Teaching journal 5/6 - 5/10

Teacher Appreciation Week lol

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 thRecap: 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. UPDATE: on March 12, I got a layoff notice. This journal is a chronicle of my current experience before it ends. Hope you enjoy. 

Monday, May 6, 2024 

I introduced our final project today: the zine project. I did it last year and it was a lot of fun. For the next three weeks, students will chip away at little eight-page zines about anything they want, any topic.

Last year, this project was quite the ordeal. I remember a few days when I was like Why am I even doing this? But the final products turned out great, and I think most kids were proud of what they had done. 

The introduction today went a lot better than I expected, and that made me excited for the project.

Last year, I developed a slide deck—translated into all the languages—that explained what a zine was, why they are cool, and why I personally love them. But I’ve noticed some students won’t pay attention to what you display on the board, so today, I Pear Decked the hell out of my presentation and made all the students follow along on their computers. 

After my spiel, the students filled out little word webs to generate ideas of what they would like to make their zines about. 

One of my obstacles last year was not having good examples to show to students, so a bunch of kids spent half the time not really knowing what the end goal was, but having copies of student samples this year was a huge help. 

I’m confident that this year’s zines will turn out better than last year just by looking over the word webs they turned back in. I’ve said this before, but as soon as you put an example on the board, there will be a handful of kids that just copy yours and that’s what they want to turn in. But today I saw many great original ideas. Turns out one girl loves the Arctic Monkeys, and I really hope she makes her zine about that band. Another girl wrote “strawberries” and all the reasons that she loves strawberries, and I just kept thinking, man, I also would really love to read a zine about strawberries.

Some student zines from last year.

A boy in my first period has been wearing these busted-ass flip-flops for the entire year. They’re these red rubber Nike things and you can hear them from a mile away. And the way he walks—just this kind of slow lumber—makes the flip-flops even sadder. Our school has this on-campus thrift store where kids can get clothes for free, and I keep telling this student to go look to see if they have any shoes that would fit him, but he always refuses. 

A lot of these kids come from low-income families where money for clothing might be sparse, but I also suspect that students feel a sense of comfort in wearing the same clothing every day. Everybody seems to have their own uniform. More often than not, I can recognize a kid from across campus by what they’re wearing. So, for this kid, his flip-flops could be more about his identity than practicality. 

But today, his flip-flops broke extravagantly. “Teacher!” he said, pointing at them, one side of the strap flapping off like a dog tongue.

I searched for some masking tape, but then turned around and saw that he’d taken my Scotch tape dispenser and was wrapping his flip-flops with it. When he was finished, it looked like the saddest arts-n-craft project ever. 

The cheater and his little buddy didn’t show up to my first period class today, but I knew they were at school because they were both already marked tardy on my attendance, which is what happens when they have to check in at the front office after the bell. This means they checked in and then just did whatever the hell they wanted. I told Mr. P, he said, “Maybe you should send a message to their parents.” But I was like, “Do I really care? There are four weeks left in school and it’s much more pleasant when they’re out of class and I don’t have a job next year yet so what do I care?”

“You’re starting to sound like a teacher,” joked Mr. P. 

I also accidentally farted real loud in front of some students today. Thank God it was in front of two very polite students. Pretty sure there was enough background noise that maybe they didn’t hear it? Regardless, I quickly moved away from them and didn’t make eye contact with them for the rest of the period.

Tuesday, May 7, 2024

I forgot to mention that this week is Teacher Appreciation Week. Yesterday we got donuts and coffee and today we got bagels and coffee. Yippee.

Tomorrow, oh my God, oh my God, tomorrow we get Jersey Mike’s sandwiches. Double yippee.

I don’t want to seem ungrateful, and lot of good people at our school put in the effort to make teachers feel appreciated. But with the layoff still hanging over my head, it’s really difficult to feel it.

Sometimes it seems that teaching is a profession that’s only appreciated from afar. Fairweatherly, if you will. What I mean is that if you tell someone you’re a teacher put their hand to their heart and say stuff like “bless you” or something similarly good-intentioned. “Thank you for your service” or “that must be so difficult” or “you’re doing the good work.”

But then you look at the current state of education and it feels like the opposite of appreciation. There’s so much divestment in public schools, and every parent thinks they know better than teachers (hence the rise in homeschooling) and politicians who are actively working to dismantle the public school system—it just sometimes feels like people celebrate teachers more in theory than actual practice. In reality, it often feels like we’re regarded as glorified babysitters.

But glorified babysitters that get free Jersey Mike’s sandwiches! 

How I wake up every day during Teacher Appreciation Week knowing how respected I am by students, parents, the media, the school district and American society as a whole

I’ve been thinking about the X-Files a lot recently. One of my favorite shows. If you’re at all familiar with the show, you may know the term “Monster of the Week.” These were the episodes that you could watch without knowing the whole backstory of the black oil, the bees, the clones or whatever the hell that show was talking about after season five. 

Sometimes I think of certain school days as “Monster of the Week” episodes: Lessons that really don’t build on anything we’ve done in the past. Non sequiturs. One-offs. 

Today was a Monster of the Week day.

At the beginning of the year, I did a lot of reading and writing assessments that were designed by the Multilingual Education Department. Today my supervisor Karrie came to help administer those same assessments to see how/if the students progressed over the year.

Let me just say that I hate giving formal assessments to ELD students. So many of these kids come from collectivist cultures or have little to no school experience, and all they want to do is help each other out. So you have to double down on enforcing traditional testing rules like no copying, no talking, eyes on your paper. It’s a constant battle. 

And it was a little discouraging to see a lot of the kids turned back. The writing prompt asked students to describe a time in their lives when they felt happy, and there was an entire blank page for them to fill out. A lot of students saw this gargantuan space just gave up. Some made no effort. 

I did manage to get Disengaged Girl to write three or four sentences. Considering that she straight-out refused to do this at the beginning of the year, I’m gonna call that a win.

So yeah, Monster of the Week episodes. Emphasis on monster. 

Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Man, teenagers are horny as hell right now. Springtime brings it all out. Me and Mr. P were talking about this today and he said that twice in the last week he’s seen two boys feeling up their girlfriends. Just like, out in the open, under their shirts. No shame. 

When you’re walking down the hall, you’re just surrounded by teenagers sloppily making out, tongue-kissing each other. The other day I was going down the stairs, and a boy and a girl were sitting on the bottom step, their backs to me. I watched in shock as the boy slid his hand into the back of the girl’s pants to uh... touch her butt crack? I just kept thinking of all the door knobs he’s going to touch, all the library computers he’s going to use, and all the pencils he’ll handle. How many surfaces at our school will be graced with his butt finger by the end of the year?

You know how high school comedies are often about getting laid? There should be a movie like that but told from the teachers’ point of view. It’s not some hilarious romp—just gross and disgusting in every way. It would be a horror movie.

I tackled today with very low expectations. A few months ago I bought a cloth dartboard and velcro balls that I would use for students to get extra points while playing vocabulary Jeopardy. The first time, it was a smash hit, but the second time, the kids seemed kinda over it. Tomorrow’s the vocab quiz, so today I decided to try Jeopardy again. Only this time, I gave students a cheat sheet and told them that I pulled questions straight off the test to use for Jeopardy. If they wanted to copy the questions from the game onto their cheat sheet, they would be able to use that on the test tomorrow. Basically, I was giving them the answers. 

And most of the kids did, but there are always a handful of kids who will refuse to do work if it becomes clear I’m not collecting it. 

But that added accountability made this game better than the last time I did Jeopardy. The students took it seriously and it was the least chaotic game Jeopardy I’ve facilitated. 

Oh and you better believe I enjoyed my Jersey Mike’s sandwich. In fact, reader, I married it. 

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Today’s the anniversary of this text that I sent to a friend who’s also a teacher.

Today was the vocabulary test. I spent a lot of time preparing for it—reviewing, computer games, playing Jeopardy, reading stories that incorporated the words. 

First period was a little different because I split the class and had one half go to Ms. S’s class to participate small reading groups, while the other half stayed with me to do the vocabulary test. The small reading groups were facilitated by the first period student tutors as part of their final project. 

For the project, the tutors paired my students (ELD 1/2) with more advanced students (ELD 3/4). It’s so powerful to put a student with lower proficiency with a student with higher proficiency. ELD 1/2s get to learn from their peers, ELD 3/4s get to show off what they’ve learned. It gives the ELD 1/2s something to aspire to. 

So I administered the vocabulary quiz to about 10 kids today. Most did okay, but a few of them just looked at me as I had told them that they had an hour to live. One of my students from Africa—who is low proficiency-wise but is usually a pretty good student—just looked at me and said “I don’t know this,” even though we’ve been preparing for weeks. That was discouraging.

Me and Mr. P were talking about compensatory skills the other day, because we were talking about students who had arrived later in the year, but who we feel could move up to the ELD 3/4. 

I thought of these two students who showed up relatively around the same time a few months ago. Both are still low proficiency, but one has much better compensatory skills. I think they’d initially struggle in ELD 3/4, but would ultimately thrive because they have a will to learn and the fortitude to look at their surroundings and see what’s expected of them. But when the other student looked down at the quiz and says “I don’t know this”—even after we’ve done three or four similarly formatted quizzes—it made me want to scream. I feel like a shithead, but the most annoying students for me aren’t the ones who are constantly disruptive; they’re the the ones who are excessively needy or will not attempt any work without direct assistance. 

But it could also be that students are just burning out academically. It’s a lot to be dropped in the United States and expected to swim. I’m noticing it with some of the “good” students, too, especially when it comes to math. So many kids are just done learning for the year. 

We also have this new student that Mr. P and I tread gently around. He’s just got this look in his eyes that’s slightly frightening. If you’ve ever watched It’s Always Sunny, it’s the same dead-eyed look that Mac’s dad has. 

During math class, some kids in the back were throwing pieces of broken pencils at this kid. After the second piece hit him, he turned around, and, without breaking eye-contact with the culprits, slowly picked all the pieces up and walked them over to the trash. Not once did he stop that death stare. It was simultaneously super cool and frightening.

Today it was cake day for teacher appreciation week. I showed up about 10 minutes after it had started, and it looked like a pack of feral raccoons had looted the teacher break room. Teacher Appreciation Week is tearing us apart. 

Friday, May 10, 2024

Sleep walked through the day. We’re putting my cat down tomorrow, so I just didn’t have it in me. Felt scatterbrained, unfocused. I kept calling kids by the wrong names. I felt like I was just existing, trying to put on a normal face, while the chaos of a normal school day swirled around me.

First period was exactly the same as yesterday except the roles were switched—half the kids stayed and did their vocabulary quiz while the other half went to Ms. S’s room for small reading groups.

But I did start both first and third periods by having the students make practice zines. This was meant to provide a little tactile blueprint that kids can hold, take apart, and see how the pieces work together.

I handed students two small pieces of paper, which we folded in half and went through all the text elements: front cover, title, author. We flipped through our practice zines, page by page, and—using an example from last year—I showed them what I expected. For example, page 1 will be art only; page 2, information and pictures, etc., etc. 

I also gave each student a folder to store all their zine materials in. Immediately, some kids began shoving work from other classes in their folder, and I just had this moment of sheer frustration, like why can’t you just wait until I explain what these are for? Why do you think I’d give you a folder for your other classes?

Halfway halfway through the practice zines, I remembered how I had vowed not to do this activity again. Last year, these practice zines just ended up confusing the kids who didn’t realize we were just making blueprints. But oh well. I plowed through.

Because of the whole small group/vocabulary test switcheroo I did over the past two days, I had to find a way to fill period three with an activity that wouldn’t put them ahead of period one. I like to keep first and third periods on the same page. So I had this idea of printing out the lyrics to “Call Me Maybe” real big, cutting them up, and giving each student a word. I then asked them to figure out the order. 

To my pleasant surprise, they figured out what the words were supposed to make pretty quickly. I’d say 99% of the kids participated and were generally into the activity. What’s not to like? They get out of their seats and shout words!

But Disengaged Girl acted as if I had handed her a plate of dog shit. She would not even look me in the eyes when I asked her to participate. I finally got her to stand in the swquence, but no way in hell was she going to say her word. Just stood in the front with her arms crossed. I have no idea why this activity is so such an affront to her, but it totally killed my vibe.

When I tried to get kids to do it the second time—but faster!—about half of them tried and the others just started wandering around. Rather than force it, I was just like welp, I tried and sat down. Honestly, I wasn’t really all that upset, just felt sorry that they had no sense of enthusiasm, would rather be playing their fucking video games or doing whatever they’d rather do instead of my game. 

But maybe that’s just me being the Principal Skinner meme.