not be tolerated, and that those of us here in the south (VP is from up north) needed to learn that redneck, racist attitudes of the people in the south would have to change.

I am too new to have pointed out to him that his comments and the way the incident were handled were racism and discrimination at their finest.

I have been quite busy. The main thing that has been taking up my time is the new career as a High School Science Teacher. I have been working so much that I don’t have time to read blogs, let alone write one. Let me explain how my week typically goes:

I spend about 20 hours a week teaching class.
I attend about 2 hours a week in training.
I spend another 10-15 hours a week grading papers.
I takes me about 4 hours to plan the next week’s classes.
Then I spend about 3 hours a week on parent conferences.
I spend 3-4 evenings a week attending High School sporting events (JV and Varsity Football, Girl’s Volleyball, Swimming, and Golf.)

This was supposed to be a part time job (I only get paid for 20 hours a week). That leads me to my troubles of the past month:

I had a problem with many of my students not turning in their work. Those that were turning it in, were not really trying all that hard. In fact, more than half of my students had earned a grade that was below a C. I was desperately looking for a solution. I finally found one: There is a school policy stating that any student receiving below a C in a core course (Math, Science, English) will be placed on mandatory tutoring.

So what I did was establish two days a week as tutoring days, and the sessions would last for one hour. Any student who had below a 50% would have to attend both days each week, and any student who had a grade between 50 and 70% would have to attend one. During the sessions, the students would be working on and turning in any assignment that they had received an F or a Zero on.

It worked even better than I had hoped. Every single student increased their grade as a result tutoring. My classes went from having a 62% average with 23 F’s, to a 74% and only 4 F’s. There are only 10 students left with a D or an F. 4 students went from an F to a B, and all but 7 of the students increased by at least a full letter grade. I did all of these tutoring sessions off the clock, and didn’t get paid for a minute of them. Good work, right?

The parents of one of my students are furious, as is their child. This child doesn’t want to sit in tutoring and do work. She is demanding that the student be given extra credit to take home and bring back. I explained to them that I don’t do extra credit, and if the students would just do the work as assigned, that is sufficient to get a passing grade. The parents are emailing the Principal and the Superintendent and claiming that I am punishing their child by holding them after school and giving a bad grade. This is reflected in the student’s attitude. The student called me stupid, refused to do any further assignments, threw her books across the room, and then stormed out of the classroom by kicking the door open while declaring that she was going to report me to the principal and to her parents.

We scheduled a parent/teacher conference. (For the third time this year with this parent.) I explained that I just grade the homework as done or not done, and the exams, which are multiple choice, and there is no teacher discretion built into my grading plan. I set the course up this way so no one could claim that I was being unfair. The parent still insists that I am giving their student a D just to punish them. The father used as an example that I reduced his daughter’s grade because she turned in an assignment late, as per class policy. (My class policy is 10% off for each day late). He said that the paper was turned in the next morning, which was only 18 hours late. I asked him what happens if you mail in your tax return 18 hours late. Then I showed him his wife’s signature and his daughter’s signature on the classroom policy paper, where they acknowledged that policy. He was furious. When I mentioned the student’s temper tantrum from the other day, the parent told me to my face in front of the Vice-principal that I was “a damned liar.” They have threatened to get an attorney.

It has since come out that the student is secretly taking photos and video in class to use as proof that I am not teaching to the student’s and parents’ standards. If this student would only pay attention in class instead of trying to prove me wrong, they would be earning a better grade than a D in my course.

This morning, the student tweeted out “Fuck my science teacher. We r gonna get him fired.” Don’t think that I am not giving that particular tweet to the Principal.

In other news, while proctoring the SAT, a student showed up without photo ID. No photo ID, no test. Those are the rules. The teachers don’t make the rules for the SAT, the College Board does. The parent immediately launches into a tirade about what an asshole the teacher is, and how the teachers are personally responsible for ruining his child’s chances at a future because they won’t let him in without ID, and now the kid can’t get into college without his SAT scores.

The parents are more immature than the kids. Teaching is easy. It is dealing with the students and the parents that is hard.

I have been teaching at the college level for over 8 years. I just started teaching high school this year. A month into my job as a high school science teacher, and I have a few observations:

This job requires far more hours of my time than I am paid for. I work at home for about 3 hours per night, planning lessons, designing lab activities, and grading papers. I’m hoping that next year it will be easier, because the lessons will all be planned out.

The kids, for the most part do good work. Very few of them do great work. Currently, only 3% of my students have an A. The majority of the class are average students, with about 30% of them earning a B, and about 35% of them have a C. There are about 20% that have earned a D, and if it were up to me, a D would not be a passing grade. Finally, 12% or so are failing my class.

The students that are failing my class are also failing others. I have one student that is failing my class along with 3 others. He is failing Geometry, Biology, English, and History. He has a D in an elective, and an A in art. I would not take bets on his ever making it through high school.

The number one reason why kids are failing? They don’t turn in any assignments.

Number two? Cheating.
I caught three kids so far cheating by cutting and pasting WikiPedia pages into their report. One of them actually turned in a wiki page that I had written. Plagiarism is cheating, and anyone caught cheating in my class gets a discipline referral and an automatic zero for the assignment.

Number three? Just not studying. I can see who logs into the class website to retrieve class notes and power points. There are quite a few that never log in, have never checked out a textbook, and cannot understand why they get a 40% on the test.

I email weekly progress notes that include a copy of their grade book marks to every parent. If your child has a D or an F, I email you personally and notify you that your child is doing poorly. In many cases, it helps. In some, it does not. On average, I schedule 3-4 face to face parent/teacher conferences a week.

Still, there are students who have a 45% average in my class.

That is American Education. Don’t blame the teachers. There are teachers that phone it in, but there are many parents that just don’t care how their kids do.

So there are people who claim that Common Core is anti-American. I posted on this once before, and it was pointed out that the complaints are all about math and American History. To clear up any confusion, here are the required Common Core benchmarks for 8th grade American history. Here are just a few of the 112 benchmarks that are required for the course:

SS.8.A.3.3:  Recognize the contributions of the Founding Fathers (John Adams, Sam
Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason, George Washington) during
American Revolutionary efforts. Examples may also include, but are not limited to, Thomas Paine, John Jay, Peter Salem.

 SS.8.A.3.9:  Evaluate the structure, strengths, and weaknesses of the Articles of
Confederation and its aspects that led to the Constitutional Convention.

 SS.8.A.3.11: Analyze support and opposition (Federalists, Federalist Papers,
AntiFederalists, Bill of Rights) to ratification of the U.S.
Constitution.

 SS.8.A.3.12: Examine the influences of George Washington’s presidency in the formation of the new nation.

 SS.8.A.3.13: Explain major domestic and international economic, military, political, and socio-cultural events of John Adams’s presidency.

 SS.8.A.3.14:
Explain major domestic and international economic, military, political,
and socio-cultural events of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency.

The Common Core, at least as adopted here, doesn’t tell teachers HOW to teach, but merely what the children should be able to do at the end of the course.

I think that people are making a big deal out of nothing. Here is a link to the Florida version of common core. Get the facts for yourself, don’t fall for politically spun hyperbole and urban legends.

I have decided that I need to find something to do to occupy my time during retirement. So what I did was apply to be licensed as a Florida teacher. The state claims to have a need for teachers, due to a shortage.

I applied for my certification in Biology and Health. I got a letter from the state saying that a Paramedic with 25 years of experience doesn’t have the training in First Aid in order to be a Health teacher. I thought this was ridiculous, so I appealed.

I am now approved to teach young minds in the fields of Biology, Science, and Health.