Getting SERVED

I'm now in the midst of a 4-day convention called SERVES, held in Yakima, and hosting all Americorps members from across Washington. We arrived yesterday, and today we essentially spent all day attending workshops on various topics (mine included "working the system" in schools, building relationships with hard-to-reach kids, helping ELL students, and managing a budget. The day was long but enjoyable, plus we get 16 service hours a day (even though we're actually attending sessions from 8-5).

Although we're meant to meet new people at SERVES, I've mostly enjoyed getting to spend lots of time with my team members, especially those who I don't see more than once or twice a week. FURTHERMORE, Mr. Wyatt Duea is in attendance, so we've had some good times in classes. Tomorrow I have to do an all-day emergency response training, which according to the people who did it today, SUCKS. I'm planning to bring my ipod touch so i'll have something to do.

Last week on the school front, we finally started the Afterschool program. Thursday was a highlight because I got to play basketball with the junior high kids. It was so much fun, my endorphines were pumping for the rest of the evening. And it was really satisfying to put those junior high boys in their place. I'm hoping to make basketball a regular activity.

Best name on the attendance list at the conference: BEAUTIFUL EXISTENCE. No joke. I'm hoping to take a picture with her.

Trailer and Washington's fall colors

WASL: What Are Students Learning???

This past week was difficult, as I've become increasingly aware of many things that I dislike about the way things are run at this school (and are likely problems with the American education system as a whole).

First of all, I am sooo over hearing about the WASL (the state test). I know "teaching to the test" is an issue in a lot of places, but that seems to be what they do exclusively. The teachers are constantly bringing up the WASL in their classes, and it seems that the TEST drives the entire curriculum. I'm very interested to see how they handle giving this test to ELL students whose first language isn't English. I have a sneaking suspicion they don't have a solid plan for this, and for a state-wide test, I don't know how much help I will be allowed to give.

Furthermore, while the students are having the WASL constantly jammed down their throats, I have also noticed an apparent air of indifference among the teachers in the high school. The math scores are the major issue, in Washington and across the country, yet while the math teacher is teaching to the test, he doesn't seem real invested in the kids' success in his class. In his pre-algebra class, he has a number of students for whom this is at least their second time taking the class. However, the way he talks, the expectations seem so low that that trend is normal, which should NOT be the case.

Our Americorps team leader used the term "culture of failure" to describe the atmosphere in this county, and I think that is dead-on. Instead of attempting to run class in a way that will drive the students to do well and improve their math performance, the teacher seems to have succumbed to the fact that the students will fail. He doesn't assign homework because he knows the kids won't do it, but he assigns "class work"....which they also don't do.

When he posts the homework answers the next day, and asks if there are any questions, of course there are none....because no one has done the work. He usually follows that up sarcastically with "wow, this is the smartest class I've ever taught....everyone always gets all of the answers right." He gives a lecture, casually mentions that he hopes people take notes, and shockingly nobody does. Then he gives the assignment, and the cycle starts over again as the kids goof off and don't bother doing it. Of course, the ESL kids are working on it because I'm there with them to help them do it. A couple of other kids have asked me questions and I've helped them, so I almost want to expand my role to just general in-class helper/example of what doing your math homework can get you (out of Mossyrock!).

Another thing that drove me crazy was that one student was sitting in the very back of the room, and started asking me to read the questions to him, and I was surprised to learn that he had terrible eyesight, yet he was sitting in the back of the class. I helped him with his work, and brought it up to the teacher at the end of the period. His response was, "yeah, i tried to make him sit in the front, but he'd rather just sit in the back so he can fool around." I wanted to be like, "THEN MAKE HIM SIT IN THE FRONT! YOU HAVE THE POWER!" But I didn't. HOWEVER, next time I came to that class, the kid was sitting in the front, and I like to think that I had something to do with that.

That frustration aside, I'm excited about the coming weeks because we're starting our after school program. It will mean working longer days, but I will be working in the junior high program, which will include some combination of snack, play time, homework help, and I will be in charge of a club. I listed my interests and experience in various things, but I'm really hoping for an intramural basketball club, which apparently the junior high kids have requested in the past. So that should be fun. 2 of my students left yesterday, so I'm down to 4 ESL high school students that I'm working with. Though that's kinda disappointing, I am looking forward to more time in the elementary school as a result.

ESL quote of the week:

Me helping Rosa answer questions about the Civil war in US history: "Question 1: why did union troops use slaves as spies and guides?"

Rosa: "Because you can't see them at night! jajaja."

GO GREEN

"I think this 'Go green' stuff is so annoying. People who want to 'go green' need to just shut up about it. If you wanna 'go green,' keep it to yourself instead of telling me about it every 3 seconds.'"

Yeah, the high school students of Mossyrock are really concerned with the environment. When this girl gave her two cents in biology class, I guess I wasn't very subtle with my look of disgust, because the teacher later commented that my "eyes glazed over" and I "tensed up" when I heard that comment. Stupid kids.

Words to describe this week: fulfilling....shocking.....sad.....busy....rewarding.....interesting.....GO GREEN.

Monday I worked really hard with a boy named Ricardo, who is one of my "target" students. He works really hard, cares about school, asks for help, seems like a good kid. I helped him prepare for an English test, typed up a study guide for him, and walked into his English class on Tuesday morning to talk to the teacher about the study guide. The teacher's response was, "let's talk outside." At first I thought I was in trouble, but when we went outside (as in outside the building), he revealed to me that Ricardo had been arrested and expelled on Monday afternoon for bringing a Co2 gun to school, and making a threatening gesture at another student. I was shocked beyond belief. The teacher went on to say that he likely lost any chance of getting his US citizenship, and Ricardo had indicated that he had no plans to try school again after a year. He was done, basically given up. So that was a tragic story of a kid with a lot of potential who just didn't quite get the consequences of his actions. He saw the gun as an innocent toy, but the school saw it otherwise.

That sort of put a damper on my day/week, I had to change my schedule around a little bit since I had a lot of slots working with him. However, I was able to put a lot more focus on these 2 sisters, one of whom has decent English, the other with almost none. They had 3 tests this week, so I spent a lot of time with them helping them out in the library studying and translating the tests for them. Rosa, the one without much English, struggles so much with understanding the tests, and even when I explain the questions, she still needs a lot of prompting to get an answer out of her. Once we have come up with how to word her answer, I literally have to spell every single word out for her. However, even though this has been hard, and both girls seem to need at least 2 class periods to finish the tests, I felt like I helped a lot, and especially with biology they both seemed to be able to come up with a lot of good answers. HOWEVER, I learned yesterday that, because they are a migrant family, they will more than likely be moving NEXT WEEK to Arizona. Soooo it kinda feels like my students are dropping like flies. I can't imagine how hard it would be to live in such a situation, where you literally have to change schools all the time.

I do still have students to work with, so I guess I'll be able to give more attention to them. One of them has been involved in some gang-related activity, and really shows no interest in doing any work ever, so I'm not eager to put a lot of energy into him. I guess it will be a good challenge. And I'm hoping to spend a little more time at the elementary level, where the kids hug you and love you without you having to win their affection.

Tonight we're testing out the Morton Bowling Alley (Victory Lanes!), and planning to do lots of lying around this weekend. However, tomorrow night we're hitting the homecoming game, before which the principal and his wife are going to cook for us and entertain us. Go Vikings!

"I should'a went to the fair, but then I was retarded"

[Title courtesy of an obese red head in 2nd period math--I have an extremely strong suspicion that she doesn't make it to school very often.]

I definitely got a dose of 2 extremes this week: Wednesday felt like the epitome of a wasted day, but today I felt like I was actively helping in every class period. Part of the problem with Wednesday was that it was an "early release" day, meaning students get to leave at 1:15 so teachers can "collaborate." Problem with that is, I'm not a student, and I'm not really a teacher, so that left me with nothing to do. At all. And up until 1:15, high school classes were cut short, and since I've noticed that it takes many teachers a good 10-15 minutes to get started anyway, there was really nothing to get done, and no real help I felt that I could give. The elementary ESL class was cancelled, leaving me to have to search for another class I could help with. That left me with a geometry class at the junior high, but of course, I showed up and the kids were sitting in the hall. For 15 minutes. While the teacher chatted with another teacher. So I left.

However, today was the complete opposite. I think the ESL kids are starting to see me as a real resource for them. One girl who rarely talks to me in Spanish, let alone English, confided in me (in English) that she had a poster presentation today in Science and she was really nervous and embarrassed about talking in front of the class. I went to the teacher and arranged for her to give her presentation to him alone, which I hope made a difference in her confidence. She also said that she had a history test coming up, and she has NO idea what's going on. I learned that the test is Tuesday, about the Civil War, and I don't know how much I can help her between now and then. That's a lot of material. And it seems like these kids really need to learn it in both languages: Spanish so that they really understand what's going on, and English so that they can identify questions and write on the tests. It's a hard knock life.

Outside of school, I finally got in to join the gym. Healthy Visions is Morton's number one fitness facility, complete with step classes for old people, equipment I'm sure I've seen on infomercials, and a vibrating table. I figured the table would be a low vibration that would be somewhat relaxing. However, turns out it was more like a violent rocking motion--I would've been a sight to see, in the back of the gym rocking back and forth. I decided I did NOT want to be seen and cut the 5 minute vibrating table session down to 30 seconds. Apparently that rocking motion is supposed to rock your flab off or something. I think I'll pass from here on out. The trainer there is definitely not much compared with the ones I've worked with in the past, but once I'm done with my orientation with her, I can get huge all by myself.

High School quotes of the day:

Series of random questions for the math teacher, fired in rapid succession by different people:

"Mr. Young, do you, like, ever have any other expression on your face?"

"Yeah Mr. Young, do you ever smile?"

"Why do you wear a vest EVERY day?"

"He's just a vest kind of guy, shut up!"