Rachel Heinz's blog

Success

I'm glad I wrote my failure blog first.

I felt pretty good about my first year of teaching.  We'll find out how successful this year really was when the state test scores come out next week.

The one thing that I felt most successful about was winning the trust of my students.  The first few weeks of teaching were/are rough, and I never thought my students would ever want to be in my class.  They didn't trust me.  They didn't like me.  They thought I was weird and foreign.  They didn't like my rules.  They didn't like working.  They hated that I made them sit in assigned seats.  I fought an uphill battle for the better part of the first semester. Then, something magical happened and everything changed.  I don't know what it was.  I don't know how it happened, but I don't really care.  Winning the trust and support of my students was probably the single biggest success I had this year.  And man, life got easier when they realized I was a good teacher, a good person, and I wanted to be at school every single day to teach them.  Of course there were a few I could never quite reach, but I'm satisfied with the majority. 
My students and I grew to mutually respect and trust one another.  By the second semester, I felt comfortable with almost all of my students.  We had a no stealing and no fighting zone in my classroom.  It was a safe place for everyone.  It took a lot of hard work and a lot of writing assignments, but by the end of the year, my only classroom rule was, "don't talk back to me or your out."  I'm not looking forward to fighting that battle for the first five months of next school year, and I wish I could teach all of my same students again.   I probably did some things wrong and made some poor decisions.  Maybe if I can correct some of those things, I will be able to create this environment in four month instead of five.  It's nice to reflect on some things that made me feel successful as a first year teacher.  It sure beats writing about my failures.  I think I had a pretty successful year.  I'm still here, aren't I?  I am looking forward to that first day of school, but I'm looking forward to having the month of July off more.     

3 Skills

If I wasn't focusing on teacher skills, I would say that I need to work on writing my blogs.  They are often unfocused and jumbled.  I forget to write them, and I struggle to come up with 400 hundred word entries.  Thank goodness for Elise, who always reminds me, via G chat, that I better get writing.

Okay teacher skills...

1. I want to work on planning in units.  I plan week to week.  This works for small objectives but doesn't work so well when I have to cover in depth topics.  I lose sight of the end goals and end up being disorganized.  I think these problems would lessen if I planned in units.  Planning was extremely time consuming for me this first year.  Since I am all planned for my subject, I think I will be able to group things better in the Fall.  I can work on this over the summer by helping my first years plan in units. 

2. I really need to work on my closures.  I think closing the lesson is extremely important, and I rarely do it well.  I don't leave enough time in my lessons for a proper closure.  I think it's important to sum up the lesson, and so I hope to master this skill over the summer.  I hope to involve my students in the closure, making them recall what we learned during the class period.

3. I want to work on assessing my students more frequently.  I want to ask better, more precise questions, allow more wait time, and give more affective tests and quizzes.  I had trouble gauging how much my students really learned from any given lesson.  It's important that I improve this skill, so I know when I should move on and when I should slow down.

There are a lot of things I really do need to work on this summer.  I would say classroom management, but my management style is not MTC management style, and I don't think Ben would appreciate me teaching the first years my ways. I hope that summer school this summer is a success.  I am excited to work on these teacher skills, so I may become a better teacher.  I am also excited to be working with the incoming first years.  I hope that I can give them good advice and help them to overcome their fears.  I wish there were first years going to Tunica in the Fall...oh well....

First Year Reflection

My first year of teaching has been crazy. I taught five periods of Intro to Biology and one period of biology. I had big classes and little classes. I was cussed out once. I almost had a fight in my room once. I laughed a LOT and smiled more than I should have. I connected with my students and we grew to mutually respect one another. I like a lively classroom, and I probably tolerate more talking than I should. But, it works for me.

Teaching is hard. It is way harder than I thought it would be. It is both mentally and physically challenging. And, I don’t eat well enough or exercise enough to combat the effects of my job.

Things that went well:

·          My classroom management plan pretty much went out the window.  But, my new policy of “Do what I say or I’ll call your mom" works wonders. Every interaction I’ve had with parents has been positive, and they are always on my side. This works for me.

·          My biology kids were prepared for the state test. I know that most of them did well.

·          I was able to successfully complete labs with my students.

·          I haven’t experienced a situation in my classroom that I couldn’t handle.

·          I never cried or even felt like crying in front of my kids.

·          I attached huge giant writing assignments to all my write ups.  Kids weren’t allowed back in my room until they finished them.

·          I used my sick days well. I relaxed, played and recovered.

Things I need to improve:

·          Organization – I want to have a folder system next year. The kids need to be held responsible for staying organized, and I haven’t kept up with that this year.

·          Planning units – Things would have been easier this year if I would have planned by unit.  However, it’s really difficult to do because it takes a LOT of time and energy. Next year I will be planning by unit.

·          Finding healthy incentives for kids – I feel guilty every time I give a kid a candy bar or a bag of chips for tickets…

·          Having things to do for kids who finish early.

·          Exercising more

·          Eating better

·          Finding more time to spend with my wonderful husband

 

Freewrite

Four and a half weeks left.
My biology students are testing tomorrow morning.  I'm nervous.  I think 15/26 are well-prepared, another 5 are prepared enough, and the last 6 I will be praying for. I hope they stop by my classroom tomorrow morning on their way to the test.
My neighbors that live in the apartment above mine are fucking ridiculous.  Jacob and I had to call the police 4 nights in a row last week.  I'm afraid the man will end up killing the woman.  She locks him out of their bedroom every night, and he breaks down the door every night.  I call the police every night and then complain to the manager every morning.  My lack of sleep is making me extremely impatient/confrontational at school.  I feel bad about it.  Apparently, my neighbors are being evicted.  I threatened to stop paying my rent and get a really large dog if nothing is done about them.  They have a week to get out.  We'll see if it happens.  I can't wait to find a house to rent.  I'm tired of living in this crappy apartment.
Jacob and I had to buy a new car.  A week and a half ago his 1995 Nissan Altima stopped working.  It had 200,000 miles on it, and it would have cost more to repair it than it's worth.  We ended up buying a 2008 Nissan Altima.  It only has 26,000 miles on it.  We got a good deal on it.  Hello car payment!
Jacob is now working at Harrah's.  He's working swing shift, 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM, Tuesday-Sunday.  I'll see him less, but I'm happy for him.  He's excited that he has a full time job with benefits.
I don't know what to do for the last 3.5 weeks of school.  I need to come up with a cool project.  I'd like to start a garden at Rosa Fort.  It would be nice to work outside all day.  We have a green house that's not being used.  Maybe the ag teachers will let me use it? OR, we could clean up the nature walk.  Rosa Fort has a really nice nature walk behind its campus.  However, it needs some work.  There's a lot of trash that's been thrown into the creek, and students have graffiti-ed all over the boardwalk.  Management would be an issue if I held class out there all day...There are lots of places to hide.  

Letter to Second Years

Second Years,

Congratulations, you made it!  I wonder how it feels to be done.  I suppose it's bittersweet.  Two years seems like a long time, but it isn't when it's over and you realize that you will be having your last class in Oxford and seeing some of your classmates for the last time.  Some of you may stay for a third year, but most of you will probably be moving on with your lives.  I wonder if any of you plan to make Mississippi your forever home.  I wonder who will be teaching next year and who won't be.  I wonder how many of you never want to see middle school/high school kids again.  And, I wonder how many of you have fallen in love with your town, your school, your students.  I know that no matter what you do, you will all hold a special place in your heart for Mississippi and all of its insanities.  And, it is insane.   
It has been a pleasure getting to know each of you. Thank you for being our mentors and our guides this year.  You have calmed our fears and given us hope that our second year will be 10x better than our first.  You made us feel welcome this summer, and you showed us how to embrace Oxford.  Your support and enthusiasm allowed each of us to feel like we were doing something right even if we weren't.  You were always positive, and you challenged each of us to be better.  It will be strange not having you in Northgate this summer.  It will be really strange being a second year, since I still feel like I know nothing, and I have no business giving teaching advice.  Will some of you be in Oxford this summer?  Will some of you be team teachers?  I hope that you will and you are.  I would like to give a special thanks to my mentor, Jason Kopanke.  It was wonderful having your support this year.  You are always positive, and your attitude really helped me to remain positive.  Goodluck next year.  Goodluck to all of you!  Although, I doubt you'll need it.  I think that after teaching in the Delta you will probably be able to do anything.  In fact, I know you will be able to do anything.  It has been a pleasure knowing each of you....congrats again on earning that masters degree and surviving!

Rachel Heinz 

Response to Josh

State tests, rewarding?  I don't think the state tests will ever feel rewarding.  They are long, boring, and tedious.  They measure a lot of things, a lot of which has to do with reading comprehension, and they are always going to be biased.  That being said, it is necessary to measure student achievement.  I think that we have to test students to see how well they're doing, to see how effective the teacher is, but I don't think that's the only way we should measure.  I was a test administrator for the English II writing test last week.  One of the students in my testing classroom is/was and English Language Learner.  ELL students are allowed to use translation books to help them on the test.  However, they must supply their own books, and the books cannot have the definitions of the words in them.  In this particular case, the student did not understand that his book couldn't have definitions in it.  He was clearly upset because he had brought with him a Spanish/English dictionary instead of a translation book.  This student surely failed the writing test, but I don't think the blame can be placed on the teacher.  Likewise, several students in the writing test forgot to mark which writing prompt they were responding to.  Without the prompt marked, they will fail the test.  Is this the fault of the teacher?  There are many flaws in the system, and I don't particularly agree with the tone of Josh's post.  I am excited to see how my students do on the Biology I exam.  I like the challenge.  I like competition. I like achievement.  I come to school and teach every single day, and I feel like my students are learning.  If they fail the state test, I will take part of them blame for their failure, but I don't think the blame can be placed entirely on me.  We don't control the raw materials in our classroom.  We can't control anything that happens outside our classroom, and I can't begin to guess what percentage of students should pass an exam.  I can't even give you an estimate.  Is it 80 or 85? ....maybe 79.5%...your guess is as good as mine.
I hope that all of my students are able to overcome their fears of the dreaded multiple choice state exams and pass them with flying colors.  I think that with a LOT of extra help even my most struggling students (like the ones that can't read) will someday be able to pass the exams.  However, how they get to that point is beyond me.  I will continue doing the best I can, working with what I have. 

Free Write

I'm finding the second semester much more difficult than the first.  Lately, I've had trouble getting out of bed, and I find myself arriving at school later and later.  I think it's the violence that's really getting to me.  Rosa Fort High School is violent place.  The kids are hostile toward one another all the time.  They've nicknamed Wednesdays "Wild Wednesdays" because there is always a brawl on Wednesday.  When the fighting happens, learning doesn't.  It's often my students who are involved in the fights, and I don't feel any sympathy toward them or their situations. I even gave every single suspended student a zero on his/her nine-weeks exam for the third nine-weeks.  This effectively dropped every one of their grades to F's, and I simply don't care.  I refuse to change it until the administration forces me to.  STAY OUT OF TROUBLE.  It's as simple as that.  
Today, I admit, was better.  I felt better today about my school, about Tunica, and about Mississippi.  I felt happy at with my job.  I even got to teach about something that was interesting to all my students....SEX!  Well actually, I taught about bacteria and used STDs as examples.  I read them detailed descriptions about each of the diseases, and they were extremely interested and engaged.  It felt good.  We were even able to discuss without anyone yelling out a random, "Your mom!" or some other annoying comment.  I enjoyed it.  I hope tomorrow goes just as well.  9 weeks left? Oh yeah, they extended our year through June 1...I don't quite know how that's going to work with MTC.
Wednesday is quickly approaching, and I hope it's not wild.  I hope we don't have any more guns on campus, and I hope the kids stop trying to kill each other.  Is that too much to ask?  Several kids have told me that they're going to the private school or to a school outside the district next year because they don't feel safe.  Aren't kids supposed to feel safe at school?   Of course it's my favorite kids who are leaving.  Why would they stay?  I would never in a million years send my own child to Rosa Fort High School.  It really says something about a place when the people working there don't feel comfortable exposing their offspring to that sort of environment.  In fact, the other biology 1 teacher is sending her son out of the district next year, so that he doesn't have to experience the awful middle school...

Southern Schools Mark Two Majorities

 

            It’s interesting that the South is the first region in our country where more than half of the public school students are poor and more than half are minorities.  I didn’t realize how impoverished a lot of the South really is until I moved here.  This statistic surely correlates with the failing test scores that many of these students have.  The article also states that by 2020 minorities are supposed to exceed 50% of student enrollment and that students poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches is on the rise in every state.  How can we combat these situations?

            It seems that education is surely the answer.  The article even says that the South is desperate for a well-educated work force to attract economic development.  But, how do we educate these students?  It seems that what we’re doing right now is not working.  It also seems that what is working in select classrooms cannot be implemented on a large scale.  I have no idea if what I’m doing as an educator is effective enough.  I’m sure that my students, specifically, have very different needs from the students in inner-city Atlanta.  Every situation is unique, and so it’s hard for educators to know how to tackle the problems that come with educating each student.

            The article clearly states that we must break the cycle of poverty.  It also talks about the fact that Southern schools are far more segregated now than they were at the height of integration in the ‘70s and ‘80s.  It also suggests that we do not spend enough on our poor students.  This is definitely true.  Students living in poverty have a lot more physical, emotional, and mental needs than students who are not living in poverty.  Maybe if we can meet the unique needs of each student we will then be able to break the poverty cycle and close the achievement gap.

            I’m interested in the beginning of the last paragraph that states that Southern politicians are keenly aware of the need for an educated work force. If they are so aware, than why aren’t they more interested in educating these students?  Why have bigger steps been taken to meet the needs of these students? Why haven’t we invested in their futures?  It’s all a big mystery to me, and I hope that in the near future we will focus on the students because we need these children to be educated in order for the US to continue to prosper and be successful as a country.

What Makes an Effective Teacher

            I couldn’t tell you what makes a good teacher.  It’s clear that this article argues that a good teacher is mot ivated, sets routines, plans well, is optimistic, and has clear goals set for his/her class.  Beyond that, I have no idea what makes a good teacher.  I could pick out a million things that make a bad teacher.  In fact, I’m surrounded by great examples of bad teachers.  I try to be a good teacher and do all of these things, but I don’t think I’m in the good category.  I’m pretty sure I’m in the just surviving, will probably be a good teacher next year category.  I do have strong feelings about the fact that in order to be a good teacher, you must like your kids and you must get your kids, on some level, to like you.  I’ve seen what can happen when the kids absolutely hate their teacher – there is definitely not much learning going on in these classrooms.

            I suppose the easiest way to measure the effectiveness of a teacher is through student improvement on standardized tests.  However, the thought of tying my salary to the outcome of a standardized test irks me a bit.  I also find this a bit disturbing when students don’t come to school on a regular basis.  How can my effectiveness as a teacher be measured when I consistently have 4-5 kids missing from each of my classes?  I think that student attendance should be taken into account.  I also don’t think that standardized tests are fair when it comes to special education students.  IEPs state that we, the teachers, must provide accommodations for our special education students.  However, accommodations are not provided on standardized exams.  How can my effectiveness be measured based on these students’ scores when they have never had to be evaluated in this way?  It is hard to measure teacher effectiveness, and I often wonder how effective I am.  We shall see when we get the results of the biology 1 state test.

            It is clear that organizations such as TFA and MTC have clear ideas about what it takes to be an effective teacher.  The data seems to point to certain qualities.  Since TFA teachers consistently perform well in the classroom, they are probably doing something right.  It’s a shame that most of the effective teachers that come through programs like TFA do not stay teachers for various reasons. 

Why You Shouldn't Join the Mississippi Teacher Corps

  Don’t join the Mississippi Teacher Corps if you can’t handle chaos.  If you can’t handle chaos, then you can’t handle teaching and you definitely can’t handle teaching in the Mississippi Delta.

 

Don’t join the Mississippi Teacher Corps if you aren’t dedicated to service.  Nobody in the school where you teach cares about where you went to college (unless you went to college in Mississippi).  Your students won’t care about your former academic or personal achievements, and you probably won’t be recognized on a day-to-day basis for the good job that you’re doing.  Teaching is a thankless job without a lot of perks.

 

Don’t join the Mississippi Teacher Corps if you don’t like new things.  Again, if you’re not from Mississippi, you will be experiencing a mess of new things.  If you can come to Mississippi without any expectations, you are in for a treat, but if you can’t, and you don’t handle change well, DON’T JOIN.  You will be miserable. 

 

Don’t join if you’re someone who is always right. You must remember that you are an outsider.  You are not southern (unless you are), and you do not know what’s best for the people in the community in which you are placed.  You are an outsider.

 

Don’t join if you don’t like fried food (just kidding). 

 

Don’t join if you can’t handle criticism.  You will be judged.  You will be criticized.  You will be hated.  You will be loved.

 

Don’t join if you’re not willing to sacrifice your “free time”.  You won’t have much free time as a teacher, and you’re often asked to participate in extracurricular activities.  If you don’t like to dedicate your time off to getting to know your students and your community, don’t join.  You will have a hard time being accepted.  You will have a hard time accepting. 

 

Don’t join the Mississippi Teacher Corps if you’re afraid of being bad teacher.  We were all bad on day one.  If you’ve never been bad at something before, you’re in for a rude awakening.  Teaching is hard, especially for those of us who are not natural teachers.  You have to learn by doing.  If you are someone who doesn’t like trying new things, who is afraid of taking risks, and who is embarrassed by being bad, don’t join the Mississippi Teacher Corps.

 

Don’t join the Mississippi Teacher Corps if you’re a pessimist.  You’ll have a tough time, you’ll be depressed, and you’ll probably quit.