Kind of giving up on blogging, but follow me on Twitter: @deedoesdc I think I can make that work a bit more!

Very random musings from my couch

I've been a bad blogger. I haven't updated Dee in over two months. While I still have strong opinions and plenty to say, I feel less compelled to put it out there. While I can't put my finger on why, I think it may have to do with this being my third year in DCPS. I'm less surprised/intrigued by education happenings. I also feel like I've hit my stride teaching so I have less questions. And as reforms take hold in my school, there are less anecdotes about outrageous student behavior, etc. to post.

That being said, I recently began to feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. While I'll spare you the details, I've had a lot of students with listless expressions on their faces throughout the day. I wonder if it's fatigue, the winter blues, a lack of outdoor recess, the anticipation of snow, or something else. I feel it, too. We've been studying fictional texts for what seems forever and I cannot wait to get into two months of nonfiction units.

I'm also looking forward to our upcoming PD in February and March. I feel very fortunate to be in a special collaborative of schools which has taken the initiative to embed IMPACT into specialized workshops. I, for example, have been doing number sense development with several other teachers and instructional coaches. Great stuff. I believe the next two PD days will be spent pouring over the Core Content standards, of which I'm a huge fan.

Other things to look forward to: the (pending) arrival of a student teacher, a (pending) Donors Choose project, and booking a cruise for spring break with my teacher friends.

Things I'm not looking forward to: a second Master Educator evaluation, months of indoor recess, and the impending budget cuts.

Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things in an effort to beat off the winter doldrums.

Why few "highly-effective" teachers are found in the poorest wards

Bill Turque's recent article points out that teachers deemed "highly effective" are spread unequally across the District. Only 5 percent of those deemed the best teach in Ward 8, known for the lowest achieving schools and staggering poverty. (And Bill, I'd like to know how many of those were actual classroom teachers who had a hand in teaching core subjects, rather than specials like P.E. or art.)

Turque began to touch on why this distribution of inequality exists, but allow me to further explain why such "inequality" exists. As a teacher in what I consider to be one of the toughest neighborhoods in the city, my colleagues and I are confronted with unique challenges that very few others experience. We work with students who are products of broken, drug-riddled homes. An unacceptable number of my students have at least one parent who has been in prison, and several whose parents are currently in jail. As such, we are rarely just teachers. Instead, we function as social workers, ad-hoc parents, disciplinarians, and at times, bouncers. (I recently had a student attempt to choke me as I broke up a fight. Mind you, I teach second grade.) No matter how hard we teach, it's difficult to make a meaningful difference when there is no support or structure at home. If this wasn't the case, my school, and others, wouldn't be so relentless in building parent-teacher relationships through any means possible. This further highlights why I no longer think education is THE problem in this country; education is part of the problem, but lack of social services is the larger problem. (This of course could be entire blog post in and of itself and something that most ed-reformers, unfortunately, scoff at.)

In any other school, we would be highly effective teachers. Instead, we are merely effective because we can't just teach throughout the day. I, for example, lost IMPACT points because two students weren't observed to be completing an assignment during an observation. Why? One had a high fever, but mom would not come pick him up from school so instead he slept at my desk. The other's mother neglected to refill his ADHD medication prescription so he was off-the-wall for a week. These situations do not happen in other schools. We have to wear so many different hats at our jobs. While our administrators recognize we are worth our weight in gold, IMPACT will not reward us because it has limited scope to go beyond the classroom.

I do not believe IMPACT's financial incentives will help redistribute the "quality" of teaching. Call me cynical, but it is an immense sacrifice to take on the teaching positions in the less desirable wards. I do not think there are many chomping at the bit to leave their west-of-the-park-school to teach in Anacostia. In fact, there are very few days that I don't fantasize about what it would be like to teach elsewhere.

Loving life right now

This afternoon I took two students to Opera in the Outfield along with another co-worker. The four of us took in the opera (the students' first) and ate a great picnic lunch, including dirt cake.

The best part was running into Vincent Gary on our way in. The girls spotted him almost immediately and stood there starstruck until we urged them to go introduce themselves. Gray spoke to us for a few minutes and mostly kept politics out of the discussion. He also posed for some pictures with us. You'd have thought the girls had just met Will Smith or Timbaland -- they talked about Gray ALL afternoon.

Hopefully tomorrow is just as enjoyable as this afternoon. I am really enjoying second grade. I have a wonderful group of twenty-four who are eager to learn and fun to work with. I'm constantly laughing at their antics or smiling because I'm just so happy/proud of their accomplishments.

We have a big event to look forward to on Friday. At the beginning of the year, I sent out an application for free books from First Book over the staff listserv. Several of us applied for free books and instead of a few, our school is receiving 3,000(!!!!) books because of our applications. Target is co-sponsoring the giveaway and they will be filming the entire thing! We were also told that Target is giving us several thousand dollars to purchase additional books. AMAZING!

Here's to a great week for everyone!

I've got money to blow, part deux

In anticipation of the retro-check, I'm off Ikea, Walmart, Lakeshore, and Office Depot to pick up a ton of "wants" for my classroom. I also treated myself to a few school clothes items and a new wallet. The rest is going into savings. How are you spending your retro check?

I've got money to blow

Retro checks are on their way this weekend. You can view yours on PeopleSoft. The amount made me fall over. I can buy so many cardigans. Woot woot.

Raise information up on PeopleSoft

If you log into PeopleSoft, you can now view your upcoming paycheck that reflects our raise. I'm interested to see if yours is correct. Both mine and my roommate's is reflective of only being a Step 2 teacher, even though this is our third year in.

Update: I spoke to an HR rep who was very helpful(!!). Our step increase will be indicated after the beginning of the new fiscal year (October 1).