struggling to find routine

"Welcome to Memphis City Schools..."


I'm pretty sure I've heard that phrase uttered at least a few dozen times in the last few weeks. Rookies and veterans alike within the district recognize that the district is inefficient, confused about direction, and lacking in vision. I'll recount one example that has hit close to home.

I think I've written about the 41 million dollar deficit, and the drastic moves the new superintendent has had to make in lieu of this scarcity of resources. One decision was to eliminate 120 teaching jobs in the district. The proposed system was based on seniority, whereby teachers that were "surplused" could then "bump" teachers with less seniority, effectively replacing them and rendering them jobless. Needless to say, my housemates and I were a bit nervous about job security. A couple weeks ago I came home to find my roommate Bill chilling on the couch with a silly grin. Yes, he was bumped, though not by someone with more seniority. In fact, the district decided to bump him, and replace him with another TFA corps member who had been previously surplused. Who knows why, but I guarantee that student achievement is not part of the answer. By the way, Bill did end up getting another job at another school a week later.

...welcome to Memphis City Schools...

Being part of a district with such low numbers, particularly one that has a new superintendent, I'm constantly subject to no shortage of district mandates. The bureaucracy is obscenely stifling. When you add up all the time that I'm "required" to do my reading and math intervention, on top of the baseline requisite time for all the content areas, there's not enough time in the day! You can't just say, "OK, you're required to do 30 minutes of this and 20 minutes of this. Go." Where does the time come from? There's also this huge emphasis on improving the image of MCS, which basically equates to me having to put up a dog and pony show on the bulletin board outside my door, to make it look like my students are capable of creative, quality work. So I went ahead and put up half of the class's work, which I edited and typed myself after they had edited it twice!

That example just scratches the surface of all the things teachers end up having to do and are expected to do (on top of actually teaching). Today I spent 25$ to buy air fresheners, after feedback from my principal's observation that I needed to a) give my students a hygiene lesson and b) invest in some air fresheners. To be fair, it reeks in there. People step in the doorway and their forehead immediately wrinkles. Yesterday it took almost 5 minutes for the all-girls class to simmer down from the bad smell after they entered my class for math. Part of it is cultural -- I believe my Burundian students have different habits for personal hygiene.

Behind my desk - where I'm putting up some student work.

Today I was informed by the principal that my subjects are now changing. Starting on Monday I'm going to add Writing and either Science or Social Studies to my current charge of Math and Reading. Although, I respect the rationale for this change, these decisions really should have been made before the year started. I knew coming into this school that the principal was prone to making these kinds of changes throughout the year, but I had no idea that I would have my subjects changed twice in the first 7 weeks of school! I'm debating whether or not to tell my Program Director about my new subjects, because of all the long term planning documents I will have to now submit and the tracking she will want for my new subjects.

My conduct chart and list of objectives. I'm working on my handwriting...

At this point I'm just trying to survive. I take one day at a time, and I try to focus on improving bit by bit. I submitted my grades today for the first six weeks. 5 more to go.



I bought a basil plant. I like it alot.

Here are some more photos...

Gettin to know the boys

During inservice, a fellow teacher cited an interesting statistic: teachers have the 2nd most stressful and demanding job (beat out by air-traffic controller). She also said that the average teacher makes 20,000 decisions each day with regard to his/her students. Needless to say, I get home absolutely drained every day. I have about 2-3 hours/day tops during which I'm able to do what I want. The rest of my day is comprised of eating, sleeping, teaching, and planning. It's been a little hard maintaining my sense of identity when nearly everything I'm doing pertains to 5th grade reading and math. However, I'm trying hard not to let teaching completely consume my life. 10 minute drum break-outs, cooking projects, frequent work-out sessions, and soccer have offered much-needed respites.

Frequently, I feel like a therapist in my efforts to most effectively manage behavior and motivate my students. One student in particular has given me much trouble, and I'm still trying to figure out how to work with him successfully. This student, Tydario, is quite unique. His mother is in jail, and his dad is out of the picture, so he lives with his Grandfather and some other woman who, from what I can tell, serves as guardian. Fortunately, she works in the building. Tydario is one of my brighter students, but he is easily frustrated by a lot of things, seems to have ADHD, and gets into these 'funks' where I can't get him to do anything. During these funks he refuses all of my directions, cusses out other students, and just completely shuts down. I spoke with his guardian about it after school one day, and I spelled out the situation very delicately, fearing what kind of punishment might result at home. The woman was very responsive and friendly, and said she would talk to him. The next day, Tydario handed me a stack of papers, on which he had written, "I will obey all rules" 250 times. "I won't have any problems today, Mr. Stewart," he said confidently. That day actually went smoothly, though I may not have agreed with the method. A day later, I had to give out progress reports. Tydario had a C in both Math and Reading, and he freaked out. He was extremely upset because of the "whooping" he would get for his grades. I didn't really know how to console him, and I was unable to get him to take the progress report home. Two days ago, he had another one of his funks after being unable to work with his table group. I asked him to write a letter explaining why he refused my directions. He wrote that he hated me, that I was mean, and that he wanted to switch to Mr. Earle's class. Yesterday, he had a better day ;)

Oh, by the way-- yesterday, some fifth grader wrote f*** Mr. Stewart in the bathroom. That was pretty neat. I'm pretty sure who it was, and he's been a real handful thus far. I think he's bitter that I've been disciplining him. Deal with it Edward. When I talked to the fifth grade chair, he recommended that we get in touch with Edward's mom, because "his dad is soft." He said that what Edward needs is a good beat-down, one that would leave him unable to talk. I chose not to call Mom. I think I must be "soft" as well.

Yesterday I also found out that the district is planning to redistribute alot of teachers across the district and cut 126 teachers due to a 41 million dollar deficit. Although my school is not surplusing any teachers, teachers in other schools that are surplused could apparently decide "hey, I wanna teach at Brewster Elementary and I have more seniority than Mr. Stewart. Mr. Stewart, you're bumped." So, then I would get bumped. Since I have no seniority, this is a possibility. How much of one, I'm not sure. I find out next week. I'm actually not at all worried. If I get bumped, whatever. I've had so much change in the last few months that it wouldn't really seem like a big deal in the least. One of my teaching partners is a single mom of 5, and because she started halfway through the year last year, she has the same seniority as me. If she had to move (2 of her daughter go to the same school), I would feel terrible. These district decisions are pretty frustrating, and they don't seem to be considering the students at all. The domino effect from this surplus-bump procedure could be horrible. The Memphis City School district is in bad shape. The district is suing the city for funding, and the city is counter-suing. It seems that education is not valued very highly in Memphis.

I'm now on the Garden Committee (our school is planning on starting an urban garden with help from the community) and the Musical Committee. I'm also an unofficial member of an unofficial committee: the Translating Committee. My responsibilities include, but are not limited to, filling out (read: forging) registration paperwork for families that speak only Spanish, giving impromptu behavior instructions to the ESL students in Pre-K and Kindergarten as their classes walk by, and communicating with Spanish speaking parents.

I'm currently reading Harry Potter (the first one) to my class, and they love it. I told them that they could draw pictures if they drew pictures of what I was reading. Some of their drawings were really sweet: Harry Potter's cupboard under the stairs, Harry Potter's lightning scar, fat Dudley Dursley. I think the H.P. books are perfect for them because she writes with vivid, descriptive language and the content is very appealing for their age. Indeed, their favorite time of day is when I read aloud to them.

We had an opera singer come on Friday to demonstrate for all the 5th graders. One funny moment occurred when she announced that the next song she was singing was entitled "Does Anybody Here Love My Jesus?" Half the students' hands jerked up. The woman was confused why so many people suddenly had questions and started calling on people, which then confused the students. I had myself a chuckle.

So we'll see if I still have a job next week...