Day 104: Period Six Status Report

My Period Six is my most difficult class. This is partly an external circumstance, but it is also partly because I have chosen to let it be this way.

The external circumstance is that it is an Algebra 1A class. This is a class reserved for the people whose previous experience with math has been the worst of the worst. These are students specially pointed out by their middle school math teachers as not ... ready ... for ... Algebra. Because these students (not my group in particular but high school Algebra 1A students in general) are frustrated and bored by math, they tend to have a hard time sitting still for a one-hour math period and often manifest behavior problems. As a result, all my high school's Algebra 1A classes are supposed to be capped at 20. 

But this year, when the rosters came out, I had a couple of tough things to swallow. (I had a lot of good things, too. See this post to read about those.) One was that my Algebra 1A class of students who hate math and have trouble sitting still had 30 kids signed up for it. (I have since dropped seven and picked up one, bringing the roster to its current total of 24.) Second, this class would meet after lunch, from 1-2 p.m. on most days. Ouch. 

So: Students to whom math is inherently difficult to teach stuck in a classroom after lunch four days a week with inexperienced teacher. Throw in the fact that very little structure has been provided for me for this class. With Algebra 1 and Geometry, I was provided with pacing plans and files of resources. For Algebra 1A I was provided with nothing. I was told I could meet with the other Algebra 1A teacher, but he seems to run a loose ship; he has certainly never offered up a pacing plan (although to be fair, I have never asked for one). 

The message, I feel, was clear; These kids haven't learned math in the past, and they probably won't learn math in the future. This is your least important class. You won't get in trouble for failing with this group. Go ahead and fail with them. No big deal! Just do well with your morning classes.

Sensing this, on some level, I have occasionally paid lip service to the idea that this ought to be my MOST important class, the one I spend the most time preparing for. They need the most instruction, they need me to close the gap between them and the higher-achieving students in the accelerated classes. In any case, it's certainly unacceptable to allow them to be LEAST important. To allow this is to descriminate against them. Failure to take action in the face of oppression is to take the side of the oppressor. The system is oppressing these kids, and by letting this class continue to fail, I have become an oppressor. To most of these kids Period Six, I am not much more than a prison guard. 

I should be more specific. What are the problems--how have they manifested? Well, first of all, there is this sense of having tried a bunch of stuff, and having given up on a bunch of stuff. I originally set out to teach Algebra 1A just as I would teach Algebra 1--I would give them all the same assignments, move at the same pace, and see what happened. And I did this for two weeks. Then one day, Period Six, I found myself looking out at the class and seeing an entire room-full of people who were not following me. I knew it was tone-deaf of me to continue on as I was ... And so I stopped trying to keep up with the Algebra 1 class. 

In fact, I took several steps back. I may have shared with some other teachers on twitter my frustrations, and one suggested doing a bunch of hands-on activities just to win them back over to my side. So I tried a bunch of stuff. We drew circles using string and cups I bought from the 99-cent store. I drew a coordinate plane on the ground outside using chalk and put them in teams to have them make lines. I had them do the marshmallow project. 

I went several weeks without giving any quizzes. This took away from the perceived seriousness of the class. Why did I stop testing? Because I was fairly sure they hadn't learned anything. I finally realized, toward the end of the semester, that that was no reason not to test. Assessments prove progress or lack of progress. I sensed a lack of progress, but I needed to gather evidence of that. That, I am learning, is a big part of my job as a teacher.

Then there was the question of ... where to start? And it's a question I still haven't satisfactorily answered. One of the biggest problems with Algebra 1A is that there are some students who are so damned paralyzed and frustrated by math that they will not get it no matter what. Or so it seems. I'm sure I should go back and re-write that sentence. I shouldn't be giving up on any kid. I wrote, "they will not get it no matter what," but how should I know that? Where do I get off allowing that? That ought to be my biggest mission--to make sure they get it! They currently don't get it, but that's not acceptable, because they will never graduate high school from where they are now. 

I have four students in that group, maybe five. The total frustration and lack of ability of those students often makes me pause, slow down, or stop. More often, though, I slow down and stop because of behavior. And it's not necessarily those same four students whose behavior is out of control. 

One thing I tried, mostly in the month of December, was independent work packets. This seemed moderately successful and I'm not sure why I didn't continue it with greater determination this semester. In part, the problem was that the students were not excited to get back to them. I did try to bring them back this semester, but I wasn't very insistent ... It was easier to get them to do those packets when they were new; it was kind of cool for them to have a new packet to write in.

Part of it also is that whenever we've done something that produced one single good day, I've usually tried to return to that same thing the very next day, and that has led the students to depression and frustration--and they cease liking whatever it was that they liked for a brief instant. 

Another thing I tried was timed multiplication drills. We did that just about every day for much of first semester, but we have just about abandoned it second semester. I was going to make it a weekly thing, and still might. 

This semester, I tried introducing this new Algebra textbook, and after two weeks of that not working, I tried doing a teaching tree, in which I taught the material to two students, and they turned and taught to two others, and so on. This was another thing that worked for one day, and then devolved into the usual depressing mess.

What I'm starting to realize is that it's not what I'm choosing to do that's killing the class; it's the way I'm choosing to do it. The first day of some new idea is good, but then the next day I not only bring nothing new--I bring nothing whatsoever. I bring a shitty attitude. I show up just tired, just wanting to go home, feeling like the day's almost over so long as I just get through this Period 6 class. Then misbehavior occurs, and then I spend the rest of the class fighting with two or three students while everyone else sits in his or her chair depressed, wondering how they got born into a world in which an asshole like me can score a job standing in front of a room like this belching up the kind of bullshit that I belch up.

Today this all came to a boil in several ways. First of all, just a few minutes into class, I found myself going back and forth with some students whose obnoxious attitude I found increasingly galling ... They could not shut up even long enough for me to utter two sentences without interrupting with some lame attempt to mock ... Their immaturity I found disgusting, and I started scolding them for it, but there was no shame whatsoever--some of them just continued to indulge in it. I was really upset, but I sensed myself getting upset--and what's more, I sensed myself focusing in on the shitty students at the expense of the good students. And so I tried to pull myself out of it and to just teach the class, ignoring the bad behavior. 

But I was still upset. When it came time to pass out a quiz, I had several students move and take the quiz across the room from where they usually sit, just to spread them out to minimize talking and cheating. The quiz made them quiet temporarily, and maybe I raised my voice and said something stern, though I don't remember. But during that quiet, the echo of the arguing that I had done with the students hung in the air. What had I been thinking, arguing with them like that? I was full of myself in the moment of arguing, feeling all self-righteous ... "You are the height of immaturity" ... that's not exactly what I said, but it was basically that. "Do you realize how immature it is that you can't even sit still long enough to hear someone say a sentence?"

And I was blind to my own immaturity, but I could almost see it. Or at least, I saw enough to hesitate.See, as I write this, I'm thinking (or I started thinking) that maybe, as I built up some rage toward those jabberers, that maybe I was moving toward the kind of thundering tantrum that really would make them shut up for all time. The idea of having such a tantrum is still hanging out there as a temptation to me. I have heard other people in education say that kids have to see you lose it once--you just have to lose it once--and then that's enough to make them back off. But I don't trust this piece of advice--or I haven't yet trusted it enough to have one. Did I come close? I don't know.

Instead I gave out the test, and the awkward silence gave way to talking. I let it. I was through. There was no point in talking to them any further. But then there was one thing. Some students wanted to make up some points, and there was a re-take I could have them do, so I made a quick announcement. "Anybody who wants to re-take the quiz from yesterday, just name on your half-sheet of graph paper, these four points I've drawn on the board." 

And X, this one good-hearted kid who often shouts out answers when he's not supposed to, immediately starts answering the question out loud: "One, one, one two"-- ... And in that moment, I cut in with, "Shaddup!!" ... 

I didn't say it that loud, so many students might not have heard me. I caught myself and never enunciated the "P", so technically maybe I didn't actually say it. It didn't even occur to me right away how serious of a line I might have crossed. It clearly didn't occur to me right away, because within five minutes I had crossed another one. In the last minutes of class, they had started congregating by the door. 

What was going through my mind? "Should I say something to them? No, I know better than to say anything right now. They're in this mood, where ANYTHING I say will make them want to do the opposite. I get that, I get it. They're frustrated. I really went over the top this period. They're good kids. I ought to let them know they're good kids. Hey, I know the one thing I could say that would be a positive."

"Hey! Everyone--go ahead!" 

Yes, I dismissed them a minute early. And then the red flag was waving, and I knew I was out of control. My desire to be liked and to please my students is so out of control that I break my school's rules and put my own job on the line to try to please. It is insane. It is insane, and I was insane, out of control, sleep deprived, just ... 

I can Monday morning quarterback those last few things that happened at the end of class, and I can do that for a long while, but talking with others later on in the day got me thinking that the real seed of all the chaos and pain and frustration is in my planning for the class (or lack thereof), in my willingness to let the class fail, in my allowing the class to flounder, without structure, without success. I don't know what to do. I do know it's not working.

Just one thing I'll add ... as I peruse old blog entries with various thoughts that stem from Algebra 1A difficulties ... I seem to go back and forth on one central question. Do my Algebra 1A students need more structure and more routine and more consistency so they can learn this stuff? Or do they need more random, crazy things that are just plain different so they can be motivated and interested in learning?

Most likely a mix of the two ...