Interview with a Anonymous Teacher

During a recent conversation between a member of the Vox Core Team and with a teacher in Houston, who for terms of privacy and respect will be refered to as The Anonymous Teacher, a key question was brought up that led to the following 5 points being made, that we felt were important to share with our audience and the general public, and key to the conversation on the issue of Education. The question was: What are some of the main issues that you see as a teacher in HISD?

After you read this, if you'd like to share your thoughts and/or have a conversation with The Anonymous Teacher, please respond in the comment section on our Blog, Facebook or Twitter accounts, or send a message tocrystal.koo@voxculture.org.

 

The Anonymous Teacher gave the following response:

 1. Cell phones, for all their potential, are primarily "at will" distractions. They are a serious issue. Teachers are not backed up when it comes to enforcing the policy, so our path of least resistance is to let them go... and it's like ignoring a cancer hoping it goes away. Videos are taken (at humiliating times), pictures are taken (which are uninvited), texts are non-stop (which a most often about something messy or inappropriate. Just last week I took a phone from a student looking at a feed called HISDputos, a twitter feed from an ex-Sam Houston High School student, that featured nude pics of our district’s female children). 

Considering the neural plasticity of our minds, and how they rewire (literally) in ways coerced on them by the technology we use (see The Shallows by Nicholas Carr), the attention spans of our students are shortening, the urgency to learn has been hijacked by apathy, and valuable instructional time is wasted on off-task behavior. Teachers need more support from the administration and school board (teeth, if you will) to deal with the problem. The technology has amazing benefits, but the negatives are exasperating and contributing to the degradation of our students’ education, and therefore our ability to complete on a world stage. 

2. Off task behavior and apathy, as anyone could appreciate, leads to students who are behind. And what's worse, they are behind with the utmost confidence that they are not behind, and that they can easily catch up. Complacency has most definitely led to mediocrity. That said, Texas' rank in literacy levels against the US must be tempered with the amount of second-language learners we have compared to the states who top the charts. That said, I do not believe that STAARS is the enemy some point to. People are complaining about the 24 lines allotted for writing. No one complains about 14 lines in a sonnet, or the syllables of the haiku. It’s flash fiction, or the constraints of the genre. Either students can perform or they cannot. How many lines does it take to demonstrate their mastery? STAARS is just a measuring tool. If more teachers model, and understand, the writing process, you will see scores improve, not because the test has been taught to, but competency has in fact improved. 

3. There's no responsibility and no accountability. No pencil? No paper? No problem. The tax payer (or teacher) will buy it for you. No instructional time should be lost over a pencil. After all, every second counts. And if the student does not do any work, can a student truly fail? Not really. Not unless their attendance is bad. Attendance is tied to funding. Check the statistics on students, out of elementary school that fail for reasons other than attendance (because elementary schools will fail students for academics, sometimes twice! Then we have in middle school 15 year old 7^th graders who have lost hope, and are passed or moved up grades not for academics but for the socio-cultural impact they have on the younger children around them). I think you'll find it curious. 

If I have too many (more than 10%) students fail, I'll get called in to be asked why. "The student didn't do any work," is not an answer. So, I'm asked: Did you offer tutorials; did you council the student; did you call home or report them to their counselor; did you change their seat; did you offer extra credit; did you refer to the student's ARD or refer them to the CIS leader or assistant principal; did you do a home visit?" And sooner or later, I'll answer no. I didn't do that, and they say, "There you go. That's why the child is failing right there."

Christopher Levoy has said, "self-esteem is built through the accomplishment of meaningful tasks." How is any of this situation creating a meaningful task, with real-life consequences? It's doing the opposite. Students know they can't fail, so of course they lay back. Who wouldn't, and what child wouldn't? 

4. Teachers are given gimmicks to "correct' the issue. There are a million programs out there with acronyms that are offered (strongly offered) to teachers who have no idea who came up with them, what research validates them, or any information as to whether or not the strategies have been university tested to be proven to be effective. Teachers are infantilized, force fed quick-fix garbage by administrators who often spent the 3 year minimum in a classroom, and though they mean well, are not experienced enough, with a deep enough knowing, to be strong instructional leaders of a campus. Teachers need to learn to write with their students; they don’t need gimmicks. If teachers will simply model the recursive nature of the writing process, encountering every problem their students encounter through the assignment, they will organically know to introduce mini-teaches and mini-lessons. Research has shown this to be the case time-and-time again. 

Our brains are equipped with mirror neurons, and these neurons prepare the mind for learning. Human beings really are "monkey see, monkey do." Watching someone preform some variety of tasks is an excellent way to learn, yet our teachers, who are over-worked, opt instead for worksheets, which teach nothing. There is zero student investment in a worksheet. 

Writing is a mode of learning, and movement cements learning. Our students need to write, and they need to move around once in a while. Movement is the only activity that engages both hemispheres of the brain, yet, our students must sit still for a solid hour, 6 times are day, 5 times a week for 187 days a year. This is a simple thing that could be addressed with kiosks, stations, gallery walks, etc. Teachers, however skip these things, because they don't understand the research behind them, so of course they look superfluous from the outside looking in. Instead teachers are told, "Students have different learning styles. Be sure to differentiate." Whatever that means (without any research or demonstrations). 

5. Parents are not involved in the process enough. Education is a three-way conversation between the teachers, the student, and the parent. Like police, priests, and anyone else in a position of authority, the Me Generation has the false perception that the teacher has an adversarial role. This is not the case at all. Parents are my most power allies. I make on average over 100 phone calls home per year, and things most always change for the better once I do. Parents need to be given more credit, more trust, and be more informed about, not only, the academic performance of their children, but the behavior their children exhibit while away at school. The harshest cursing is the new “gee wiz.” It’s a feat of strength to get to my classroom each morning without being subject to hearing it. But, nothing is done. Like with cell phones, cursing goes unaddressed because we have to prioritize what we can deal with (and what will be dealt with—meaning, we’re not backed up much when we do, and it is SO very prevalent).  My class load is usually between 140-180 students per year. It’s not feasible for me to make phone class every day for everything and do all I have to do. And like a cancer, it does not go away if ignored. 

These are some of my concerns for our profession and our students with the way things are going now. 

That all said, I hope you can tell, I am very serious about being a good teacher. My report with my students is my best class management tool. I am the instructional leader of my class. We have class managers so that my students are “citizens” not “tourists” of their classroom, and I believe the socio-cultural experience of the class is as important as the content. I love kids, and I love teaching. But, I did want to offer my concerns, if anyone might find them helpful to begin a conversation. 

-The Anonymous Teacher