Nine days and counting.

I'm still reading And the Band Played On. Two of the heros have been diagnosed with AIDS by the fall of 1984 and people are beginning to talk about deaths in the tens of thousands. Scientists are fighting about glory and news media is still ignoring the epidemic. I've still got around 200 pages to go. I am so impressed with how Randy Shilts has gotten me so emotionally involved. When Harvey Milk associate and one of the men responsible for whatever AIDS research and education funding did make it through the Reagan administration was diagnosed with Kaposi's Sarcoma (an early stage AIDS infection), I almost started crying. That's how emotionally involved I've become. Kudos to Mr. Shilts. It's too bad we don't have any time machines perfected yet. I would love to take some of this back to researchers and government officials of the 1980s. See if we couldn't save some lives.

Closer to home and in the present day, We're up to about 15 students at school - 5 middle school and the rest high school. I teach 8 of them - 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade World History and 10th grade Civics and Economics. About three weeks into January, HS courses will switch as the semester turns. I'll be adding 11th grade U.S. History to the repertoire at that point. Planning for four courses has been extremely taxing and I struggle to feel that I am making a difference each and everyday. So many days I feel like I'm not really addressing my students learning needs and more like I'm just covering content. I hate it. But there is nothing I can do to change it, so, just like everyone else, I keep trying to do the best I can with what I've got. I'm much more at peace with this today than I was this time last week and probably where I'll be again in mid-January, but it's so close to Christmas break right now and I feel like I can almost make it there - hence the peace.

Some exciting things are happening though. My World History student, who I taught last year, is definitely more aware of the world and trying to pay attention to things happening. He's gotten really interested in Africa - especially the Somali pirates recently. It's funny, because one day he'll make me look up some current event he heard about to get more information, and then the next day he'll be trying to convince me that a bunch of famous African Americans (mostly rap stars and basketball players) are part of some satanic cult. So we're more aware, now we just need to be able to weed out the falsehoods. Also, my Civics student got a 70% on an online exam. The site is managed by NC State University and is designed to simulate the end-of-course tests. I know 70% might not sound all that good, but usually on exams from this site students in my district average 40-60%. Just a couple of the positives from the recent days.

Keep your fingers crossed that the Midwest recovers from Snowpocalypse II before I need to fly for the holidays!

History is for the Victors

This past Veteran's day I watched the film version of the stage "play" The People Speak (it's not really a traditional play, more reminicent ofThe Vagina Monologues). The People Speak is based on Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and tries to emphasize the idea that history as we know it is incomplete, and necessary change does not come from those in power, but is caused by those who dissent. The film is pretty traditional in its analysis, addressing African slavery and civil rights, Women's rights and liberation, and the various peace movements in U.S. history, in that order. African American women make a short aside at the end of the section on women, and a short piece on the working poor and the struggle for economic justice slides in just before the peace movements. Various dissenters are voiced by an INCREDIBLE cast of Hollywood greats (some of whom are pictured below right), and music breaks in the form of slave spirituals, Dylan songs, and others are included.

I found this film incredibly moving and inspirational. I almost kept it, thinking I'd pay the lost disc fee rather than return it to Netflix, that's how much I liked it. It included the stories of people like Harvey Milk, Cesar Chavez, John Brown, Sojourner Truth, and Emma Goldman. It seemed to suggest that we need to take control of our democracy, else we end up like those described by Langston Hughes in his poem, "Waitin' on Roosevelt." And I briefly felt rather self-satisfied when I thought about how many of the people included in Zinn's play are also included in my social studies curriculum.

But I was also somewhat disappointed by the lack of Native American voices in the project - only words from one Chief were included. Dissenters like Alice Paul (seen left) and advocates like Doris Day were left out of this account of the movers and shakers of American history (and these are only two of the people I thought of while watching the film). Even when purporting to represent the unrepresented, history is still for the victors.

While The People Speak examines those times when our democracy has been goaded into action, I also spent Veteran's Day reading a tome about a time when it staunchly refused to intervene to save millions of lives. I was first introduced to Randy Shilts' And the Band Played On last spring because a friend's girlfriend was reading it during her visit. H. insisted it was one of the best books she had ever read and she was floored by the amount of denial and inaction among the people and our government during the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Along with detailing the events and efforts of the epidemic, Shilts also impeccably portrays the emotions involved: There is the desperation of the first victims who slogged through infection after infection with no answers or help from their doctors; there is the mourning and sadness of the lovers and friends left behind when those victims died; there is the frustration of doctors, researchers and congressional aides as the government and its agencies refuse funding even as the death toll rises; and there is the readers' own sense of impending dread because you know where this all leads and how it all ends.

The book is peopled with an extensive cast of characters (Shilts actually includes a Dramatis Personae at the beginning of the book to help you keep them all straight), some of whom were not new to me, like Cleve Jones (at left; real Cleve is on the left, with the actor who played him in the film Milk), one of the activists who worked with Harvey Milk in San Francisco, or President Reagan, who is mentioned repeatedly due to his spending cuts that further strangled the few groups trying to research AIDS. But most of the players are new, like Dr. James Curran who lead the CDC task force that followed AIDS when it was GRID and before it was even named, Bill Kraus, a congressional aide who started working on AIDS in San Francisco before moving to D.C. and helping secure the first federal funding specifically for AIDS research, and a whole host of doctors and public health in the U.S. and abroad who risked and sometimes sacrificed their careers to help treat and research AIDS and provide necessary services to its victims during the early 1980s.

And H. was absolutely correct. It is difficult, if not impossible, to not be struck by the incredible lack of action as the AIDS crisis is breaking. All those involved in following it agree there is an epidemic and agree that its probably an infectious agent spreading it, but no one heeds this information, insisting those actually doing what research is possible have no idea what they are talking about. And, instead of trying to collectively save lives various agencies fight amongst themselves over turf and who is stepping on who's toes, worried that if they yield some control to another agency, their budgets will be further slashed by the Reagan administration. Yes, America did send a man to the moon, and yes, America did have one of the best medical research systems in the world, but yet we definitely fell short when it came to dealing with a virus that destroyed the immune systems of various minority populations (the first risk groups for AIDS were gay men, intravenous drug users, and Haitian immigrants), leaving them to die hideous, demeaning, and painful deaths. One snippet that stood out to me as I continued reading today was this:

"The New York Times had written only three stories about the epidemic in 1981 and three more stories in all of 1982. None made the front page. Indeed, one could have lived in New York, or in most of the United States for that matter, and not even have been aware from the daily news papers that an epidemic was happening, even while government doctors themselves were predicting that the scourge would wipe out the lives of tens of thousands."

As I read this, I realized that my parents were meeting, falling in love and getting married while this was happening. I was a growing spot on the horizon as this was happening. Any my grandparents certainly weren't thinking about AIDS. My parents weren't thinking about it, concerned about getting it from each other or passing it to me. My aunts and uncles weren't troubled by it either. And not only were they not thinking about it because it was a "gay disease" (soon to be proved untrue) but they may not even have known it was happening. This realization carried approximately the same weight for me as finding out a couple of weeks ago that one of my students didn't remember or know the significance of September 11th.

We like to think that only history is for the victors, that we all have a fighting chance to win it and write it while we're in it. But sometimes the deck is stacked even before we start. Sometimes those in power are just going to do everything they can to ensure their group is worth $34,841 (the amount spent per person on Legionnaire's Disease 5 years after it was effectively eradicated), while ensuring yours is worth only $8,991 (the amount spent per person on AIDS in 1982). And you are written out of the history books, and sometimes even the memory of dissent and rabble rousers. My take-away from Veterans' Day this year was to remember not only our veterans, but also to consider the memory of those veterans of history forgotten and left behind.

Update... long overdue.

I want to say that I haven’t updated or written about this school year solely because I was waiting for the dust to settle. But really that’s only part of the reason for my absence. Writing makes it real. Putting words on even the electronic page means that it’s really true. My school closed, was usurped, taken over, my students tossed to the wolves. My world really did stop. And telling that things aren’t necessarily bad for all involved, which is the Honest Abe truth, feels like a betrayal of what we left behind and all we did accomplish.

I think, though, that it is time to let some of this go and move forward. I have students now. The first quarter is almost over. Whether I’ve decided how I feel about it or not, it has become real all around me.

Last July, while I was teaching summer school, rumors and rumblings began about the school district being broke, and millions of dollars in debt. About jobs being cut, schools closing and the superintendent being relieved of duty and sacked. Some rumors turned out to be true, some false, some still said to be true, but no one knows for sure. What is certain is that in July, the superintendent was relieved of duty, then resigned; the school board pulled out of a multi-million dollar grant program to increase internet access in the county, drawing scorn from donors and the state governor (who cancelled a visit); the Pre-K program was consolidated, it’s staff farmed out and building sold; and my school was closed and then re-opened under district control and a new model of operations.

And honestly... it’s not as bad as it could be. Our staff has bonded. It’s wonderful having a principal and guidance counselor on campus. It definitely sucked being a teacher without kids for the first month and a half. But I have three wonderful middle school babies now and should be getting two or three more high school babies this week.

I’m still teaching social studies in an alternative setting, but we’re pulling from a larger set of students, male and female, remedial and academically gifted, medical problems and behavior problems. It’s leading to some interesting classroom dynamics and teaching strategies (like having 7th grade geography/social science survey of Asia, Africa and Australia in the same room during the same instructional period as 8th grade U.S./NC history), but so far - three days to a week before 1st unit tests - the kids seem to be learning.

In other news, I’ve gotten incredibly busy mentoring new TFA corps members (possibly my favorite part of the week), teaching at the after school program at the traditional middle school, singing in a “local” choral society (local as in an hour away), and keeping up with my boyfriend (who is a police officer in the same town as my choir). Somewhere in there I’m also trying to start a family literacy program with another 2nd year corps member and advocating (with an ever-growing contingent of CMs and alumni) for TFA to become more LGBT aware and inclusive for both CMs and the students we serve. And I’m taking the GRE in a week and another Praxis certification test in three weeks. Whew!

Around all that running back and forth for school, after school, choir, boyfriend, best friend (30 mins away), Wal-Mart (15 mins away), and two trips to the Triangle (one for a conference, another to get my computer fixed), it’s not surprising I’ve had some car trouble. Foglight replaced: $360. Tire replaced: $250. Two oil changes in three months: $90. Front brakes replaced: $240. Surviving a terrible, horrible, should-have-been-way-worse car accident this weekend with no bodily injuries and (supposedly) minimal damage to my Mazda 3 car-baby, Natalie: Priceless. Definitely gonna keep kissing the yellow lights and saying prayers of thankfulness.

Other highlights:

• My problem child, DM, mastering 5 objectives in two days when allowed to be in a class by himself.
• My self-conscious baby, SO, coming out of her shell, eating her first meal at school, and bringing me a bracelet as a gift after class.
• Watching ST count his “stacks” (aka napkins he was pretending were money) and not only shell some out to his mom and family but also put a significant amount in “savings.” Kid is gonna go somewhere, I tell you.
• Seeing one of my Hivesmen when he stopped by the middle school during after school, and having a thoughtful, constructive and insightful conversation about his first quarter of high school and hearing him say it was kinda tough, but he was “doing good” and “getting it done.”

Inshallah, all days will be this good.

One of my whiteboards in my classroom with my one big motivational quote above it:

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become." - Buddha

What are you thinking?

The wall of Civics goodness, from when I thought I was going to be teaching Civics and Econ this semester. I'm contemplating changing it to types of economies and levels of economic industry for the sake of my 7th graders. Or how to detect bias or tell fact from opinion and the "Somebody Wanted But So" method of summarizing, since we're still struggling with skills. But the Civic goodness! I'm so torn.

My boyfriend and I, snapping a quick pic at Starbucks. :)

Letter to a Future Principal

The Executive Director of my TFA region is leaving us in a few days to return to the school setting as a principal. As a region, we are putting together a book of advice and encouragement for her as she makes this change. I really cannot say how excited I am that she is doing this, because ES is going to be an incredible principal. She was an incredible ED. She is truly one of the most inspiring people I have ever worked with. Her energy, enthusiasm, passion, dedication and poise are all characteristics I aspire to project myself. I'm going to miss her. But I secretly hope to one day work for her. Below is my contribution to her book.

Dear ES -

I don’t need to remind you that I’ve seen more than my share of administrators in two years teaching in Bertie. From passive-aggressive, to absent, to capable but underdeveloped, I’ve seen them all (or at least quite a few different ones). Always looking to learn, I’ve tried to figure out what makes each one a great principal so that I can emulate that in my classroom and utilize those strategies in the future. Here are some of the tidbits I’ve gathered:

• Trust your teachers. They are professionals who have put themselves through many hours of training to get where they are, and deserve to be treated that way.

• Train your teachers. Yes, we’re professionals, but there is always more to learn - and not just about how to give tests or use gradebooks. Coach your teachers on how to teach, how to improve, how to help students more effectively.

• Believe in your teachers. Just as you believe in students and have high standards for them, do the same for teachers. We all want what is best for students, but get discouraged sometimes. Remind us that we can do it, and our students can too.

• Give teachers ownership. We want to feel like we have some control and a place in our school. Consult with your teachers before making decisions when appropriate. We want to help. We want to have a part in the place we spend the majority of our time.

• Develop a community. Teachers, staff and students need to rely on and support each other for the school to be effective. Host some school-wide events and encourage all members to attend sporting events, plays, concerts. Only together are we strong.

• Believe in your students. This is the big one. All your students want to learn. All your students want to grow. Especially those you see in the principal’s office week after week. Keep believing in them. Don’t let them go. They may not all help your test scores, but they all want to give you their best if you and your teachers just believe in them and support them.

There is no doubt in my mind that you are going to be an incredible principal. Your students and teachers will be lucky to have you. As you transition to this exciting new journey, know we will miss seeing you as regularly and we are all with you, pushing for success.

All the best!

I am intelligent. I am capable of greatness.

This post is the third of a nine-part series analyzing the Power Pledge.

I am intelligent.

I believe each of my boys are smart. And not only are they smart now, they will become smarter the farther into the school year we move. At the start of each year, I take a period to teach my students the theory of malleable intelligence. This year, I'm using the following article:

You Can Grow Your Intelligence

New Research Shows the Brain Can Be Developed Like a Muscle

Winter 2008

Many people think of the brain as a mystery. They don't know much about intelligence and how it works. When they do think about what intelligence is, many people believe that a person is born either smart, average, or dumb — and stays that way for life.

But new research shows that the brain is more like a muscle — it changes and gets stronger when you use it. And scientists have been able to show just how the brain grows and gets stronger when you learn.

Everyone knows that when you lift weights, your muscles get bigger and you get stronger. A person who can't lift 20 pounds when they start exercising can get strong enough to lift 100 pounds after working out for a long time. That's because the muscles become larger and stronger with exercise. And when you stop exercising, the muscles shrink and you get weaker. That's why people say "Use it or lose it!

But most people don't know that when they practice and learn new things, parts of their brain change and get larger a lot like muscles do when they exercise.

Inside the cortex of the brain are billions of tiny nerve cells, called neurons. The nerve cells have branches connecting them to other cells in a complicated network. Communication between these brain cells is what allows us to think and solve problems.

When you learn new things, these tiny connections in the brain actually multiply and get stronger. The more that you challenge your mind to learn, the more your brain cells grow. Then, things that you once found very hard or even impossible to do — like speaking a foreign language or doing algebra — seem to become easy. The result is a stronger, smarter brain.

How Do We Know the Brain Can Grow Stronger?
Scientists started thinking that the human brain could develop and change when they studied animals' brains. They found out that animals who lived in a challenging environment, with other animals and toys to play with, were different from animals who lived alone in bare cages.

While the animals who lived alone just ate and slept all the time, the ones who lived with different toys and other animals were always active. They spent a lot of time figuring out how to use the toys and how get along with the other animals.

These animals had more connections between the nerve cells in their brains. The connections were bigger and stronger, too. In fact, their whole brains were about 10% heavier than the brains of the animals who lived alone without toys.

The animals who were exercising their brains by playing with toys and each other were also "smarter" — they were better at solving problems and learning new things.

Even old animals got smarter and developed more connections in their brains when they got the chance to play with new toys and other animals. When scientists put very old animals in the cages with younger animals and new toys to explore, their brains grew by about 10%!

Children's Brain Growth
Another thing that got scientists thinking about the brain growing and changing was babies. Everyone knows that babies are born without being able to talk or understand language. But somehow, almost all babies learn to speak their parents' language in the first few years of life. How do they do this?

The Key to Growing the Brain: Practice?
From the first day they are born, babies are hearing people around them talk — ail day, every day, to the baby and to each other. They have to try to make sense of these strange sounds and figure out what they mean. In a way, babies are exercising their brains by listening hard.

Later, when they need to tell their parents what they want, they start practicing talking thernsefves. At first, they just make goo-goo sounds. Then, words start coming, And by the time they are three years old, most can say whole sentences almost perfectly.

Once children learn a language, they don't forget it. The child's brain has changed — it has actually gotten smarter.

This can happen because learning causes permanent changes in the brain. The babies' brain cells get larger and grow new connections between them. These new, stronger connections make the child's brain stronger and smarter, just like a weightlifter's big muscles make them strong.

The Real Truth About "Smart" and "Dumb"
No one thinks babies are stupid because they can't talk. They just haven't learned how to yet. But some people will call a person dumb if they can't solve math problems, or spell a word right, or read fast — even though all these things are learned with practice.

At first, no one can read or solve equations. But with practice, they can learn to do it. And the more a person learns, the easier it gets to learn new things-because their brain "muscles" have gotten stronger!

The students everyone thinks are the "smartest" may not have been born any different from anyone else. But before they started school, they may have started to practice reading. They had already started to build up their "reading muscles." Then, in the classroom, everyone said, "That's the smartest student in the class."

They don't realize that any of the other students could learn to do as well if they exercised and practiced reading as much. Remember, all of those other students learned to speak at least one whole language already — something that grownups find very hard to do. They just need to build up their "reading muscles" too.

What Can You Do to Get Smarter?
Just like a weightlifter or a basketball player, to be a brain athlete you have to exercise and practice. By practicing you make your brain stronger. You also learn skills that let you use your brain in a smarter way-just like a basketball player learns new moves.

But many people miss out on the chance to grow a stronger brain because they think they can't do it, or that it's too hard. It does take work, just like becoming stronger physically or becoming a better ball player does. Sometimes it even hurts! But when you feel yourself get better and stronger, worth it!

(source: http://www.nais.org/ismagazinearticlePrint.cfm?print=Y&ItemNumber=150439)

I need my students to know that they are in control of their learning. They are in control of their intelligence. When I teach them the theory of malleable intelligence, I am adding truth to this line of the pledge they say each morning. I teach malleable intelligence because I want them to believe it when they say "I am intelligent."

There are many ways to be intelligent.

D.S. is intelligent when it comes to people. He reads them and can build networks that many executives would find intimidating. S.J. is mechanically and visually intelligent. Show him a picture once and he knows what it is forever. T.J. rocks his math. Actually he has no patience for me because of my need for a calculator. In another year or two he'll be above my level once he gets all the theories in his head. D.H. has imagination and curiosity. He's the best critical thinker in his class. T.L. is determined and diligent. D.B. is theatric. And these are just examples. Each of them is intelligent at something all on his own, and has the ability to be intelligent at everything with work.

I am capable of greatness.

What is greatness? Anne Frank wrote:

"Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness..."

But let's be honest. As much as I want character and goodness to equate with greatness, my boys, and to a large extent our culture, disagree with Anne and measure greatness by looking at wealth accumulated and power wielded. And who can blame them when they live daily feeling so much of their life is outside their control and they are powerless to respond. If I felt as oppressed and angry as some of my boys did when they started school, my version of greatness would certainly be running my own life and finding ways to support my family. Is that really so much to ask? No. It shouldn't be, but even that is a struggle when you have traveled so far away from it.

Greatness means being respectful. Playing the game, controlling your temper, understanding the social norms you need to follow in order for the greatness latent within you can shine through. That is how we have started to see greatness.

What does Achievement look like?

This time last year, I was planning a combined English and social studies middle school course, and comparing it to kangaroos and joeys. This time last year, I hadn’t met my wonderful roommate. This time last year, I still had someone teaching the exact same course as me. This time last year, I was at Round Zero, the first in-region training that Teach for America corps members participate in. This time last year, I was still bright eyed and bushy tailed. Ha.

This year, I’m back at Peace College, helping guide new corps members through their R0 experience. It’s changed a bit since I was here. There is much more structured work time in content areas. English is trying a new pilot training program, so they’re not hanging out with the social studies crew. They’re not spending copious amounts of time on the goal setting assistant. I guess they figure we all know how to use it and can help the newbies, unlike last year when our second years were still using the old, arbitrary growth/mastery setting system. The biggest change though, is that the focus is no longer on passing the courses necessary to graduate high school, or meeting other grade-level standards. For this 2010 corps, the height of achievement is “college ready.” After one day here, it was a constant refrain from the moment I set foot on the Peace campus at 9:42 this morning.

On the one hand, I love it. College attendance and graduation is the final frontier of the battle against the achievement gap. It is the one last, highest obstacle keeping my students from having the same economic and social life opportunities that I have had and will have. It shifts our focus to critical thinking and soft social skills and the ability to express oneself. It injects our goals and plans with a new level of rigor that I longed for when I started this process last year. I spent hours lamenting its absence in these same classrooms a year ago. So, on the one hand, I started the morning so excited, energized and blown away by the work these new CMs were doing, the questions they were asking and the goals they were setting.

Then that afternoon, we started unit planning, which involves unit assessments and discussing what skills and knowledge students will exhibit at the end of your first unit. And suddenly this emphasis on “college ready” didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. How can we claim to be setting feasible (and rigorous) goals if we are also holding our students who are multiple years below grade level to “college ready” level work after one unit? Even in my private, suburban school, there was a sense that the work was going to get more difficult and the bar be set higher as we went through the year. That kind of growth and achievement doesn’t happen over night. It seems like our first unit should be merely a first step towards college ready, and college ready a goal that our work scaffolds toward over the entire year.

That is my concrete reason for becoming frustrated today; I have a more controversial, possibly less P.C. concern as well: Part of me feels that on some level it is rather presumptuous of us to come into a county where the only jobs are with the school system or a chicken processing plant and say that the only kind of academic achievement worth bothering with is the kind you get from a college education. Even Obama “the Socialist” allows for the idea of career readiness.

If I convince my students to go to college, there is a 99% chance that they will have to move out of the county to find work once they graduate - especially if they ever want to repay any loans they have. That means leaving their family and the only community most of them have ever known. That was not the choice I was facing by deciding that I was going to attend college. That is not the choice facing most upper and middle income people who chose to go to college.

The huge cost and long-term economic burden are also things that many upper and some middle income students don’t have to consider when deciding whether or not to attend college. And this isn’t NYC or LA we’re talking about here - there aren’t scholarships or charitable organizations to offer them or student friendly jobs in the area. There aren’t even any truly local institutions to pick from - any student who choses to attend college in our area would need to get an apartment, live in campus housing, or commute - all expensive options compared to living at home and walking or taking public transport in a city.

I don’t mean to say that we shouldn’t be teaching our students the skills they need to be successful in college. If we did that, we would at best be maintaining the status quo. But I think there is some value in being honest about the fact that not all Americans are going to want or need a liberal arts college education, and that we need to be addressing the knowledge and skills that will help our students become exemplary technical/vocational college graduates, reliable and competent workers and citizens - if for no other reason than “college ready” isn’t going to motivate all of our students, and may actually discourage some.

I say all of this and then feel like a horrible racist classist bigot, but I worked so hard last year to motivate students with the idea of high school and college, and they were so disconnected from that idea that it was like pulling out my own teeth with my bare hands to motivate them with that. Something a little closer to home - a job, money, a car, a good grade, passing to the next grade - that’s what matters.

And, of course, in true TFA style, the program director I was discussing this with had a comeback vision of taking our students to visit colleges, because as mentioned above, part of their ambivalence is not understanding what college is or why it’s good; visits would help expose them to the culture and experience of college and possibly make it a more concrete reality. Right. Now let’s remember the educational system, generally, that we are working in: there’s no money for transportation; systems are beholden to standardized tests that have nothing to do with whether or not a student understands why they should go to college and anything not relevant to the tests gets cut. Yeah. A district is really going to support this idea of trips to colleges - something that increases costs with no direct impact on AYP except maybe a negative one due to lost instructional time.

I don’t know. I think college ready could be a good piece of a Big Goal “vision” but I don’t think I’m sold on this emphasis. It will be interesting to see what ubiquitous TFA data says about it at the end of the year. I hope I’m wrong and that this new approach leads to wildly successful corps members, because that will mean wildly successful students. I really hope it works - and not just in NYC, but ENC as well, but I have a bad feeling about it. It just feels too far up the rigor line, not at the intersection of rigorous and feasible.

I believe in myself and my ability to do my best.

This post is the second in a nine-part series analyzing the Power Pledge.

I believe in myself and my ability to do my best

I can almost hear some of my kids.

“‘I believe in myself’? If you mean I believe that I can whoop all these n***as here? Then, yeah, sure I believe in myself.”

“Right. Not after failing the last three grades twice.”

“Do my best at what? What does that even mean? What if my best isn’t good enough?”

What does it mean to believe in yourself? One needs a sense of self-worth, self-confidence, trust in yourself and in others. Believing in yourself is not safe. Believing in yourself means you are going to take risks, you gamble that you won’t embarass yourself and hope that others will respect the fact that you tried and gave your best effort.

Believing in yourself relies on that belief being validated from time to time. Some people take this for granted. I know I did. Why shouldn’t I do well in the science fair? I’m smart, I understand my project and the results my experiments generated. I got an A on that research paper? Well of course I did, I always get As.

Would I have believed in myself without this history of success? Would you believe in yourself if you had failed an assignment? A test? A grade? Many of us wouldn’t. Continuing to believe in yourself, take those risks, gamble on yourself and others - it would only open you up to more failure, more ridicule, an increasing sense of worthlessness.

This is the understanding of self my students combat each and every day. We demand them to reclaim their belief in themselves, by making them say it. By saying it ourselves, by believing in them, by believing in each other.

And then we push them further. Not only must they believe in themselves, they must take it a step further and believe that they can do something than a half effort. They have to believe they are capable of something called “best.” Not good, not better - best. Each morning in that warehouse-turned-school-building we make them say not only are we able, we are capable - and not only are we capable, we are capable of “best,” of greatness.

But it is absent the pressure of THE. We do not demand THE best. We demand your best. We promised our boys we would meet them where they are and this is a reflection of that promise. This does not mean that we have lowered our standards; we believe in you and expect that one day you will be The Best, but for now we need to see your best and want to watch that grow.

An analysis of the Power Pledge

Each morning, just before becoming a shuffling stampede on their way to class, our Hivesmen recite the Power Pledge. In a series of nine posts, I'm going to try to convey what this set of words - beliefs and promises reforged each weekday - means for my students and what it means for me.

Our Power Pledge

Our. Collective ownership. This word implies that we have something in common. Something shared. But how can that be? This "we," this "our," the collective owner is a disparate group of black and white, north and south, rich and poor, young and old, actually grown and think they grown, bloods and crips and clueless, haves, have-nots, hopeful and a hair away from giving up. But there it is - Our. Our Power Pledge. It is a reinforcement of our common mission each day we enter that building; we're here to learn, to teach, to challenge and grow. It is a reaffirmation of the promise we made the first time we walked in the warehouse doors; to leave the outside, outside and transform ourselves within those walls into Team Hive. Collective, community. Our.

Power. Energy, enfranchisement, empowerment, ability, strength, confidence. Power.

Pledge. A promise to self and comrade. A creed. Shared prayer of beliefs and convictions. Failure and doubt have no meaning here. Promises do carry the possibility of being broken or unmet, but there is unfailing trust in good intentions. The path created by the pledge is there, and we know that each may stumble, but not for lack of trying. And each day is a chance to re-pledge, re-commit and promise to try again.

Testing: Day 2

Today is reading.

I am so glad that I am not held accountable to a script every day of teaching. Do you know how bored and frustrated kids get during a script? First I felt their attention drift. Then despondence settles in as all they want to do is get to testing, not listen to me talk. This deepens until I can feel each pair of eye staring daggers into me and my script. The near hate for the whole process is palpable by the end of those 15 minutes.

Now imagine that times three and you would have my life if every class was like testing. Yuck.

No one has quit today. Yet. I have had temper tantrums, like when J. hit a passage he felt was too long after all the other reading he'd done. He's in the back corner cursing to himself as our state auditor walks in. And what am I supposed to do - kick him out for being legitimately frustrated? Not gonna happen. So I break protocol and whisper him down. Just a couple sentences is enough. "You can do this. Take a deep breath. Just keep going." Tick tick tick on the auditor's clipboard.

Another student has been pulling at his hair since he started his test. At one point I look over at him and he's pulled himself a pencil-eraser sized bald spot on the side of his head. So I make him a tape ball out of masking tape and hand it to him. Better to keep his fingers busy with the smooth and sticky tape ball than pull out all the hair on the left side of his head. He has severe attention deficit problems, and being made to sit still for four hours is enough to stress this kid out - before you even ask him to read on grade-level.

In the end, Tape-ball Kid doesn't make it all the way through and circles random answers for his second to last passage, and J. has another meltdown when he finishes before the others, only to find that he has to sit quietly, bored, for the next 45 or 50 minutes it takes for all his testing classmates to finish as well. This time I have to ditch my proctor and pull him in the hall to get him back from the brink of punching something. It probably doesn't help that J. doesn't seem to like me in the first place, and has repeatedly made it known that he would rather be anywhere than in a classroom with me. Maybe he could sit quietly for Mr. N.

Oh testing. I can't believe I get to deal with you for three more days. [Grimace.]

Kids say the darndest things, part 2

I think someone has a crush...

Student: "Ms. Lewis, you tried to look good today, didn't you?"

Me: "What, do I normally look like I just roll out of bed and come to work?"

Student: "Yup. [pause, while I chuckle and act hurt and student fumbles for something to say] But really Ms. Lewis you is one of the most beautifulest women out here."

What made this even better, was my shirt, shoes and pants did not match yesterday. So much for looking good.

CAUTION!

End of Year Testing may cause:

In students - anxiety, unexplained absence, truancy, tardiness, panic attacks, melt downs, hangovers, increase in misbehavior, such as defiance, disrespect and name calling.

In teachers - excessive drinking, smoking, staying up to very late hours, constant insistance that they do not care about students, administration or test scores, worrying, heartburn, chest pain, ulcers, hangovers, philosophical discussions until late-night hours.

In general - increased lack of appreciation for social norms, such as bedtimes, cursing, politeness, intoxication, good or healthy vs. bad or unhealthy habits, overeating, showering, other personal hygiene, etc.

Use caution when administering End of Year Tests and have in place safety measures to address aforementioned side-effects.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Consuming End-of-Year Tests may be detrimental to your health. Do not use End-of-Year Tests when you are pregnant or may become pregnant, or if you have anxiety disorders or high blood pressure as this may result in negative health effects.

Welcome to Testing

EOG! EOG! EOG!

It is finally upon us. Did they learn? Did they master grade level content knowledge and reading skills? Have we accomplished in this year what our kids have failed to do for many years previously? Are we ready to pass our EOGs?

The short answer - God I hope so. Insh'allah.

We are planning for remediation, as though they are not going to pass, but we are crossing our fingers, pulling out the good-luck charms, and praying like mad that they do. Also, putting on a front of confidence and nonchalance and telling the kids we have no doubt in the world that they can all pass this test.

Oh what tangled webs we weave. I guess that's not really that tangled. But it kind of looks like it on paper.

Insh'allah, insh'allah, insh'allah. Padre nuestro que estas en el cielo santificado sea tu nombre...

Along with testing today, I'm also discussing current events with my kids. This week's topics come from past lessons. All the kids learned about the oil spill two weeks ago, and today the MSers are doing a follow-up - what's been tried, what worked, what didn't work, what's being planned for the future. The HSers really latched on to the protests in Thailand, and were the ones who alerted me to Seh Daeng being shot last week. (Possibly one of the coolest things to happen - my kids being excited by a current event that they looked at the news on their own and connected back to class. Awesome.) Seh Daeng died earlier today and Bangkok has become increasingly chaotic and uncontrolled and we are going to check-in with that situation via the NYT.

I love current events. As the kids have become better critical thinkers, our discussions get increasingly more interesting and run more smoothly. Perhaps this is the best anecdotal evidence I have that shows my kids have learned. In the fall, they couldn't string two words together based on a news report. Now, they dissect the motives behind BPs various approaches to addressing the oil leak.

But will that transfer to an achievement level on a standardized test? I don't know. And unfortunately, that's the evidence that matters.

Little Victories

My kids just turned afternoon assembly into a revival: "... I am too smart (echo) to waste today (echo), tomorrow (echo), or my future (or my future) [normal] AMEN! (echo) I said can I get an amen! (echo - AAAMMMEEENNNNNN!!!!) [revival]"

We're heading full throttle into EOGs, meaning this is possibly the last week I have with my kids. They're working on a project in which they create their own country. They pick the geography, the government, the economy, and create a timeline that explains how their country gained independence, or how their government took power.

Today during my second block of 8th graders I had to step into the hallway. Normally when I do this it's because I'm so frustrated and angry that I want to hit somebody. Today it was the exact opposite. The kids were doing SO WELL with their projects - thinking critically, showing mastery of the content, understanding different forms of government, drawing features on a map - and HAVING FUN while doing it. I started to tear up and could feel my chest tightening. I didn't want to cry for joy (or any reason really) in front of my kids, so I stepped into the hall to collect myself. I was in the middle of a happy dance when our janitor walked by and asked if I was okay. It was so great to say YES.

Kids say the darndest things, and other thoughts

One of the best conversations I've had recently:

Student 1: "I'm a gangsta gangsta. Hey Ms. Lewis, you ain't got no boyfriend - you wanna go with me?"

Me: "Um no, Student 1."

Student 1: "Why not?"

Me: "Lots of reasons."

Student 2: "She'd go to jail for that!"

Student 1: "If you go to jail, I'd come visit you."

Initially, I was just intrigued and amused by the idea of a "gangster gangster" but then suddenly the conversation got even crazier. I had not smiled and laughed so much in my classroom in a while.

Academically, the last couple of weeks have seen great successes and great failures. In class I see my kids continue to improve in their reasoning and critical thinking, but then they absolutely BOMB the state writing test, partially due to lack of reasoning. They understand socialism, but fail to grasp the idea of a king with limited power. They understand coup, but struggle with civil war. Weird, right? Reading comprehension is still a problem, which is not good going into EOGs... crap. But it seems better than fall, which is positive.

Break Beach City House

I love spring break. I love it even more as a teacher than I did as a student. Also, spring break is a lot better in a climate where it is actually spring during break. Being outside is glorious. Sunburn and all. And do I have sunburn or what. Pretty sure part of my back is purple it's so burned. I got all this sun at the Outer Banks on Tuesday. A.H. and I took a few more days than originally planned to get out there, but it was a much cheaper trip since we didn't stay. We went to Rodanthe (yes, just like the movie - we saw where Richard Gere plays pool), and then drove down to the Hatteras Lighthouse. I love the lighthouse. We couldn't go inside it because it doesn't open until mid-April, but it still looks incredible. Next trip: Lost Colony and Ocracoke.

A.H. and I spent a lot of time admiring beach houses - their levels, their colors, their windows, their porches - and trying to figure out what it would be like to live out on the islands.

(If I get pictures from A.H., I'll post them here.)

After the beach, Grandparents came to town. First we ate in Edenton and saw the Sound. The next day we caravanned to D.C. to see family. It was a very nice trip. I met and interacted with some very nice people in Fredericksburg, VA. There was construction traffic. It was stop-and-go and I HAD to get out. So I pulled off at a Starbucks, used the bathroom and was in line to order the lady in front of me started chatting about the traffic. I shared my plan of bailing onto another highway. Then the lady behind me piped up and told us all that the construction ended just ahead so we should probably just stick it out, rather than fighting all the other frustrated drivers on the alternative highway. Five minutes back on the highway, and it opened up, just like she said. Awesome. Thanks, Starbucks lady.

D.C. was incredible. Met one of my college roomies for coffee and learned about life outside TFA and education policy. She was on the phone with the Ambassador from Japan the other day. Beast.

Walking places and riding the metro was incredible. I also fell in love with a peace studies program at George Mason. Uh-oh.

Last new news of break is that my teaching roommate and I think we found a place to live next year! Exciting. It's near where we currently live, has two bedrooms, two baths, sunshine, fenced-in backyard and pet-friendly land-lords. YES! :)

An Open Letter to my High Schoolers

Dear High Schoolers,

I know you are mad about not graduating. I'm mad about that too. But right now, I am even more mad at all of you - for falling to the level of performance that everyone outside this building expects of you.

You know you're ready to graduate and join the workforce, and every teacher at ******** and every employee of *********** across the country is pulling for you to achieve this goal. But you have let us down and more importantly you have let yourself down.

Other people said you couldn't pass EOCs, so you get to take prep classes. And instead of seizing that opportunity, you're failing the easy stuff. Now all those nay-sayers who didn't believe in you can say, "Whew! We made such a good call! If they're all failing Foundations, they sure wouldn't have passed EOC classes!" You're letting them win!

I'm not saying this to convince you to stay or not withdraw and get your GED - Please, if that is the best choice for you, by all means, GO - lasso that moon and conquer that beast. You still have all our well-wishes and support. But at least do the best you can here before you go. Show them that you should have been allowed to battle those EOCs. Show them that you ARE smart and are going to rule your world instead of letting other in the world rule you.

You have until Friday to go out on top, the master, instead of pouting your way to defeat. You are all capable young men; please prove it.

Wishing you the world,

Ms. Lewis

Take THAT, Achievement Gap!

My kids have been blowing me away the past two weeks. I am so, so impressed. They're writing complex paragraphs that are actually complete sentences and coherent thoughts - not strings of mildly related words. They're completing a research assignment and creating power points in a matter of days, where that took us almost 6 weeks last semester. They're analyzing and summarizing political platforms that are multiple pages long and (generally) not getting lost in the weeds. They're handling extended conversations about race relations, apartheid, and segregation with grace and civility. These are not the same boys who asked me why the slaves didn't just kill the masters when reading Frederick Douglass. Is everyone there yet? No. But are we suddenly bounding toward that goal? Hells to the yes!! Just look at this stuff:

(so the scanner's broken... I'll post stuff once I can get to a Kinko's.)

In other news, I still live in the twilight zone and I've decided that I officially can't live here after my two years in the corps. I love my kids and I want to improve rural education, but I can't live in a place where the white residents admit to purposefully not listing rental units and sometimes houses for sale in order to control who gets to live there. "We don't list them because then if someone asks to rent we have to let them." That's what the woman (another teacher) who told my roommate about four or five rentals in our town (which is almost all white) said about why we can't find any information about these places on our own. Makes the gossip we cause anytime we have our black colleagues over for dinner make a lot more sense.

At my meeting with my PD the other day, he said he wants to work on my unit planning because he thinks it will cause me to "unleash the beast." I want to see a teaching beast unleashed. Sounds intense, or possibly hilarious. I love my PD; he's such a fabulous advisor and thought partner. And has unfailing confidence in me. Weird.

My neighbor across the street had puppies!!! Lab puppies. I want. And might get. I'm moving soon right? And labs are hardy enough to live outside.... Four weeks until weaning, so four weeks to decide/figure out where to keep it until I move.

Countdowns:

Two more days in third quarter

4.5 more days of school until spring break

10 more days until A.H. and I vacation on the beach (aka Best Easter Ever)

13 days until Grandparents are on location

14 days until visiting in DC, with Grandparents

Looks like an awesome two weeks. :)

Here in the Twilight Zone

I live in the Twilight Zone.

In the Twilight Zone, it is still 1950. Schools are still segregated, the poor black students receiving few to no textbooks, few supplies (like desks and copiers, or carbon paper for that matter), and those they do get are all the broken and raggedy ones.

Women's lib hasn't taken place; there are no workplace protections to stop harassment and the victim is blamed for everything.

But in the Twilight Zone it is also 2010. Gangs, thugs and drugs are the order of the day. The teen who labels himself "a respectful young black man" has five children at fifteen, used to be a drug dealer and thinks his crowning accessory is a grille decorated like dice (1 and 2 are the two front teeth).

There is a laptop, cell phone, and mp3 player for every student, and nearly every student owns a gun - or at least knows how to get one. However only a handful can complete a sentence without the use of profanity or epithets.

The Twilight Zone is a rollercoaster world, where wins occur, but each fills an espresso cup, while losses are more frequent and range from tall to grande to venti (and there's not a coffee shop to be seen).

Post Script

In regards to my last post, where I request your help changing the educational system, here are two things you can do RIGHT NOW to help.

Please visit the two following sites to help Bertie County (a TFA placement site) and Teach for America, nationally.

Thanks.

Not deleted, but still not excellent. Oh February

February's been rough. And I needed to put some distance between myself and what has happened in order to write about it.

Our EOC retests went... okay. Science - 5 of 9 passed. One passed English. No one passed Algebra or Civics. That being said I had a solid majority meet our Big Goal (73% or higher average) and probably a third or half meet our smaller goal of improvement of 3 or more points from one EOC to the other. And two passed the test percentage-wise, even if they didn't get 3s (which seems strange to me...).

After far too much drama, we lost our battle with the district and our kids are taking lower-level (i.e. not needed for graduation) Foundations/Fundamentals classes this semester. They are also not telling us what these classes are supposed to entail, so planning for HS has been very difficult. My colleagues have mostly transitioned to GED-prep, since it's obvious the district is not going to allow most of our HSers graduate before they age-out at 21.

Given this turn of events with the HSers, we have redoubled efforts for MSers and set the goal of a 100% pass-rate for the MS End of Grade (EOG) tests. I'm dissatisfied with this goal as I think it is not feasible. 80% passing and 100% showing growth would be a much better school-wide goal, but as my TFA colleage and North Carolina BFF keeps reminding me, growth for individual students isn't what matters in a system governed (read: owned, dictated, tyrannized) by Adequate Yearly Progress. I'm going to borrow her words for this one:

Schools look at their bottom lines the same way any corporation would. Decisions are made everyday with one goal in mind -- make AYP, make AYP, make AYP. .... I have students that have made significant growth in our time together and yet, according to the records, will show 0 improvement by federal standards. In the push for higher scores, our EOG 1s (the most in need) are pushed aside to push our middle-range 2s to the wondrous 3s and 4s pedestal... which mostly proves they can play the test-game better than the others.

Well said, Ms. Martin. Well said.

If nothing else I learn about during these two years touches you - not the institutional racism, not the classism, not the sexism and victim blaming, not the poverty, not the gang culture, not the absolute lack of economic development - if nothing else touches you, please allow the need for educational policy reform to become clear to you. Please consider fighting this battle with me. Each of us is part of that missing link, keeping meaningful and necessary reform from happening. Please, for my kids, for Ms. Martin's kids, and the thousands of others like them, please find the time and heart to care and take action.

Middle School doesn't have an EOG for social studies, so in someways the pressure is off me, and in other ways, I have even more pressure to find ways to increase literacy instruction in my classroom. Especially with this new 100% pass rate goal. Reading comprehension and analysis is the big thing (other than behavior/attitude) holding my MS students back from achieving all they are capable of, so it is on all of our shoulders to increase their functional literacy.

So we're reading more from the textbook (Guess what!! I actually have 6 whole copies of the 7th grade book!! Woo HOO!) and completing the exercises in there to test comprehension and basic analysis/synthesis/evaluation skills. I'm teaching them a system of annotation that (hopefully) will get them to pay more attention to what they are reading. We're doing weekly current events assignments to get them reading things other than the textbook and I've bought two resource books that have high interest social studies readings on a variety of reading levels. And I'm trying - so hard - to hold them to a higher level of behavior performance each day. Which means that I did five write ups in three days.... but we gotta learn to behave, or we're never getting out of the alternative school.

All this adds up to a huge feeling of keeping my head barely above water, but I'm trying. And my TFA Program Director has (for some reason unbeknownst to me) unwavering faith in me, so I guess I'll follow his lead and trust I can make this happen too.

Unrelated side-notes:

1. My roommate's girlfriend and her dog, Greta, are visiting this weekend. I LOVE having a dog here this weekend. Greta loves to break into my room and claim my stuffed animals as her own. I'm sitting in the living room and she just brought me a small gray kitten stuffed animal. Yesterday she dug my orange cow out from under the bed. Mmmm, dog slobber. :) But I love her. She is so sweet and cuddly.

2. I watched two incredible movies on Netflix last night. I'm still on a high from the second one: Philadelphia and Itty Bitty Titty Committee. I needed the influx of crazy feminism provided by IBTC. So satisfying. And Carly Pope is gorgeous and one of my fave actresses ever.

Snow day, take 2

My room smells like the cats. I'm living on the couch.

The locals think there will be no school tomorrow either. As of now we have a two-hour delay.

SNOW DAY... and other assorted rumblings

Yes. It snowed two or three inches almost three days ago. Of course school was cancelled today. Why would that be crazy? Not like we needed that last day of review before EOC retests or anything. *sigh*

The last two weeks of school has been anything but ordinary and frustrating beyond measure. 3:30 on Tuesday, I and the other academic core teachers found ourselves responsible for all-day EOC remediation for all three alternative schools in our district. This essentially doubled our high school population for the rest of the week and transferred our middle schoolers back to the purview of long-term subs. Poor middle schoolers. When EOC retests are said and done, they will have not had real class or real teachers for almost 4 weeks. Also at 3:30 on Tuesday, my spring schedule of courses has changed. Instead of teaching U.S. History and World History to the high schoolers, I will be teaching Foundations of Social Studies. What exactly this means, I don't know yet; the district curriculum coordinator is still working on developing the class. Hopefully I'll get the particulars before Friday (when the class is supposed to start), but I'm not crossing my fingers at this point.

I think my new iteration of TFA's "One day all children in this nation will have access to an excellent education" is "One day all (insert district here) teachers will know what they are teaching before the semester starts" because this is looking just as impossible at the moment.

On a non-school note, I have stray cats living under my house. Because North Carolina doesn't believe in insulation, each time they use the kitty potty, we can smell it in the corresponding part of our house. Except for the smell, I wouldn't care that they live under the house, but some days it is really stinky. And yet I can't have a trained cat or dog live in the house. Go figure.

The other night we three roommates were sitting on the front porch, sharing a drink and enjoying the warm night (24 hours before the snow, I will note). We were watching the cats wander the neighborhood while we sat, and Roommate 1 was telling us his theory that cats are the new rodents. Because really, the only thing that separates "wild" rats from "wild" cats is that at some point human ancestors decided that cat ancestors were cute enough to constitute pets, but rat ancestors were not. As he finishes this theory, a furry white, black and brown head and shoulders pokes out of the vent in our house's foundation, about two feet from where Roommate 1 is sitting. He stands up so fast he knocks over his beer, and cursing walks over to the other side of the porch. The cat, startled, scoots back under the house. Roommate 2 and I are in stitches. Roommate 1: "See! Nothing but rodents!"

The last thought I want to leave you with is from The Onion (read: 98% satire). Another friend in TFA sent this to me while I was freaking out last Tuesday when second semester went to hell. Hope you enjoy.

"You are not alone."

This is one of the things TFA tries to pound into our heads before we start the year. And right now I am struggling to keep it at the forefront of my mind. Not sure why, but I am feeling horribly alone right now.

There is always some alone-ness in my day to day. There are no TFA second years in my county. I can go the entire school day without seeing any of the other teachers at my school, let alone the other TFA teacher. I am the only person teaching social studies at my school and the only SS teacher I interact with on a daily or weekly basis (there is another down the street, but I very rarely see him). When I am together with TFA, I am one of two alternative-setting teachers. I am almost three hours from the TFA office, so it is only on a very scheduled basis that I interact with staff. I see or interact with mentors from the district (principals, DPI, curriculum specialists, etc.) less than once a week. This all adds up to feeling the lone soldier, or at least part of a very small army, much of the time. In the abstract I have no doubt that I am part of a larger TFA and educational movement. But I also have constant evidence of how the educational system has already passed over my kids, so while I am part of a district, I'm on the fringes of it.

And the thing is, I'm usually fine with this. Lone Ranger, stickin' it to the man as part of the minority... Not new. And I don't know if its because I haven't heard from my PD for weeks, or because I spent Thursday and Friday as the only (or one of two) teachers at school, without the kids, or the fact that the Superintendent didn't return my call like he said he would, but something is making me feel very much like an island right now.

I'm hoping this passes as we get further into second semester. If nothing else, my three preps should keep me busy enough that I won't have time to think about or dwell on any feelings of alone-ness. I just wish I knew why I feel so isolated RIGHT NOW. Wish my brain would figure out who it is I'm missing so that I can fill that gap and get refocused.

On a completely unrelated note, a small part of me is not looking forward to school tomorrow because I am a huge softie, and my kids know it. Especially H.

H, a middle schooler, is one of my buddies - those kids who spend their free time loitering in my classroom, asking random questions - sometimes academically focused, sometimes to solicit a particular response (their fave is hearing me say "homeboy"). He's a good student and is usually a better behaved kid. There have been times, though, that he gets in trouble. H HATES being in trouble. And he lets me know it. The last time he made it three steps down the consequence ladder - to silent lunch - he didn't speak to me (in or outside of class) for almost three weeks. I was crushed. It took all my resolve to not apologize to him for... following my own rules... or something... I knew I shouldn't feel guilty, but he was so hurt and put out. Or was, at least, putting on a very convincing show of it.

Today, during after school remediation, H earned himself silent lunch again. I can tell from the conversation we had when I informed him that he was indeed in that much trouble that I am in for it tomorrow. Silent treatment, here I come. I wonder how long it will last this time.

Eight hundred fifty-five hours later...

The results are in. And they don't look so good.

End of the semester means that all North Carolina high school students are taking end-of-course tests in any of the eight exit standard classes (along with finals in the other classes they are taking). There are two different exit standard classes in social studies, and this semester everyone took Civics and Economics.

The testing schedule in my district was split, giving us three days of testing last week and one day this week. I was the lucky short straw that had three extra days during which to sit and wonder and fuss about how my boys would do on their exam. I watched as teacher after teacher saw their test scores came back, virtually helpless to have any greater impact on my kids before they tested today. Each successive day of testing we joked how it was increasingly on my shoulders to ensure we made our share of annual yearly progress. And I let myself hope that almost good English scores would harbinger good or almost good Civics scores.

To no avail.

Social studies tests in North Carolina are particularly difficult to pass. The tests are longer than other subjects (by at least 20 questions), and the percentage correct required to receive a passing score is higher than in other subjects. I'm not certain if this signifies the subject's importance or exactly the opposite. Either way, knowing this and knowing my students and district, I was foolish to get my hopes up.

I wish it wasn't so, but after all my worrying, we did abysmally. So much for meeting AYP, I had the lowest scores of all the classes. One student placed at or above the 10th percentile. (Yikes.) I know some of the problem is that while we covered civics thoroughly and I see excellent progress in that subject, we ran out of time for economics - barely made it through supply and demand.

The new challenge moving forward will be balancing remediating C&E while also moving on to US (which has even more content than C&E) and World history for the next month. One would think, with nine and a half hours of school each day, that I wouldn't feel crunched for time, but I absolutely wish there were just one more hour in the day. Maybe I'll steal writing for a month.

One positive: I asked the boys to estimate how many questions they felt they could answer correctly, in response to them telling me they would fail this morning before the test. While they didn't perhaps do well, I can go back to them tomorrow and tell most of them they did better than expected. I mean 45 is greater than 15. And that has to count for something.