Sunday, July 26, 2009

Up to this day

This is the last week of the Summer Institute (aka teaching boot camp for new DCTFers).

While the experience has been extremely helpful there are still many shortcomings.

DID THIS INSTITUTE REALLY HELP?.. Somewhat

While I realize that I am not as fully prepared as teachers that have studied education at four year institutions, my prior experience as a non-certified teacher in another school district was extremely beneficial. In contrast, many of my colleagues are fresh-faced kids from majority environments who have no real clue about the realities they will face. The grittiness of teaching in an urban setting with the complex social, economic and racial dynamics that are part of the daily teaching experience is as foreign to them as Antarctica. There are a clear distinctions between the career-changers and the newbies. The former have held other jobs and most have graduate degrees; they are pursuing teaching because they want to teach unlike most of the latter who are passing time until they go to graduate school, or the economy improves. The career-changers are older and more seasoned, better prepared to navigate the bureaucracy and not at all naive. It is clear that many of the younger fellows will become unglued and emotional if their schools are not wired (for constant texting), or Johnny decides to have a FU teacher moment. Some fellows think they will be welcomed with open arms and treated as conquering heroes, completely unaware of the friction that exist between these programs and veteran teachers. At best I hope for indifference or tolerance. Since this is a permanent change I have time to wait for acceptance.

The program administrators have purposely downplayed (i.e not mentioned at all) the political, union, and administrative problems associated with the Rhee DCPS/Fenty administration and WTU. Thus, some DCTFer's are unaware that they might not get much administrative support, or possibly peer support from veteran teachers. This lack of awareness will be a critical factor in expediting the departure of many fellows. Sadly, I have made bets in my head about which fellows will leave by December and June. A major clue of just how little support DCTFers will receive was the attitudes of some principals and their surrogates who bothered to interview DCTFers at requisite job fairs. It was clear that many principals and surrogates attended the job fairs because they had no choice or was receiving some kind of compensation. Questions ranged from the totally inane to those unrelated to teaching or education ( no.. not the think-on-your-feet variety some prospective employers ask.. think WTF and not in a good way) while other interviewers were so plainly disinterested with the interview process that I felt sorry for them!!! During one of my "interviews" a surrogate talked about the Subway sandwich she was eating for five minutes while her colleague played games on his phone. Yep, they never asked me a question, just took the resume and had me give an email address. Several principals spoke at length about the administrative pressures they faced in turning their school around and satisfying the Central office directives, yet,virtually nothing was said about substantive academic initiatives unrelated to the DC-CAS. It was clear the focus was not teaching and instruction only the almighty test scores.
My personal favorite were the ego-driven principals who demanded job offer acceptance on the spot, it seemed foreign to them that a DCTF could ask for a few days to think about the offer. This attitude was unreasonable and scary. ( Yes, I checked out many of the schools before interviewing. However, the schools that advertised vacancies were not always the ones that attended job fairs and if they did they were sometimes seeking teachers for unadvertised vacancies.) I suspect many principals don't mind a few "expendable " DCTFers to give the appearance of supporting this alternative licensing program. Alternatively, I think this autocratic approach to administrating is indicative of their less-than-superior managerial style and clear warning that staff issues abound.


The Practical Teaching Experience.

This provided some ground experience but it is not enough for first timers. Luckily, I have taught before, but most DCTFers have not. In addition, fellows only began teaching a full class last week. This amount to six hours of teaching time for one week at the maximum since most summer students do not begin arriving at school until 45 minutes AFTER the scheduled start of class. When compared to the regular school day and week.. six hours of teaching time is literally a drop in the bucket. In addition, few classes even approach regular school size. In my class, twenty-five students are registered but only seven have attended, and not all on the same day.

The quality of some of the cooperating teachers (CT- those teachers teaching summer school who have agreed to have DCTFers in their class) is questionable. Some teachers have been excellent while other fellows have complained that their CTs read like a manual of what-not-to-do if you become a teacher. Since the Institute is is teaching boot camp, it would best be served by veteran master teachers with at least a minimum of ten years experience. However, most CTs volunteered so the DCTF administrators really could not be picky about the selection process.

The Summer School is a mess but this is more of a reflection on DCPS than DCTF. It still boggles my mind why content areas besides English and Maths are taught. Most of the kids in my class obviously failed because their reading and maths skills are far below their grade level. Even more ridiculous,these are high-schoolers who are slated to graduate next week. I think that Summer School should be restructured as an intensive English and Math program.

I have some more stuff to share so I will post later in the week.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

So Far.

Hello All and Welcome

I wanted to share my journey as a first year DC Teaching Fellow (DCTF)- the ups and downs, the victories and defeats, the chaotic system aka DC Public School System (DCPS).