Why Common Core Math Is Stupid

Recently I've seen a lot of stupid math worksheets. Both from my own kids' backpacks and posted on Facebook by friends. And what are all of these worksheets attempting to address? The goals of Common Core Math and PARCC testing.

I do not think the goals of Common Core math are stupid; in fact, I think they are the only thing that will prevent our students from falling even farther behind countries like Belgium and Taiwan. I hear a lot of complaints from people who point out that we learned math just fine back in the day; I also hear a lot of adults say that they are "terrible at math", that they don't understand how to calculate interest or how to determine if all those "deals" at the grocery store are actually deals. Even if you don't care about international tests or American students falling behind, do you care about your kids' ability to manage money in the future?

The idea behind Common Core is that all kids (not just kids in private schools, or kids who are naturally good at math or whatever) should understand numbers deeply. For example, as a child I easily memorized the formula for subtraction with regrouping - or borrowing, as we called it then. But I didn't understand the thinking behind the formula. So when the numbers got bigger and I had to decide whether I actually needed to regroup, I had no idea what to do.

Which is when I stopped following the formula and started figuring out things in my head. It worked for me, but not every kid is as pigheaded and determined to be right as I was (am). When I was teaching, I taught pretty much the way I had been taught, except that I tried to use manipulatives to show kids the formulas before I expected them to do it on paper.

And then my district adopted the Investigations Curriculum (since co-opted by Pearson, but still the best math curriculum I've used)  and my principal became a little obsessed with Singapore Math. Suddenly (or not so suddenly, it took me a good year to really figure out how to teach math in a radically different way) we were having long discussions in math class. Suddenly my students made connections between math concepts the way they made connections between reading concepts. Suddenly they were breaking numbers down and putting them back together. Suddenly a student - a completely average student with little support at home - took a shape game we were playing, realized it was just like skip counting and then made the leap to multiplication. In first grade. Suddenly teaching subtraction with regrouping was a discussion of methodologies, with some kids using the formula I had learned and other kids breaking the numbers up a different way. It was amazing.

It was based on this experience that I was initially excited about Common Core and even the PARCC. But then my own kids started at their (highly rated) public school. And I found out that those ideals of deep discussions and making connections had turned into worksheets where kids were forced to solve problems in several different ways - none of which were discussed. Until third grade, when then my kids had to explain their thinking so they'd pass the state tests.

But still no discussions. Just worksheets that forced them to estimate when they could do the problem in their heads,  or to use extra steps when solving addition problems. Worksheets where they had to write out how they solved the problem even though they'd never so much as explained their thinking verbally before. The school districts - and the education publishing companies who supply them - don't want deep discussions that require extra training for teachers. They want to give a different set of worksheets; they don't want to change the way they teach. And they certainly don't want to educate parents on why learning different methodologies is important ( better mental math, deeper understanding of how numbers and operations work together) or how to help their children effectively.

"They don’t allow time for a child to master a skill before moving onto something else. The topics change so rapidly that kids never get a chance to feel successful in mathematics."

I found this quote on one of the many, many, many sites dedicated to complaining about Common Core and various currently used math curricula. At first I was ready to dismiss it, as the author thinks that the Investigations curriculum jumps from topic to topic when in fact it's one of the ones that doesn't, but then I thought about my own kids' more traditional math curriculum. And this is one of my many complaints about it. In fact, it's one of my many complaints about the way we teach math in the United States. (Here is the BEST article about this, ever.) No really, go read the article. I'll wait. 

What I wish I could say to all of the people fighting so passionately against the Common Core and the "reformed" math curricula, most of whom just want the best for their kids and kids in general, is to please stop. It's like spraying Chloraseptic on a strep throat; you're fighting the symptoms, not the problem. Get the antibiotics - fight the fact that districts aren't fundamentally changing how they teach math. Fight the fact that many teacher programs require only one or two math classes for elementary teachers. Fight the fact that textbook companies dictate much of what our kids learn. Fight the fact that few educational administrators could teach a bunch of kindergartners how to add or a bunch of fifth graders how to multiply fractions. Fight the fact that even homeschool curricula don't encourage deep discussions about math concepts. Fight the fact that many people think a focus on deep understanding means that our kids don't need to memorize their multiplication facts. 

Teachers Change Lives

As most of you already know, I used to be a teacher. I taught in an urban school district and I could have spent my entire (fairly meager) paycheck on supplies for my classroom and stuff for my students. As it was, I spent more than I should have. On necessities like paper and on enriching things like books. Heck, even Hot Guy spent money on my classroom; he built a model rocket with my students when we were dating. Plus, I had to buy stuff every time we had a class party, because many of my students' parents couldn't afford to send in treats. My former students are teenagers now and I don't know how many of them remember their first or second grade teacher, but I like to think that teaching them to read changed their lives for their better.

Office Depot's Teachers Change Lives program recognizes how many teachers spend their own money and most of their free time helping students succeed. They've partnered with Adopt-A-Classroom to recognize and help all the amazing teachers across the country.



I teared up (just a little) watching this video. #TeachersChangeLives, and these students are proof. Watch as students express how much their teachers mean to them.

• How to Donate to the Teachers Change Lives Program
1. Go to Teachers Change Lives. 
2. Click on the teal "Donate to a Teacher" box on the Teachers Change Lives website, which will take you to the Adopt-A-Classroom website.
3. Follow their directions. 
• How to Register Your Classroom as a Teacher
1. Go to Teachers Change Lives.
2. Click on the red box that says "Register Your Classroom," which will take you to the Adopt-A-Classroom website.
3. Follow the directions provided. 

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Teaching Tuesday: Higher Learning

I have never actually taught high school or college. I subbed in a high school for one day, in the resource room. I've also tutored a couple of high school students and I had a college-aged education student in my classroom for a while. But I don't really have any professional expertise in this area.

Except, of course, the fact that I went to high school and college. Neither prepared me to be a functional adult. Here's an abbreviated list of things I did not learn, but are required for functional, educated adults:

1. How to understand mortgages, interest rates and checkbook balancing.

2. How to choose car insurance.

3. How to understand health insurance. 

4. How to write a resume.

5. How to write a cover letter.

6. How to write a business plan.

7. How to budget.

8. First aid and CPR.

9. How to analyze statistics.
10. Any African, South American,  Asian or ancient history. (it's worth noting that I was a history major in college)
11. The basic tenets of world religions. (Technically, I did learn these in college, in an elective class that hardly anyone else took.)
12. How to speak another language, or several other languages, well enough to get along in a foreign country.
13. How a car works and/or at least basic car maintenance.
14. How to handle a job interview.
15. Anything about computers. Not that it would be relevant now, but still.
16. How to cook, sew or repair anything.
17. How to make a presentation.
18. Any kind of media literacy.
19. Public speaking strategies.
20. The metric system.

Also, I didn't learn to dress appropriately under my graduation gown. 

I did learn a few things that have come in useful (beyond the fact that I can't drink Jaegermeister without deeply regretting it the next day and that doing your own laundry sucks):

1. Cultural literacy. I read a lot of Shakespeare and other famous (mostly white, mostly male) authors. I also saw a lot of classic movies, listened to all kinds of music and tried cuisines from all over the world.
2. How to take excellent notes.
3. How to write a grammatically correct paper very quickly.
4. American and European history from the Middle Ages onward.
5. How various kinds of birth control work.

And a few more things that have not come up again in my life:
1. Higher level algebra
2.  Volleyball
3. Trigonometry
4. How to conjugate verbs in French (never used, despite visits to several different French-speaking countries).
5. Chemistry
6. The ability to dissect small animals (one could argue that this would be useful for future surgeons, but I'm pretty sure using computer programs of the human body would be a lot more useful - for everyone - than an intimate knowledge of frog anatomy)
7. Knowing the names and major works of every Renaissance artist (and thus I lost any interest I'd had in art history).


The reason I bring all this up, besides my bitterness about being forced to play volleyball for an entire semester of gym class, is that it doesn't sound like high schools are doing much better today in preparing their students for functional adulthood. When you talk to people who teach college, or graduates looking to get a job with a future, you hear nothing but complaints. Hell, look at most job listings; the skills companies want are rarely covered by common curricula, especially at the high school level.  Time Magazine's February 24th cover story talks about how one group of public high schools is looking to change that, and that's what got me started on this rant.

The former teacher in me has a strong urge to write a comprehensive list of things I would like my kids to know by the time they graduate from high school and another list of things I would like them to know by the time they graduate from college. Because by judging from my first list (which totally could have kept going), there's a lot of important stuff that their high school (despite it's great reputation) is not going to teach them. And if either of them winds up a liberal arts major in college, well, we're going to have cover even more stuff.

Which is not to say that I don't think kids should learn the liberal arts, or the math that will lead some of them into engineering and whatnot. I just think we need to balance it with some practical stuff.

Did you feel prepared for adulthood after high school and/or college? Did you learn more practical stuff than I did?

Teaching Tuesday: Beware Strangers Bearing Giftedness

Just writing this post probably makes me an asshole.

Ironflower's repulsed face. Sure, in this photo it's about pumpkin guts. But she'll make the same expression if she ever reads this post. 

But today I don't care, for today I am confused. And this is where I process stuff. Also, where I get advice from smart people who care enough to read my blog, not just my FB status updates.

So anyway, it appears that both Ironflower and Hugmonkey have qualified for the gifted program at school. Before you get too impressed, this is the first time I have heard about us even having a gifted program and it meets every other week for 45 minutes. In other words, this should not be an especially big deal. Especially since the qualifications mainly involve them taking multiple-choice tests well and not being behavior problems.

The question is. . .do I have them tested (at our own personal expense) to find out if they're actually gifted? "Gifted" being a relative term; I can tell you right now that they are not music prodigies or destined for the Olympics. But they would probably qualify for the Gifted Child Society's Saturday morning enrichment classes, according to standard IQ tests (which, seeing as they are white, middle class, suburban children, would probably be fairly accurate). And some camps we couldn't possibly afford anyway.

There's a part of me that wants to know how they'd score on the IQ tests, that wants to push them into the enrichment classes and thinks this would a great excuse to start homeschooling them. I mean, they are bored in school most of the time; Ironflower actually burst into tears a few weeks ago because a math concept was hard for her. For the first time in her life. She clearly needs to be challenged more regularly, so that when she faces the next tough concept, she doesn't fall apart.

But then I think, do they need enrichment or time to build a Lego village in the basement? Did knowing my own IQ ever do me any favors, or did it just make me feel like a failure when I didn't immediately grasp a concept or made a mistake? And how bored are they really? It's not like they do everything perfectly.

I then spent a few hours researching this whole gifted education thing. It wasn't really covered during any education class I ever took. But I wasn't allowed to graduate without knowing about how to teach kids with learning disabilities. And I'm not saying that that's not very important, but really, nothing on teaching the gifted? I subbed for a while in a self-contained gifted classroom when I lived in Seattle. It was so fun, I debated going back and getting certified in gifted education. But the regular classroom teacher said to focus on something else instead, as gifted education was being phased out to save money.

That class no longer exists, by the way.

What was I bitching about? Oh yeah, my research. It was not encouraging. There are lots of opportunities for teenagers, at least in our district, but most schools seem to have dropped the ball when it comes to gifted ed at the elementary level. Which probably means that a lot of gifted kids don't even make it to the high school level, what with never being properly challenged in the classroom and all. I mean, last year, when my kids first started complaining of boredom, they got extra packets of worksheets.

Not exactly inspiring. Though better than the teacher I remember from elementary school who had a friend of mine sit in the hallway every day during reading. Why? Because he could already read and she didn't want him in the room when she was teaching the other kids. She didn't even give him a book to read.

As you can see, wise blog readers, I am all over the place with this. Part outraged at (the lack of) gifted programs, part not even sure my kids need to be labelled as such. . .what are your thoughts? Experiences? Opinions*?

*Unless your opinions involve calling me out for being "that mom" on the internet. The one thing writing this post has helped me sort out is that sharing it definitely makes me an asshole.

Teaching Tuesday: Let's Talk About the Common Core

Let me preface this by saying that "Common Core" wasn't really a big deal the last time I was in the classroom. In fact, the obsession then was "state standards"  - teaching to them, testing to them, grading according to them. One other thing I remember from way back then - probably around 2002 or so - was that the standards between each state varied so greatly. I helped to write practice 4th grade math assessments for my district and we looked at lots of other state standards and tests for inspiration. Our Kansas 4th graders had to have the same math skills as Pennsylvania's 6th graders, for example.

The point of the Common Core is to eliminate that problem so that students at each grade level are expected to be able to do the same things, no matter what state they live in. The Common Core standards are based on the highest level state standards - they are guidelines like the state standards were, they do not tell teachers HOW to teach, just basically what to teach.

If you've ever heard about how our country ranks against other countries educationally, or spent much time reading the Facebook walls of teenagers, you'd probably conclude that we need to do something about our educational system, for the love of all that is holy. And if you've ever compared the list of graduation requirements for a high school in New Jersey versus a high school in Mississippi, you might realize that one reason our country tests so poorly is that some places have  really low expectations.

High nationalized standards sound like a great idea in light of all that. But. The Common Core is basically being used as an excuse to test our kids more, as if spending hours practicing test taking skills and then taking soul crushing tests will make them learn anything. The Common Core was developed without much input from experienced educators, without any pilot programs or experiments, without borrowing from more academically successful countries, without exemplars of student work for each standard, without anyone realizing that "data driven" teaching does not mean constant testing.

The Common Core does not involve anything like what Australia is doing:

What we now have to clarify is the achievement standards. For example, the curriculum states, that, in grade five, in mathematics, these are the things students should have an opportunity to learn. We see our curriculum as a kind of statement of student entitlement. What they should have an opportunity to learn is knowledge, understanding and skills, not just factual stuff.  Then we declare in the achievement standards, if a student has satisfactorily learned this, what will a student be able to do? Those statements can be difficult to interpret in any kind of precise way, so what we are doing now, is putting on the website actual samples of students' work, produced in response to real classroom tasks with annotations to say, this student work meets the standards and why. This year, while the curriculum is actually being implemented, we'll be obtaining a richer set of samples illustrating different levels of achievement at the A, B, C, D and E levels.  The samples of student work will be annotated, for the first time, by teachers across the country, so that we'll have nationally annotated samples of student work that can move in the direction of getting consistent use of formative assessments across the country.

I remember when it was a big deal that we used student work from the across the whole district to exemplify writing standards, I can't imagine national samples of annotated work - though I would have loved it. This is what the Common Core should be about, showing what students can do and analyzing how they got there.

The way the Common Core is being used, it is essentially a list of skills that students must be able to perform on a test, separated by subject arbitrarily. I mean, if the Common Core is about preparing students for careers and college, than why such a strict separation? Are there any jobs where you never have to use any kind of math? Really? Or any kind of language arts?

I feel like - as I've always felt with American education - that they've simply picked a newer, prettier, band-aid to put on the problem of educational achievement, without regard to whether the band-aid is the right size or strength for the wound.

Does your state use the Common Core? How do you feel about national standards?

How Boring Does School Have To Be?

"School is boring," said Lovebug as I woke him this morning. He rubbed his eyes relunctantly, not wanting to get going and start his day. He rolled his eyes as his younger brother told me all the reasons that he does like school. 

It's not that I didn't expect to have this conversation with him at some point. I found school pretty boring too, sometimes. But not in first grade. 

But apparently he's bored during math because he's not allowed to go ahead on the worksheets - they do them TOGETHER. Every time. So I tried to point out the stuff he does like - recess, lunch, art, PE, computers. I asked if he got to read at school because he likes reading. His reply was, "Sometimes. But I don't really like reading." 

Fifteen minutes later he was eagerly reading his Lego Club magazine. 

When I went into Ironflower's room, she continued the conversation. "I just don't like math. I get so bored because we do the worksheets all together too. Though I do like Minute Math, because then I can go at my own pace." 

Having talked to a few other mothers on the playground recently, I have found out that this is a common frustration among the parents. There are a lot of teachers at the school who won't differentiate instruction. And this is a highly ranked school. That's what's so depressing. 

Actually, infuriating. 

It's not about my kids being held back in some way, exactly. I'm sure they will get through their grade level curricula just fine. They're smart, but it's not like I think they'd be doing trigonometry if allowed to go at their own pace. And it's not about them being bored, exactly. Learning to cope with boredom is one of the reasons I send them to public school in the first place. 

It's that differentiated instruction is what good teachers do.** It's that public educators in a well-funded school shouldn't tell parents of kids who aren't doing well to just hire a tutor, as has happened at my kids' school. It's that smart kids who love to learn shouldn't be bored during math and reading. It's that having the whole class doing worksheets together is INEFFECTIVE. 

I'll bring it up at conferences next week, but I don't think I get any farther than all the other former teacher parents who have brought it up before. 

People have suggested that I teach them at home on top of what they're doing at school. I thought about it. And then Ironflower figured out multiplication while they were playing play dough over the weekend. 

I think that I'm just going to encourage them to play together more.

But now I'm wondering if this is common. Does this happen at your child's school? That worksheets are done as a class? And that there are no reading or math groups? No wonder more and more people are homeschooling. 

**Here is a HUGE discussion of differentiated instruction. 

Why I'll Never Be Popular At School Functions

A few weeks ago, Ironflower participated in something called "Theater Week". I could write an entire post about how proud I was that she got over her perceived stage fright and just loved the experience. But really, I kinda suck at those kinds of posts. I could also write about how "Theater Week" is a great racket for an out of work actress who winds up essentially narrating the vast majority of the show and telling the parents to clap every 30 seconds. But that would be so cynical.

So instead I'll pick on the school organization that sponsored Theater Week. This organization does many wonderful things for the schools and community and many wonderful parents (okay, moms, but let's pretend I live a less sexist life, mmmmkay?) are a part of it. When they called to tell me that I had not, in fact, paid them dues this year and how this meant Ironflower would be lower down on the list for Theater Week, I paid the dues. I get that dues = money for Theater Week. I had no problem when I had to volunteer for Theater Week, either. That's how these privileges work.

My problem came while I was volunteering. I had signed up for an afternoon rehearsal and was assigned to selling tickets. The woman I was helping was in charge of the tickets and completely, wonderfully organized. We had a lot of time to chat. When I mentioned maybe I would join the Theater Week committee when the youngest hit kindergarten, she explained that it was a 2 year commitment. And that you didn't get to pick what committee you were on, the President did that. She herself had been picked for Theater Week even though her sons were in 7th and 8th grade (too old to participate) and they had gone to private school until they were in 5th, thus missing Theater Week entirely. Later on I discovered that she was missing her son's basketball game to be sitting there selling tickets.

Really????????????????????? (said in the style of Amy Poehler)


Over one hundred children participated in Theater Week. Am I supposed to believe that not one of their mothers was capable of handling ticket sales? It just seems so heavy-handed and controlling. A nasty way to treat volunteers, even. I know that it takes a village and all that, but does being part of the village mean you ignore your own children?

Of course, this could just be typical school organization behavior. I wouldn't know. I generally volunteer with classroom stuff. And when I was teaching, we didn't even have much of a PTO, let alone other organizations. We would have let volunteers help in any way they wanted, we were so desperate for them.

Rick Santorum Should Watch Teen Mom

Oh Rick Santorum, what am I going to blog about when you finally go away?

Rick voted for No Child Left Behind, of course. You know, when a Republican said it was a good idea. But now that we have a Democratic President, and a better version of No Child Left Behind, he thinks parents should be responsible for educating their children.

Have you ever watched Teen Mom, Rick?

How about The Real Housewives of New Jersey?

Or when Leno asks people on the street basic questions about our country?

Probably not. Which I guess explains why you think parents - and only parents - should be responsible for educating their children. But just to give you the benefit of the doubt, Rick, let's say that every parent is indeed smart enough and patient enough to homeschool or create a cooperative school. Or we can say that any idiot can teach, whatever you prefer.*

 I still have an issue with your public school system hate. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I was a public school teacher. If anything, that experience makes me more inclined to hate public education. I just don't have a better alternative. Do you, Rick?

Do you have a plan for the families who just can't afford to have one parent stay home and teach their kids or participate in a co-op? Do you have a plan for all the LEGAL immigrants who move here but don't speak the language well enough to teach it to their children? Do you have a plan for single parents - I know you don't believe in divorce, but even if you outlaw it there will still be single parents if for no other reason that sometimes people die young? Do you have a plan for protecting children who are being abused by their families?

You see, Rick, this is just like your prejudice against birth control. In your perfect world, no one would need it because only married, financially secure, healthy people would have sex. And if those people had one partner who wanted to stay home with the children full time for 18 years and educate them, then your education plan would be golden.

But Rick, seriously, have you ever watched Teen Mom?

Or the news?

We don't live in your perfect world, Rick. WE NEVER HAVE. There was premarital sex even when your Church had complete power. Jesus was a teacher, not a parent. As I say to my three year old every hour or so, just because you want it doesn't mean it's yours. So even if you make laws to make the world just like you imagine, that doesn't mean it's going to become your world.

Remember when Hitler tried that?**




*You asshole.
**Yeah, I went there.

An Elitist Rant

Sometimes, teachers make mistakes. They may give consequences instead of getting a kid to open up about her outburst. They may have the class put their heads down for 5 minutes instead of using a brilliant learning activity to get them to calm down. They may not correctly predict how long it will take students to do a particular assignment. They may not always be able to tell which students have serious issues going on at home. They may not study all pieces of student work closely as they grade papers.

And sometimes teachers are so fucking stupid they are an insult to the profession.

Recently some third grade teachers in Georgia created some word problems for their students. Here are some samples:

Can't you just see the third graders making connections between these problems and their lesson about Frederick Douglass? I mean, of course a painful issue like slavery should be reduced to multiplication problems, right? Maybe next week they can do division problems about the Holocaust. 

I have been an over-worked, stressed out teacher forced to create lessons and homework to match district dictated guidelines. And I have no sympathy for these idiots. I do think their careers should be ruined. They are not smart enough to be teachers. And not just because they think that a cross-curricular activity means plugging in vocabulary words from the social studies lesson into the math homework. I really don't understood how they could think that parents wouldn't raise hell about this. How ignorant of history do you have to be to not grasp how inappropriate this is? 

I admit I'm an elitist. I want the president to be smart. I want the doctors who care for my family to be smart. Yes, there are different kinds of intelligence. No, I don't think you have to be conventionally smart to be a valuable member of society. But yes, if you are teaching children how to read and write and multiply and think then I think you should be smart. If you are a surgeon, you should have steady hands. If you are a bus driver, you should be a good driver and have a high tolerance for noise. If you work in retail, you should know how to smile and make small talk. And if you are a freaking teacher, you should be smart enough to create meaningful cross-curricular activities that aren't culturally offensive. 

Is that really too much to ask? 

Crack Whore

The first time I went to Kansas City, Kansas, was for a job interview. I flew in from Seattle. Rented a car by myself (I started living with my ex at 21. At 26, I'd pretty much never done anything by myself). Navigated my way from the airport hotel into downtown KCK. Had a typical teaching interview with a woman who looked exactly like all the women in my Seattle area, award winning, suburban school district.

Then I drove to meet the first of three principals who were "interested" in me. The human resources director had assured me that the first school was relatively nearby. The directions looked uncomplicated. Which was good, since I forgot to look at them while I drove into the ghetto.

I took the crack whore waving at me as a good sign.

I imagined her like the 3 homeless guys who'd stayed by my first apartment. They were always fairly friendly to me, rude to the hipsters invading the neighborhood. Sometimes they even complimented my beauty. . .and I gave them my laundry quarters. But anyway, I saw her wave as an indication that I would be accepted into the neighborhood.

I didn't really think about the fact that the crack whore was looking for business at 10 am on a Wednesday morning. And that no one was bothered by this.

I'll say this for her, though. She was the only one who came out and cheered when we did our "Just Say No" parade around the neighborhood. Because of course the girl who let homeless guys flatter her out of laundry money would be the girl who had to teach in the neighborhood with the crack whore.

When I got to my interview, I was a little surprised that the school looked sort of like a bunker. There weren't a lot of windows, to say the least. And there was a security camera mounted outside the door. Which was kept locked. Which is not so shocking now, after Columbine and all sorts of insane school rampages. But this was in 1998.

The school was a science and technology magnet school. I had student taught at an arts magnet school and loved all things magnet school. Plus, I really wanted a full time teaching job of my own, not the series of long term subbing jobs I'd had in the suburbs. When I walked in, there seemed to be so much energy in the building.

That energy was actually noise because the school was, "open-concept". As in, no walls, just partitions. But I totally fell for the principal's line about how the open-concept building fostered community among staff and students. She said this with a straight face while she was actively applying for grants to put walls into the building. Of course I didn't know that at the time.

After the interview, where I'd been offered (and accepted) a first grade teaching job, I saw the crack whore again. She came up to the car and I rolled the window down. She looked me up and down and asked, "You gonna be a teacher over there?" I nodded cautiously. Because it's one thing to have the crack whore wave at you and quite another to have her leaning into your car. But after my nod she just started laughing and walked away.

I still wonder if she ever got clean.

Can We Blame the Parents and Teachers, Not the Victims?

I've seen a lot of articles recently about how to help your child avoid being bullied or what to do if your child is being bullied. And I'm not saying that those articles don't have value, but talk about blaming the victim. The same with Dan Savage's wonderful "It Gets Better" movement. It's great, but how sad is it that we have to convince gay teenagers to not kill themselves? What kind of country are we living in?

Well, I think we're living in a country where some parents and teachers are perfectly content to let their kids be assholes. Kids aren't born to bully, but they are born to be clique-y and distrustful of those who are in some way "different." If that goes unchecked, you get bullies.

For example, a friend's daughter recently started a new preschool and daycare. It has a good reputation and my friend was impressed with the curriculum and teachers. The daughter, let's call her G., is a sweet, friendly kid. So she went up to kids at her new school and asked them to play. They said no. Day after day, they wouldn't play with her, wouldn't share toys with her, called her a baby and wouldn't let her sit at the table with them. And the teachers did nothing. (Don't worry, G. is going somewhere else now.) Did I mention that these little darlings were 4?

I watch it on the playground at Ironflower's elementary school every day  - kids telling other kids they won't play with them, or name calling, or being unfriendly to new kids. Most of the time parents try to stop the name calling or physical aggression, but they don't seem to notice exclusionary practices at all. And I really think that bullying starts when we make it okay to view some kids as "other".

If we don't correct them, if we don't teach them to play with the new kid or include everyone, we are setting them up to be bullies some day.

On the first day of kindergarten - and yes, I remember it this clearly - a little boy's sister walked him to where we were all lined up. We had seen their progress from the house they exited next door to the school and some of the kids were quite appalled that this boy had had to be walked all the way to the line. That just wasn't done then. So he got teased.

He didn't know how to handle it - being 5 and all - and got enraged. It was exactly what the other kids were looking for. They started tormenting him then and they never stopped. I don't remember a teacher ever doing anything about it. I don't remember anyone even talking about it as a bad thing until I was in high school.

I didn't tease him myself, but I didn't befriend him. I didn't even defend him until he was in my history class in 10th grade and 2 boys that we'd both known since kindergarten started picking on him AGAIN. By then he was big and awkward and friendless and paranoid and I was totally shocked when he didn't thank me for getting those boys off of his back. He probably thought I was setting him up for worse.

I always think about him and feel bad when I hear about bullying. The teacher in our history class heard the whole thing, as I'm sure all our other teachers had. But none of them did anything about it. And neither did any of the parents who overheard - people didn't feel right saying anything unless their own child was involved.

I think we all need to get over that. And we need to stop bullying when it starts - in preschool.

So Now I'm Going To Pick on Parent Volunteers

So yesterday I went to my first "parent coffee" at the elementary school. It was so we could sign up to volunteer.

Now, I realize that my main experience with elementary school has been as a teacher in an urban district where kids sometimes confused thunder with gunfire, but OH MY GODDESS. I mean, I knew that in the suburbs parents actually sent in all the treats for the parties and did the setting up and stuff. I was prepared for that. And hell, even I had parents volunteer on field trips. So that's what I was expecting to do. Help with parties and field trips.

I am so freaking naive.

I also had the chance to sign up to stock the teacher's prize box, come and do crafts (where I bought the supplies) with the kids for each holiday, take photos of class events (where I would make enough copies of each photo for each kid in the photo), put together class memory books from the aforementioned photos, organize the teacher's take home story bags and several other things I can't remember.

This sign-up was separate from the PTO sign-up, where I could sign up to present art to the kids (my mom used to do that), read to the kids, organize the indoor recess games for the teachers, help with various school events, provide meals or rides for families going through illness and I can't remember what else.

I'm pretty sure that this is what happens when CEOs quit their jobs to stay at home with children.

What kills me is that there's a district not too far from here where kids rarely even get class parties. Where a lot of them don't even have photos of their families, let alone a precise record of kindergarten. Where the teachers have to organize everything themselves. Where there aren't even any field trips.

And I wonder why - with all this prodigious energy and skill - not one thing is being done for kids outside of our privileged zip code.

This is the real problem with public education in this country - shitty pay, bad preparation, immovable teachers' unions and ineffective administrators aside. No one cares about any kids but their own. And I'm not saying we all need to put in the hours at some less privileged school instead of getting to see our own kids enjoy their own Halloween party. But surely the fact that the class moms pull our names out of a hat for field trip chaperoning because so many of us want to go says that maybe some of us have some free time to spare?

Back when I was teaching, one of my colleague's classes was adopted by a high school class from the suburbs (the two teachers were friends). The high school kids basically stepped into the parent volunteer roles that aren't very easily filled by people who are single, working 2 jobs or otherwise hindered. And yeah, I was kinda jealous.

There's no reason that this couldn't be done a grander scale. If people actually cared. A friend of mine recently asked a question on Facebook;

How do you get people to care about the education of other people's children as much as they care about their own children's education???

I'd settle for half as much as their own children's education, at least for the people around here. But I sure as hell don't know.

Class of 2010

Ironflower started Kindergarten yesterday. She loves it, not that this surprises me. I think she's only disappointed that it's half day. Between her starting public school and the research I just did about high schools, I sort of  got motivated to check up on  former students.

The very first class that was all mine, that didn't involve student teaching or subbing, graduated from high school this year. I had them in first grade in a technology magnet school in a tough neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. I loved that class just a bit more than any other class I ever had. I remember my little group of super-smart kids, four of whom graduated from a top-ranked high school this year (there is one in KCK, believe it or not). And then there was, well, let's just call him VR. He drove me to distraction, it was so hard to get him to focus and keep his hands to himself. But in the end - after many visits to another teacher (who not only had taught VR's parents, but still scared them) for time out - I managed to teach VR to read. He actually has a football scholarship now. Sadly, I can't find the rest of my students. I can only hope it's not only those 5 who managed to graduate. But that is a possibility.

What breaks my heart even more, though, is the realization that Ironflower could easily do all of the assignments I gave my former first graders the first few months of school. And she would do them better than half of the class. Not because I'm supermom, or because her preschool was highly intensive, or because she's such a genius, but because most of those kids I had started out so far behind.

And what breaks my heart most of all is that I know some of my former students are parents themselves already, or in jail, or even dead. And that kind of puts into perspective all of my anxiety about Ironflower enjoying kindergarten and not getting her feelings hurt by any mean little kids.

Don't Take Medical Advice From Playboy Bunnies

Do you remember having chicken pox? I remember it well. I didn't get until 8th grade, so when I got it, it was horrible. Oh, the pain in my throat. The fever. The ITCHING. The marks all over my face. The ITCHING.

When I began reading about vaccinations while I was pregnant with Ironflower, I was thrilled to find out that they now have a vaccine for chicken pox. My babies would never have to suffer through the ITCHING. Also, they would not die (yes, chicken pox can kill too).

Today, the day after I returned home after speaking at a social media conference for health care non-profits sponsored by Immunize.org, I received a note from the kids' school. It seems another student has come down with chicken pox.

I recalled another speaker at the conference discussing why people can be against immunizing their children (I just spoke about using Facebook and Twitter and stuff like that, but it was fun to hear about the other stuff too, seeing as I have a personal interest in the health of children). She mentioned how these people do not trust experts like doctors and scientists, but instead the experiences of friends.

Apparently, some parent at my kids' school is friends with Jenny McCarthy.

Jenny McCarthy blames her son's autism on vaccines, in case you didn't know. And because of one flawed and later disproved study, thousands of parents are not vaccinating their kids. So the conference was about how organizations like health departments could use social media to get people to immunize their kids.

(Side note: Let's pretend Jenny's right, for a second. Maybe there is a vast conspiracy poisoning children with vaccines. I'd much rather have a child with autism than one killed by polio. Just sayin'. )

I love it when my universe comes together. The awesome social media ninjas (healthcare and social media experts) at the conference put together an entire social media campaign in 24 hours. If I find out who's got chicken pox I will be sending the links to them immediately. In the meantime, I suggest you check them out and follow Guysimmunize on Twitter. You can also hear about the conference at the Autism Science Foundation or like them on Facebook.

In addition to learning all sorts of neat stuff at the conference, I also discovered that people who work at health non-profits are a lot like teachers - predominantly female and liberal. But I think they might drink more. Did I mention what a great time I had?

But it's nice to be home, though Hot Guy and my parents held the fort down admirably. But somehow being here helps me believe that I can hold back any stray chicken pox germs that might get past their vaccinations, especially with ChunkyMonkey's being so new.

Not that I'd to worry about this at all if SOME people trusted scientists instead of former Playboy Bunnies.

Possibly My Most Shocking Post Ever

I suppose you can blame it on the prospect of sending Ironflower to afternoon kindergarten. We were informed at the kindergarten orientation that "not every child can be in morning kindergarten" and that some parents had already sent letters - from their lawyers - requesting morning kindergarten. We don't have a lawyer on retainer, so immediately I assumed that Ironflower would be an afternoon kid. My main reason for wanting Ironflower in morning kindergarten is that I would like to have both the older kids at school at the same time. Fortunately, the preschool MAY have afternoon pre-k next year. So I could get my wish. . . and have mornings to do fun things with my kids.

Because afternoons? Well, ChunkyMonkey has to nap. And usually, after a busy morning at school, so does Lovebug. Even Ironflower needs to decompress on school days. In the afternoon, my kids are kind of done with structure. They just want to chill. Which is fine. . .except that the teacher in me really wants to teach them things.

But if we had mornings together when they're all fresh and cheerful and haven't been beaten down by the man yet. . .er, I mean participated in quality educational programs. . .we could do so many fun things. And then I had this vision of homeschooling them.

Right now, all my former colleagues - with whom I used to teach public school - are probably staring open-mouthed at the screen. My mother is probably dialing my number, ready to say, "Oh, Jenny" just like she did when I told her I got a tattoo. And my husband is probably hoping that he's going to wake up from this bad dream.

I think I know one person who homeschools, maybe 3 people if you count bloggy friends. In every case, the parent made the choice because of her child's health issues. That, of course, has nothing to do with my choice. Nor does Christianity, because I'm about as far away from an Evangelical Christian as you can get without actually practicing Santeria. It has do to with me. And what I want for my kids. And my desire to be authentic.

I'm not saying I'm going to homeschool. I'm not even saying that I necessarily want to homeschool. I'm just saying that as a former public school teacher, I do understand the limitations of our current school system and the whole testing culture that has invaded. I understand how nasty kids can be (sure, there are nasty adults out there, but the percentage of nasty kids is far higher. . ..check out your high school classmates on Facebook and see if I'm right). I understand that even at the best high schools there is a lot of time wasted on busy work.

We live in an amazing school district - one that is a huge strain financially. And one in which I think people may focus on the wrong things.  If we were a homeschooling family, we wouldn't need to worry about school districts. We would have so much more freedom in choosing where to live. . .and when to vacation. . .and when to take a trip to the zoo. . .and yes, what our children learn. And the teacher in me is filled with joy at that prospect.

What do you think? Would you homeschool?

The Reading Bitch

Last night I watched the commercial for "Teach Your Baby To Read!", a product that teaches babies and toddlers to memorize the shapes on flashcards read. The urge I had to smack all those parents upside the head, well, it reminded me of my urges when I watch the kiddie pageant spectacle, Toddlers and Tiaras.

It's the same damn thing.

Poise, the ability to walk in high heels, reading. . .those are all great skills to have. Reading's obviously more important, but still. In our looks-obsessed society, the ability to wear lip gloss without it going all over your teeth can't be denied. But why the rush?

Four year olds don't need to look polished to do well at preschool.

And babies don't need to be able to read. And, in fact, they aren't actually reading. Sure, I saw them say the words on the cards, or gesture to indicate that they knew what the word was. But that's not actually reading. They didn't decode (aka "sound out") the word and they sure as hell didn't comprehend its meaning from the surrounding text.

I've taught lots of kids to read and I guarantee that none of them would have read for real any more quickly had they memorized the words for body parts as babies. If their parents had talked to them more, read them more stories and/or not let them spend all night watching horror movies, that might have helped. But this stupid program? Not so much.

A colleague once referred to me as "The Reading Bitch", that's how into teaching reading I was. I might have been a little militant. I might have distributed timelines and scopes and sequences and lesson plans to my elementary school teacher colleagues a little obsessively.

And yet my baby has no idea what letters even are. But I have gotten him to sit still long enough to finish listening to "Touch and Feel Farm". I'm kinda proud of that. Because it's age-appropriate.

I suppose in a world where first graders have cell phones and grandmothers attend Botox parties, age-appropriate isn't a very popular concept. Sure, everyone clucks over the pageant kids, made up and hairsprayed like teenage prom queens, but they still have their own shows. And I've yet to hear anyone talk about, much less criticize, "Teach Your Baby To Read".

The truth is, kids who memorize easily (or very early), often have a hard time reading more difficult text when they hit second or third grade. And forget about developing their thinking skills. Memorization does jack for those. But all those parents can now brag that their one year olds can read, which I guess is more imporant than age-appropriate or thinking.

Score another one for the assholes.

I Can't Bring Myself To Re-Enlist

"You know how some kids act out a lot after a parent is killed?" said a good friend, former colleague and still practicing teacher to me last night on the phone.

"Mmmmhmmm," I said, images of kids flashing through my head. I'd had a fair number of students with at least one dead parent - and most of those deaths had not been caused by diseases, either. Kids - at least the kids I'd taught - tended to become wild after such a thing, or incredibly quiet and hard-shelled. My friend continued to tell me about her extremely disturbed student, who had transferred in from the inner city district where we both used to teach.

As she continued with the girl's story, I began to feel somewhat ill. With guilt.

When I hear about kids from my old district, and especially when I (very rarely) hear about kids that I taught, I instantly feel like a soldier that has gone AWOL. The euphoria over having escaped is mixed in with massive amounts of guilt.

The last year that I taught - while I was pregnant with Lovebug - I had a seriously crazy parent who may have wanted to beat the crap out of me. Or something else. The threats were unclear. Not that it was my first threat, but he was the only one who continually hung around the school and tried to get into my classroom. The school I taught at for the first three years of my career was in a neighborhood where nobody I knew would even drive into. I had a few scarily violent (and yes, that is possible when you're dealing with mentally ill 7 year olds) over the years, too.

My supervisors tended to be idiots - people too dumb or cynical (or both) to get jobs anywhere else. I had one in particular who couldn't pronounce words like "specific" and "individual". And another - the one who really drove me out of teaching - later fired for embezzling funds. The pay was laughable - I never made more that $34,000 a year from teaching in that district. And all the promised perks were being slowly eroded.

And then there were my students. Students with dead parents. Students who had been (or, unfortunately were still being) abused. Students repeatedly hospitalized with sickle cell problems. Students who couldn't get a good night's sleep because of gunfire. Students born in prisons. Students with various untreated mental problems. Students who didn't know what the sky was called. Students who didn't know any English. Students who were autistic but got very little support.

So yeah, it felt like fighting in a losing war. A noble cause, to be sure. And there were some victories, for this or that student. But for every victory there was a failure. Or two.

I'm not saying what I did even comes close to what soldiers do every day. But I sure relate.

Sometimes I tell myself that I put in my time and it's okay to never go back to teaching in an urban district. Actually, I don't want to go back to teaching at all. Not that I really know what I'd like to do instead, of course.

But then I hear a story about my old district and the guilt washes over me.

Anybody got any advice?

Teacher Guilt

Teacher guilt is like survivor guilt. At least it is for me. I am relieved every day that I'm no longer teaching in KCK (that's Kansas City, Kansas to you uninitiated), but I sure feel guilty about it. Even though I live 1200 miles away, I know there are districts around here (Newark and NYC come to mind) where I could do a similar amount of good. But I don't want to anymore.

It's not just that I want to be home with my children. It's not just that I think No Child Left Behind is making teaching hellish. It's that I don't have the emotional wherewithal to teach anymore.

I drank a lot during my last years of teaching. Not at work or anything like that, but I spent a lot of evenings in bars drinking and smoking like a chimney, using dark humor to make others laugh about my job. I think the very worst day was the day I found out that I had one student at the hospital, near death because of her sickle cell and that another student had been put in foster care because her stepfather had been molesting her (Super Guilt, I knew she seemed down but I didn't know what was wrong) and another student broke down and just sobbed in my arms about everything in her life. All three girls are okay now, as far as I know. But that's not the point, is it?

When I was pregnant with Lovebug I had a challenging student with a scary parent. The man threatened to harm me on the school answering machine, though he was nothing but polite to me in person. Actually, he was a bit too polite - he asked too many personal questions, stood too close and breathed alcoholic fumes on me way too often. I was afraid of him and I didn't get much help from the school district, the police or Child Protective Services. It was the other teachers and the custodian who made sure I was never alone with this man.

I'm a mommy now. I can't drown my sorrows in alcohol or ignore the pain eating away at me. God bless the people who can handle it. But I can't anymore. I'm sorry.

Bad Mommy, Part 687

I've spent the last two afternoons visiting preschools (instead of blogging). I just want somewhere fun, safe and educational to send both kids three mornings a week. Ironflower is very mentally ready for school and I think Lovebug needs the social/independent time. But apparently my desire for part-time preschool for such small children is weird. Most of the preschools around here close for the summer and won't take someone Lovebug's age.

So I started checking out the preschool/daycare centers. They are lovely, with wonderful curricula and great playgrounds. But my Goddess, they cost an arm and a leg. And both assistant directors I talked to kept telling me about nap time until I reminded them that my kids would be leaving before nap time. I guess they don't have a lot of part-time kids.

Part of me feels guilty for even thinking of sending Lovebug to school at all. He's only fifteen months old. But beyond my need to actually do real work from home (as opposed to snatched moments of blogging), I think Lovebug needs more exposure to other kids. And to other loving adults. He's pretty independent when he can see me, but he won't let other people near him (including grandparents) most of the time. I know school would help with it. Ironflower, at two and a half going on ten, needs school more than I need for her to go.

I suppose I'll feel guilty no matter what we do - that seems to be a common mommy feeling for me.

Gee, Maybe I Am Bitter

So Newsweek published its "Top 100 High Schools" issue this week. Their editorial slant was about the importance of principals. I've never taught high school, but it wasn't news to me. Principals set the tone at every school, for good or ill.

If you are researching schools for your child, talk to principals - and see if you can get staff members to talk about the principals. A great staff can be driven away by a bad principal and there go the test scores.

Principals are the arbiters of discipline, tone and academic standards at a school. They hire the staff. They collect the data for No Child Left Behind. They deal with the problem students (and the problem parents). Their jobs demand brains, organization, kindness and an ability to bring out the best in people. They need to be amazing people.

The first time I got a bad feeling about my former principal was when I met the woman he hired to teach fourth grade. She was the only new hire, as the just-retired principal had made our school a happy place and no staff members had wanted to leave (uncommon in my old district) except for the one who had moved thirty miles away. Anyway, Mr. J chose Miss W.

Miss W, even though she was a brand new teacher, didn't want any help from the veteran staff or from the instructional coach. She was offended by suggestions on how to deal with her more challenging students. She struggled with the fourth grade curriculum (no, really, the math was beyond her). But she especially struggled with classroom management. She had a hard time keeping track of materials, assignments and students. When a student misbehaved, that student was sent to the (unsupervised) hallway. Despite repeated offers from the rest of the staff, she refused to send anyone to our rooms for a time-out. When she was forbidden to use her hallway method any more, she put the troublemakers in the back of the classroom. Because she didn't understand the curriculum, the group of troublemakers grew (they were all bored and frustrated). Eventually, some of them started eating chalk so that they could throw up and be sent home. And home was no picnic for them.

When Miss W was informed that her students were so unhappy that they were making themselves throw up, she stopped letting them go to the office after throwing up. She made them clean it up themselves. Now, some of the kids were very challenging kids, but not one of them was violent or hateful. They were just very, very, unhappy. When all of this came to light, the instructional coach began spending every day, all day, with Miss W. She was forced to send misbehaving kids to other classrooms (and let me say that every one of them who came to my room was well-behaved, diligent and sweet the whole time). The principal and the district bent over backwards to show Miss W how to be a teacher.

It didn't work, and she resigned at Christmas. I'm not saying that Mr.J could have foreseen just how incompetent she was, but he did choose her. By the following school year, Mr. Jones had dissolved all committees except the one required by the district and phased out many of the things that had made our students happy and successful. He began undermining staff members in front of students. He created problems between staff members and resentment between teachers and his superiors. He, and he alone, ruined that school.

So, yes Newsweek, principals are everything.