bhbonds's blog

Why you should/not join the Mississippi Teacher Corps

This program is one of the most positive ways you could ever spend two years of your life in terms of your own growth--if you can find success here, you will have what it takes to succeed in any field:

When I applied to teacher corps, I knew I would be older than most, and I knew that coming from a rural Mississippi background I'd have a more conservative outlook than most. Having, like you, logged some hours in a classroom before, I expected that I'd be great at this job. The first two held up as true. The job is a struggle, and it takes a while to find a footing even if you think you have a good idea of what you're getting into...as the most burdensome of the problems you will face won't be the ones you necessarily expect. Dealing with kids who have little self-discipline becomes a pretty simple matter within the first few weeks. Dealing with estranged administration, poor leadership, and some of the more ineffective implementations of the No Child Left Behind Act are hindrances that never really let up... disrespectful students will be sent back to your classroom with no punishment, you will be asked to work hours on paperwork that is never read, you may have "consultants" come in and, while pretending to give you advice and materials, exploit you (use your methods and materials themselves--passing it off as their own--in other schools that they consult), you will be held accountable for getting kids on a fifth-grade reading level to master highly involved and nuanced state test questions within a year's time...

I realize that my attitude may seem less than positive in those regards; but I promise you the biggest strengths of MTC are its ability to adapt you to --to teach you to find strength, hold inspiration, and work through-- a field that is currently fraught with weaknesses. As I said, I was conservative as I came into the program, and I've felt myself become more critical of federal efforts to improve education. This is a sentiment that many participants grow to share. They don't necessarily become hard-hearted or anti-federalists, but they do begin to understand there is a disconnect between policy-making and the realities of teachers in the trenches. In that respect, the job can seem overwhelming at times, moot at others. Nonetheless, there are still the rewarding aspects of teaching here, and they tend to outweigh the frustrations.

Key to helping you work through all this are the greatest strengths of teacher corps: 1) far better preparation for working in Title One schools than is offered by TFA and 2) an emphasis on the social support infrastructure of the participants. During the June-July period, you will work in the Holly Springs summer school, get your feet wet immediately, see the type of students you will be working with, see exactly the type of problems you will have to face, and be given instruction specifically geared for the work you will have to do...all the while you will form close friendships with others who will be able to share with you your best and worst experiences.

 

On a stretch of interstate not too far from Tupelo, a person can pull out of the traffic and onto a long grassy knoll. Far over to the left, there's a thicket of shade that's good for parking, and then to the right there's the overpass. Ahead, there is a long, winding creek.



The creek is the thing.



In the same vein that water has ever been used a a symbol of life, this creek though generally slow and shallow is a testament to persistence. Despite all of the earth's scared reluctance, this stream has in its earnest and gentle flow, slowly won her trust and earned share in her secrets, working further and further down, through modern field, through Indian land, and then layer neath layer, twenty feet down into hard Cretaceous sand:



A long time ago, as two continents began to go their separate ways, the seas came rushing in to the hole that was left behind.



With this sea came a host of creatures. Larger than life. Serpentine. Ferocious, and beautiful.



Time and weather wore on; silt, sand, and loess came down from new-formed mountains; and the seas eventually filled in; but the memory of God is within his creation, and so the traces of these creatures forever remain. For the knowledgeable, the patient, and the tenacious--for the stalwart souls who can look beneath the thousands of identical cars, trucks, and other monsters rumbling and roaring down the interstate and see into that creek--the memory of these things is never gone.



The beauty of memory is in the mind of the beholder. For most folks a piece of bone or a tooth may be kind of cool, but it's still just a rock. A piece of something. All that's left. But there are these other people. You can call them romantics, maybe. Hell, you can get more truthful and call them nerds. But there's a specific breed of folks that grew up with not much more to play with than dirt and imagination. Wonder can carry most people into the air, but for this grounded sort, searching imaginations drew them deeper into the earth they were tied. And, out of necessity, small pieces took on much larger roles. Things regained were things made new-- you know, a chipped arrowhead from out of the pasture is an object of great wonder to a barefoot kid in hand-me-down breeches... So, you can call them romantics, but you'd be missing the point. This isn't romanticism. This is realism. This isn't seeing what's simply there, it's seeing all that ever was and could be. When you can see something old for all that it is and ever was, you have gained a greater perspective, an insight into the true value of everything. You learn the difference between judgment and appreciation. Yeah, others might think on these creek-finds as mere objects that have been lost, or broken, or worn; but the people who brave the creek don't clamber over jagged rock and wade into muck and mud just to grasp in their hands a simple fossil or castaway stone. When they have found one, they know they have lucked onto something greater. They have found something ferocious. Something beautiful. Something whole.



And at the same time, fragile...

Free Write / My Grading Policy

I woke up at 10.30.

Apparently, just before Benson was able to figure out who bugged the governor's mansion, I fell into a deep sleep and stayed there for about four hours.

Suddenly, my head was killing me.  

I hadn't had any warning of a sinus migraine, but now it was coming on hard. I decided to take some tylenols and try to wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning.

I succeeded in waking up, but I still have the hellacious headache, and I wonder many things right now. One: if a good puke might set me right. Two: if I'm going to school today. Three: If I AM going to school, am I going to have time to get done what I need.

All these, as it feels my stomach is about to be, are up in the air. I drift off again. 

Now it's near nine. In the past few hours I have arranged for a sub, stolen the trascan from the kitchen to put beside my bed and had a realistic-enough dream about writing these damn blogs that when I woke up, I was sure they had already done. 

 This is the close of a big week, and I really couldn't afford being sick today. Not only is tomorrow a test, but it's also the day we have to meet with the conservator. We have a lot of organizing yet to do, and I've yet to even speak to John or Trevor today. I will have to work extremely hard tonight to make up for what I missed last night and this morning. I fear that these sinus headaches are starting to come more frequent. Used to be, they would come once a month maybe. Now, this is two in two weeks time. I can't take that many days out, and I can't see myself going to work when I'm down with one of these. I'm not sure how this will all play out.

Again, I am not a fan of writing this blog. As should be obvious, I have for the entirety of this page written for sake of a wordcount when I didn't have anything important to say. It annoys me to have to attach my name to writing that isn't representative of my feelings or my skill. And as my coping mechanism these days is to put annoyances out of mind, I find I have very little that I want to talk about.

 Anything that is worth talking about will go into the book later. 

 

 ____________________________________

 

My grading:

 

The system of grading that works best for me is to make sure that any IP that assign for a formal grade is multiple choice, as I will have checked the students' understanding of the steps involved in getting the answer during guided practice. This allows an answer sheet that is much more easily graded. If, I do not see that the student has mastered the steps in the guided practice, I will tell them that the IP is for a grade but not count it, generally assigning the students to do more than just give the answer.

Having very simple IP assessments also allows for getting grading help quite easily. If I find that I have five minutes extra at the end of class, this works out just right for my kids to take the assessments, trade em, and grade em. This done, come the evening, all I have to do is enter scores. I generally let the first person finished with a test, grade that test also. I have trustworthy kids, and I see nothing wrong with letting the kids grade, especially since they see it as a fun incentive.

Also, I always make sure that the kids put their answers on notebook paper. That way, I can take up their answers and we still have the worksheets to review. I like to get in every bit of review and remediation I can. Having them work on the sheets presents being able to do this within the same class period. 

As for bellringers, these are generally graded as all or nothing, although sometimes I bend and grade them on a scale of quarters.

I don't usually give homework. If I do, I rarely grade it, although I always tell them that I do. We will go over it.

By the end of the week, I generally have about eight grades left to enter, three of these coming from Friday. It is a very simple process, and it keeps me from having to do that much on the weekends. 

One thing I do not do very well, is work into the class period times to give grades back to students. Most of the time, they get to see their grades immediately after trade and grade, or at the end of a testing period, but I rarely let kids come up and see their averages.

To Karl and Basile.

I'm lying here on the couch. 

Around me Karl sits cross-legged at the beer pong table, eating pizza and, I think, calculating the odds of getting killed for posting a cartoon of Mohammed; Basile recites his children's tale; and Parks paces around the same territory of floor that against all odds doesn't reek of blown beer.  He's swigging on Landshark and thinking aloud how much he wants to get back to reading Battlefield Earth.

And, again, here I am, collecting like a lover undone my definitive thoughts on you all, composing a goodbye letter that I honestly wouldn't want you to read until I'm gone.

What do I say? 

Answer: I don't know...

Any words I try to put down right now will come off about as eloquent, appropriate, and fit for public consumption as a joke about rape. No heart-strings pulled. No great literature made. I struggle in wait for some seminal spurt of bold,brilliant record that will, if not touch your hearts, earn for me some unnamed ten thousand dollar prize.

There was a time Back in the Fall when I lived off of little more than spaghetti and the misplaced pride of being a great teacher. I worked hard on lessons, thought of going home on weekends, and hardly anything more. I had a whole house, and I used little more than a couch. I probably had a more adult view of this whole scene in those days,but I didn't enjoy myself. I swapped my couch for y'all's about two months ago, and it wasn't really til then that I understood what is the greater part of the teacher corps experience. Y'all have made my first year fun. Myself a nerdy asshole, I don't know if could have ended up with a more fitting pair of short-run roommates. 

I can't imagine what the last few months would have been like without y'all...but--through the early morning fog I think I see what next year will be.I look ahead to next year, and I am hopeful. I feel good in terms of my own improvement in teaching. But, too, with y'all gone, it's hard not to look ahead to next year as something along the lines of AfterMASH. Will the new kids be able to take y'alls place? Will I be able to take up y'all's place for them? Or, will it just be me and Trevor hanging on Potter-Klinger style... an old horse-rider and a nut in a skirt trying our best to keep the ratings up?

I will miss you. You have been good friends to me. I wish you the best.

State Tests

Yes, we need state tests. Of course we do. 

Does a less than 70% passing rate on a test reveal the failure of the teacher who had a group of students that one year the test was given? No. Of course it doesn't. 

The failure of students to pass a test is not necessarily the failure of the teacher. Given the current circumstances, while it is ballsily idealistic to say a teacher should expect 70 or 80 percent of his students to pass a state exam, it's not realistic. And here's the important place I'm going with this: While Josh preemptively labeled any rebuttals to his point as "excuses," it must be understood that a comprehension of reality is not indicative of acquiescence, and though a teacher can cite realistic problems, this doesn't mean a teacher has given up or that he's investing any less of him or herself than anyone else into his classroom. There is youthful idealism. Then there is realization of the problems. After this comes either of two things: defeat or willful optimism. To believe that those who make concession are making excuse is to blind one's self.

Why is that last little bit not just a bunch of lame bullshit?

Because the problems that most of us face in regards to the state test are results of a certain frame of narrow thinking, the vein of narrow thinking that Josh is unintentionally echoing here--a standard has been set that, while it is laudable in attitude, neglects certain realities. It fails to make some necessary concessions. Mississippi as a state has chosen to adopt standards that in comparison to their previous standards are quite high. This is good. We need higher standards. Properly implemented, we as a state will reach and surpass these standards.

What's my problem then?

Implementation.

The "excuses" we often hear (or say) are the results of a system in transition. If we were to test all grades at once and found failure in all grades, how many grades up the ladder do we go before we realize a teacher can't create success from all those compounded years of prior failure? 5th, 6th, 7th...?

Regardless of one's blindly optimistic passion, there are realities to be faced. A student who begins high school at a sixth-grade or lower reading level can quite possibly make the leaps necessary to pass the state English exam...if he is given the right environment. All the students who begin high school at this level are able to make the necessary leaps to pass the test in the right environment. Trouble is, we have more students than we have the ability to create the proper environments for. 

A state test doesn't simply mark the success or failure of one teacher, it marks the collective success or failure of a history of teachers. It must be conceded, there comes a point when the history surmounts the present teacher.

Answers? 

1) We have to stop passing along failing kids.

2) Implementation of higher standards on state tests must no longer be increased at all levels across the boards. We have to increase our standards, but we must do so cyclically. Changes in test standards must follow classes as they progress through school. The first test to be increased in difficulty must be at the lowest grade. The next must follow this same class. Following this plan, we could constantly increase our standards. Each entering class could be tested under newer tests of increasing difficulty. I personally believe every grade should be tested, and it is only in passing through all tests that a student can justifiably graduate.

Twenty five facts about me

1. I like to listen to Coast to Coast on the radio, but sometimes the ghost stories freak me out.

2. I'm wayyy better at scrabble than is John Daniel Marsh.

3. Though I studied English literature and writing in school, I don't particularly like to read.

4. I wish I were a World War I fighter pilot.

5. When I was a little kid, I had frequent nightmares about the apocalypse and going to hell. For a while as a kid, I thought these were prophetic dreams and the world was about to end. As my bedroom window faced the east, where the town of Iuka lit up the night sky and train horns echoed through the hollow we live in, I was scared the light from the east was the second coming, and the horns were the trumpets of doom.

6. I like plain olive green baseball caps. A lot. I have several in case I lose one.

7. My two best friends, Dan and Zack, are nothing alike. I think that is weird.

8. I usually play devil's advocate, and argue any point even when I agree, on the whole, with what is said. I don't like it when a person is sure of anything.

9. I spend time on the highway observing for further proof of my hypothesis that really fat women are the worst drivers. So far, the theory has held up.

10. I am crippled with social anxiety disorder, though I just call it being shy and weird. I am really nervous when surrounded by people, when I am the focus of attention, or when people watch while I work on a machine. I usually don't talk a lot. I enjoy learning new things, but don't like people to watch while I learn. Left alone, I can figure most anything out, or learn do anything pretty well. It is a big fear of mine that people take my shyness the wrong way.

11. I am pretty good at a whole lot of things, but as a consequence, I fear I'll never be great at any one thing.

12. Not too many people really know me all that well.

13. My right testicle is a smidgeon lower than the left.

14. Now, a few people know me better than they'd like.

15. I think shorts are gay-looking and never wear them.

16. I like boardgames more than most people...

17. If I could get away with making fraudulent licenses and diplomas, I'd like to be one of those guys that is doctor one day and a lawyer or professor the next.

18. Marlon Brando used to look a lot like me. Before he was dead.

19. When he gets around to the throne, I will be able to say I went to school with the King of England. I think that is pretty cool.

20. I like old things in general. I like going to the drug store in Corinth just because it feels like it's out of another time.

21. I can't grow a full beard. 

22. Though the psychometric test they gave me in the third grade said I was supposed to be a mechanical genius and a linguistic nothing-special, I ended up turning down an full-ride engineering scholarship to State, going to Ole Miss and majoring in English and Classics instead.

23. I want to learn to bull-ride and pilot a plane. 

At the same time.

24. My pet peeve is people who are intellectually elitist and unversed in matters of practicality.

25. I drink about 12 cans of diet drink a day.

Why I left at 2pm to go to the creek.

Comment 1: Why you talkin about that test. We don't have to take that test this year.

Comment 2: Mista Coakley prepares his kids for the test. They say you don't do that.

To the Pretty Girl in Camouflage Overalls...

I apologize...

though I wondered if I even needed to...

The instant I saw you across the bank.
My hands red from cold,
Up to my knees in a slow current 
Of surprise and shame,
"Oh gosh! Dear, you scared me!" 

You smiled when I exclaimed.

I could only guess how long you'd been there,
and fear it'd been too long.

But...

How could I have known.


I'd been there for weeks 
And never seen another soul
Who'd wade into that creek
Into that kind of cold

To forsake the traffic above
To bundle up in self
And bow down
To digging up old bones

You see,

Two hours'd passed...
And then.
Out of my core,
I tried to restrain it
But it wouldn't be ignored.

Worse every minute.
I had to give in.

But the wilds seemed too far to go.
So I found a sandy spot
With knee-high cane,
Lowered the waders,
And looked up to hidden, passing lanes.

Atonement I didn't have
So I relied on an old Indian trick 
I had learned
On pilgrimage there
When flesh revolted
Where only the devils cared:

Cut off the Y flap.

Buried the sin.

And made my return.

Not two sieves had I made
When I saw you up on high.
Your expression
was as your outfit.
What I wondered
You hadn't said,
And asking I wouldn't try.


Had circumstances been different,
I wonder if the result would be the same:

An awkward moment,
Too brief to learn a name.
You'd smile politely: "I'm sorry."

And walk off...

While I'd pick my teeth
with wondering and shame.

ONE HUNDRED AND NINE TEETH TODAY, PLUS AN INDIAN DRILL.

What makes an effective teacher?

a romantic moment between tommy and wanda bonds.

Why join teacher-corps?

1. Fully immerse yourself in the real world. There's a number of directions you can go when you're coming out of college. Taking the service route is always a good option, but with most outfits, especially foreign ones, you're going to come back with a camera full of photos and a void in your heart--you'll realize that you've only 'done something' on the most minimal level--you went on a vacation that had a lot of poor people in it. MTC is something apart. With MTC, you are filled with accomplishment. You have to be. No program can take as much out of you as this one does without making replacement. You get out of it what you put into it, and with this program you are forced to give it everything you have. There is a lot of sentiment going around in other blogs on this topic about how demanding teaching is, and I agree with that, but a lot of what you learn in this program isn't limited to teaching. What you get here is the essence of every field, rarified--the communication of ideas, tact and diplomacy, the research, the paperwork, the chance not to simply DO the job, but to make an art of it...the leadership. You're gonna need this stuff wherever you go, and in my many, many years of sundry blue-collar and academic pursuits, I can't think of another time that nothing less than total commitment to these arenae was required of me. I can't think of a better opportunity than one that allows you to grow yourself while helping, however minimally, to solve what is a gaping domestic concern.

2. Change your mind about the south. If I had a nickel for every snarky comment I'd heard about the south and Mississippi in particular, I'd be a rich and nonetheless chip-shouldered man. In MTC, your ideas about a great many things are bound to change, and this is for the better-->

3. OPEN YOUR MIND UP on the general level. If you can come down here free of any pre-conceived notions, the better off you'll be.

4. Discover that you are meant to be a teacher. It's a job that doesn't get the respect it deserves, and it's one you probably didn't imagine yourself doing for the rest of your life, but it's the noblest of pursuits. Promoting positive change through selfless dedication to others and and iron will. Experience the inner zen of a warrior-monk.

5. Share my house and help me pay my expensive rent.

6. Play trivia with me.