Teaching journal 2/12 - 2/15

Valentine's Day. Yep.

Recap: I’m a teacher in San Diego. I teach English Language Development (ELD, the new term for ESL) to 9-12 grade newcomers to the country. On January 3, I was informed that my position would be eliminated next year. This journal is a chronicle of my current experience before it ends. Hope you enjoy. 

Monday, February 12, 2024 

I winged it today. Wung it? Whatever the case, I had no lesson plan for first period. 

I had just spent the previous weekend at a writer’s conference in Kansas City, and then when I returned home, the Super Bowl was happening. I hate the NFL, didn’t even watch it, but it felt unfair that I’d have to write a lesson plan when the rest of society gets to experience a cultural event. So I didn’t.  

Make no mistake: winging it is not easy. Especially for a new teacher like me. In fact, I get massive anxiety when I don’t know what I’m doing for every 15 minute-increment of the day. A lot of my colleagues who have over 20 years of experience, they can wing it.

I began with a small group reading. In period one, the group was made up of some more advanced students, and we read a story from this little book called, “Ripped From the Headlines.” I have an assortment of little zine-like books that are high-interest/low reading level (high/low books if you’re nasty) for teens, but this one is the best because it has gruesome stories in it.

We read about Aron Ralston, the guy who cut off his arm after getting trapped under a boulder. I’ve read this story enough that I know where to stop stop, how to scaffold, and what kind of vocabulary the kids need to really understand it. It’s always such a delight to watch kids’ faces once they realize what Ralston did to get free. The new Afghani student was super into the story. She said she had even seen a real clip of Aaron Ralston. She might have been talking about seeing the movie, 127 Hours. 

To fill the rest of the period, I just followed the book and did a mini lesson on comparative language, i.e. adding -er to adjectives when describing two things (I am tall, but he is taller). I brought kids up to the front to compare our heights and one girl from Chad—probably, the shiest girl in class—raised her hand and said “I am tall.” I was thrilled that she wanted to come up front and compare her height with me.

I got three new students today: one from Mexico and two brothers from Haiti. I’ve said it before, but we never know when you’re gonna get a new student. I’ll be in the middle of the lesson, and the counselor will just show up and be like, “Meet your student.” I still don’t know the best way to integrate kids during that first day, and it’s often like, “Okay, just sit here for a moment and try not to feel discouraged while I try to put out 100,000 fires.”

Later, I got an email from the counselor asking if one of my students can move from my third period into my first. I’m pretty sure he only wants to switch because he broke up with his girlfriend in third period and he no longer wants to be near her.

I also found a broken acrylic nail on the ground today. Creeped me the hell out.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

I loaded the kids up today. Began class with a Quizizz on vocabulary words. It was the first Quizizz without Quizizz Girl, who is now in adult school. A somber moment, indeed. 

But I used Quizizz’s AI function to create today’s quiz. My god, AI is just the greatest thing for teachers. I was like, “Yo, write me a 15-question quiz with the following vocabulary words and make it at a second grade reading level” and bam. This must be what God feels like when He writes a Quizziz. 

The questions the AI wrote turned out to be pretty difficult. I was about to lighten them up but then thought, "Let’s if they can do this. In terms of searching for an appropriate difficulty, there’s always this balance of creating a challenge without it turning into frustration. I often err on the side of easy to keep kids engaged, but every time I raise the difficulty level, a number of kids rise to meet the challenge, and I must remember how good that feels. 

Next we did a quick phonics worksheet as a class: l-blends, plus two and three-letter blends (e.g. blog, trap and strap, respectively). For most of the students, this is review, but students with low proficiencies—especially the new students—feel successful during these whole class activities, so I try to do them at least once a week.

Finally, we used some of what we learned from yesterday’s half-assed lesson on comparative language to write a paragraph. I had the students pick a friend or someone they knew and then fill out a Venn diagram of how they are different and similar to their friend. Then they used that information to fill out a paragraph frame from the textbook, using sentences like “[name] is [adjective + -er] than [name]”. Most students made really good attempts, but there’s one student—who I’m going to call Dancing Girl—who I had to sit next to in order to keep her focused. 

Dancing Girl is a special case. As her name implies, she is always up out of her seat, dancing. She ditches the majority of her other classes, and just roams around campus all day with a pack of friends. I don’t know how she avoids getting caught, but, unfortunately, roaming packs of teens is not an unusual sight at our school. It’s a constant gripe for teachers.  

Dancing Girl was actually on my roster last year, but didn’t show up until April. Eight months of being absent. I feel a little flattered that she shows up to my class most days, but she’s also super disruptive. From what we know, her mom works nights, and doesn’t show up for Student Study Team meetings (SSTs are for students who need extra support), so there’s very little parental supervision. Dancing Girl stays up late watching Youtube, rides public transportation to school when she feels like it, and when she is in attendance, she’s either asleep or manic. 

I’m not at all qualified to make any sort of medical diagnosis, but I imagine she has some sort of mental illness. When I read the (amazing) Slenderman book by Kathleen Hale about the two preteens who stabbed their friend because they believed an internet monster told them to, I was struck by some of the behavioral descriptions before the stabbings, because it reminded me of Dancing Girl’s behaviors. 

I sat with Dancing Girl today and got her to fill in the Venn diagram. There’s no way I could do this every period, but I have found that she is able to focus with that direct, one-on-one attention. She always seems a little disarmed when shown gentleness and kindness—as if nobody has ever been gentle or kind to her. But she’s very smart when she focuses. In fact, she has the highest diagnostic score on IXL. 

I think about Dancing Girl quite a lot. How do you educate someone who has no support or really no interest in school?  I fear she’s a student who is at a very high risk of falling between the cracks, ending up homeless or worse. We have a lot of resources at our school, but if a parent is not present, or has no interest in their children, it’s hard to enact change.

In first period, The Cheater and his little friend were flashing all this cash around. Like, $20 bills spread all over their desks. I was like, “What the fuck, dudes. Put that away.”

And during Mr. P’s class, second period, I guess they started up this little gambling ring with two other friends, playing some game where they were throwing shit at the wall and betting money. 

Mr. P sent referrals to the office, and called home, and now all their parents are involved. We’re meeting one kid’s dad on Wednesday to talk about his son’s lucrative new hobby. 

But it’s like...gambling? Really? 

It also was one new kid’s first day. A brand new student, and his first impression of school in the United States is no different than a slipshod, back-alley gambling game? Fuck outta here.  

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Valentine’s Day. The day when big feelings emerge, when young love blossoms, and when of kids show up with the biggest goddamn bouquets of roses that I’ve ever seen.

Last year, Valentine’s Day was my absolute worst teaching day. I still have PTSD. I made the mistake of actually trying to teach something to sugared-up, hormonal teens experiencing the absolute peaks and valleys of human emotions. It was one of those days where I just stopped and sat down, and nobody really noticed for 10 minutes. Finally a girl approached me and asked “What are we doing?” 

“I don’t know,” I said. 

This year, I vowed to myself that I would not recreate that horror. There would be no attempt at a lesson plan. I just busted out all the art supplies and had students make Valentines. I provided them with a link to a few common Valentine’s Day messages that ranged from flirty to wholesome, and just let them have it. 

I was a sweaty nervous wreck all day. I think I had the seedlings of a sickness that was trying to break through, but it might’ve just been the dread of imagining when the kids were gonna turn on me once the Valentine’s Day madness kicked in. 

But my plan worked. The kids who made Valentines are very stoked on it. Some students even made me Valentines, which was very sweet.

The Cheater and the other kids from the little gambling ring showed up today looking like they had just been sentenced to death row. Word had gotten out that the parents were now involved, and one of the students asked if he was going to be expelled. I was pretty nonchalant about my answer, like “who knows?” They’ll be fine. Just love seeing little self-appointed badasses down a notch.

I will say, though, during craft time, The Cheater did make a pretty impressive bouquet of paper flowers that he said he was gonna mail to his mom in Mexico. He even made a joke by getting down on one knee and proposing to a kid from Tanzania, who was so appalled by the gesture he didn’t even smile.

Also, The Tiger showed up today (in case you forgot, The Tiger is a kid who shows up maybe once a week, and we call him The Tiger because he once drew a tiger and said, “that’s me”). 

When The Tiger walked into class, he said “I’m scared,” and pantomimed his heart beating rapidly.

“Why?” I asked, and he showed me a picture of a girl holding a big bouquet of flowers which he had given to her just moments before. I was like “Oh my God!” and gave him a little bow of admiration. Well done, Tiger. 

So overall, a much better Valentine’s Day than last year.

Thursday, February 15, 2024

A very low-key day. The Social Justice Academy did our inaugural PEACE Award ceremony. The PEACE Awards are an idea from Mr. P to uplift students who consistently demonstrate the virtues of social justice (PEACE is an acronym that stands for prepare, educate, advocate, collaborate and empower). Each teacher got to nominate a handful of students, and it’s just really cool to see how happy and excited they get when they learn they’re nominated. One of our winners before the ceremony said “Mr. Bradford, I’m nervous!” Our students are so earnest and good-hearted. I feel like at a lot of other high schools, winning one of these awards would be embarrassing? Like, I just remember my high school days, and how being considered compassionate or caring was very uncool. 

The award ceremony only lasted half of third period, and since I didn’t have anything planned—no one knew how long the ceremony would take—I just gave them free time.

I’ve found that there can be a lot of value in allowing free time. We’ve had so many new kids this week that it’s a nice time to chat with them, try to connect on a more personal level. 

But the highlight of my week was walking by Mr. M nonchalantly coaching a student who was puking into a recycle bin. They were both out in the hall, and Mr. M was sipping coffee, unfazed, just deadpanning questions like “So, you think you might be lactose intolerant?” 

Man, that’s the kind of experience you get from 20 years of teaching, I thought.

Later, Mr. M told me that the student had probably eaten a strong edible or smoked too much vape, but it’s still an image that will forever live in my Treasured Memories box. 

Also, I have forgotten to mention this, but this week I discovered the supply room is now stocked with the Ticonderoga pencils. We’ve been using Staples brand pencils, which are just absolute garbage. But Ticonderoga...now that’s a pencil.