A Teacher's Aide's Journal #11

                                                            Week 2

     The first day of the week usually begins with a PLC (Professional Learning Communities).  Today was a school wide PLC that met in the auditorium.  At the meeting, there were three presentations.  The Principal started everything with a brief commentary on the heat.  He acknowledged that there would be a heat problem in the building as some rooms on the third floor and in the basement might reach over 90 degrees.  He told the teachers that there were cooling centers where they could take their classes if needed.  Those were the auditorium and the cafeteria, which was 75% air conditioned.  After his introduction, Mr. DeJesus and Rebecca Allen presented the primary function of the Student Support operations they were heading.  They said that the purpose of the operation was to identify students who failed Geometry and English during their sophomore year.  According to the presentation, the data showed that most of the students who do not pass Geometry also do not graduate.  87% of students who did not graduate on time failed Geometry.  The Student Support operation was supposed to coordinate PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention and Support) and the RtI (Response to Intervention).  This team would also manage academic intervention efforts in English and Math, as well as identify troubled students.  The operation would plan to support students who lacked specified skills and try to address attendance issues.  The team would do this by creating and managing learning labs and asked for teachers to volunteer their free periods or lunch to help. 

      At fourth period English class, the heat got to Jessica again. I watched her struggle and tried to think of a possible point where she might break.  Before we entered the hot room on the third floor, I told Jessica that if the heat is ever a problem she should let me know and we could take a break.  I noticed in class how she tried to use a bottle of water to keep her head cool by pressing the bottle to her brow.  It didn’t work.  She struggled to keep herself concentrated on doing the work that was given to her.  If I was the teacher, I would have had a different kind of assignment.  The students had to complete the 75 question diagnostic exam they started on Friday – three days ago.  When that was complete, the students were assigned to read a packet, take notes on the vocabulary, and answer the questions at the end of the packet.   I sat in my chair thinking to myself that I would have come up with something different to do as a distraction from the heat.  A team building activity would have worked well since the seats were all grouped together in clusters of four.  I wrote my Master’s Degree paper on cooperative learning.  As such, I naturally look for particular signs or behaviors when students are in groups.  One thing I learned is that if there is no group assignment or task, then the mere clustering of chairs becomes a social event encouragement.   Anyhow, the assignment was due September 5^th.  The present date was August 25^th.  More than two weeks, in my opinion, was too much time for an English teacher to give to an honors class.   The packet was five pages front and back.  Four pages were from a short story.

      Jessica, however, was very distracted by the heat and unable to focus on the assignment.  She started to close her eyes very tightly and grit her teeth.  I didn’t know if this was the beginning of an autistic tantrum that I expected her to have.  Eventually, she looked at me and asked if she could take a break.  I said yes and we walked out into the hallway.  Jessica was irritable, complaining about a headache.  She said that she didn’t understand why we were not released early from school.  She thought that parents should complain.  Jessica assumed that those who made decisions on whether or not the students should go home were sitting in an air-conditioned room.  She thought that those “pencil pushers” on the school board should come to the school and see how hot it was. 

      Fortunately, the sky became dark and rain followed bringing a cool breeze through the windows. I took Jessica to the first floor where it was cooler and we opened a door that led to the courtyard.  She stood there and took in the breeze while making an observation of the dirt at the threshold.  She said the school was dirty and that the janitors should clean the building.  The restrooms smelled badly and the toilets were never flushed.  She hated to go into the restrooms because they were so dirty.  I did not give fuel to her fire, instead I took an angle designed to give her insight at how difficult the jobs are for many people.  Relating to the board members who “do not care about the students and only care about money,” I said, “It must be tough for them.  They don’t have enough money to buy supplies to give teachers or pay for air conditioners.  Then people say we are cheap and broke.  So if they put their concentration on getting money, then people say that they only care about money.   That must be tough for them.”

     When I saw that she was cool and seemed less focused on being hot, I suggested that she return to class and work on the vocabulary.  She thought that she could regain focus and then we returned to class.

     The seventh and last period class – Civics – was just as hot as or even hotter than 4^th period, but Jessica seemed immune to it.  She likes this class.  The subject of rules and laws is very appealing to her. She liked to give her opinion and raised her hand to share with every question. The teacher’s class discussion strategy was simple.  She asked the students to write on paper a list of school rules and why they were needed.  Then the students were allowed to share.  Once, the teacher was interrupted when Rene tried to put on his headphones.  She broke off from the conversation to tell him to put them away.  She asked the students to write a second list of home rules and then society rules.  She led the discussion and at times asked students who did not join the discussion to share what they wrote.  Most times, when Jessica and I left this class (as we always did with 8 minutes remaining); she was so excited that she continued the conversation with me.  Due to the fact that she tries to stay in this class as long as possible she is often a few minutes late to catch her bus home. 

     It was about this time in the school year that I noticed something wrong with a few teachers.  The English teacher in particular won my suspicions.  I started to question her methods starting with the amount of time she gave honor students to do a simple assignment.  In my experience, students are given honor classes without being given honors teachers.  What I mean by this is that in this school district, I've heard teachers say that there is no different from honors classes and regular classes.  The students in honors classes are just expected to do a little bit more work.  When the administrators and the school board people talk about improving scores, I believe that it should start with the honors classes.  A typical honors student should be a student who has demonstrated an ability to think at a higher level and match that higher level of thought with a higher work ethic.  I saw on this day that the work ethic or the higher level of thought was not expected from the English Honors class.  Furthermore, in terms of teaching strategies, I did not see any evidence of one.  When I compare this teacher to the Civics teacher, I am convinced that the English teacher or the English department needed work.  

A Teacher's Aide's Journal #10

                                                             August 21, 2014

      I came to work 15 minutes early and Jessica (my student dealing with autism) was already there waiting for me.  The bus that brings her to school each day arrived about 25 minutes before the start of class.  Although I saw her, I was not able to do anything with her as I had to wait until the proper time to punch the clock and begin work.  I was a part time worker and as such, it was forbidden for me to punch in before 7:45.  My official start time was 8:50 which was the same time that first period begun.  I found it interesting that I was expected to have Jessica in class at 8:50 for the start of class when I officially start work at 8:50.  This being said, I adjusted by punching in for work at 7:45.  Another interesting thing about punching in for work was that teacher’s aides are paid by contract; a certain amount of money per year and so it makes no difference if we punch in early or punch out late.  We cannot milk the clock.  Mrs. Bernard, the time clock  Nazi, as I call her because she sat at her desk just outside of the principal’s office and always looked at her computer clock whenever someone clocked in or out for work.  She told me that if I continued to clock in before 7:45, I would get in trouble.  According to her, “if we were to get audited, it would show that we were in violation of the contract.”  So as a part time teacher’s aide, I am supposed to start work at the same time first period begun and I was supposed to clock out at the same time seventh period ended.  Knowing what I know about Special Education and IEPs and state laws, if I did things exactly as I was supposed to do, Jessica would get to first period 3 or 4 minutes late every day and she would have to leave 7^th period 10 minutes early so that I could escort her to her locker and then to the door where she would catch her bus to go home.  This means that she would miss nearly an hour of instructional time each week – a violation of state law.  So it appeared to me that no matter what I did, there was going to be someone’s law broken. 

      Today was hot.  Opened windows and doors coalesced with electric fans supplied by the teachers from their own bank accounts did not work at all.  I perspired just from sitting.  I didn’t even want to touch the desk as it made my arms perspire.  Most all the children seemed sleepy, I was sure that their fatigue came from the heat.   

     There was not much to happen today.  Jessica tested out of Spanish One and was now in Spanish Two, so her new schedule was waiting for me in my mailbox, just as her councilor agreed to do.  Yesterday, I told the councilor that Jessica had tested out of Spanish One and she would need a schedule change.  I did this so that we would not have to waist class time or lunch time today.  It worked out well.  Only the location of her second period class changed nothing else.  In Geometry, they worked on more inductive reasoning activities where they drew figures and identified patterns.  Then they learned some definitions of lines, line segments, planes, collinear, and distances between points.  It was termed by Mr. Carter, the language of Geometry.  I thought it was interesting the way they learned the definitions.  Mr. Carter did not present them a word or draw a diagram on the board.  He used the Promethean board and some slides from the computer – all of this is a part of the Agile Mind program.  There were images of building structures and bridges.  From the images the class was to come up with a collective definition of the terms.  This took the entire period.  I left thinking that it was nice to appeal to the different learning strategies, but for me, it works just as well if a teacher told me that a plan was a flat surface with at least three different points that were not in a line.   

Spanish class was a review of Spanish One; they played a competitive vocabulary game divided in three groups of nine.  Each group was given a white board and dry erase marker to write down their answers.  When they did so, they were to hold up the board and the teacher would choose who was first.  The person with the correct answer won points for his or her team. 

     After lunch, I spent time looking for Jessica, Ms. Yarbrough took her to get a book for Civics class.  She arrived at English class five minutes after the bell.  There, in English, she had a small uncomfortable moment when she noticed the fire alarm on the wall.  She became distracted and I noticed that she had no focus.  When she stood from her seat, she walked to me and started to read the board in the corner of the room by the exit.  Then she told me that she noticed the alarm and I knew that it was time to remove her to a quiet and semi contained place before she had a tantrum.  I did not know what to expect form a child who dealt with autism.  When people talk about them, they only talk about the worst and I, having no training besides You Tube, did not know that there was a long spectrum of autism and children ranged from one end to the next.   We walked out and around the corner.  I told her that I understood why fire alarms could be annoying.  They are loud and they catch you off guard.  She said that she did not like them and I said that I didn’t like them either.  A student walked pass and asked me if we would have football practice as she was uncertain because of the rain that was to come.  Outside of the window in the grass we could see a flock of geese walking over the football practice field.  I told her that the birds were not concerned for the rain and we should not be either.  She said that the birds did not have to sit on a wet bench – a good point.  “But the birds do not have towels to wipe the wet benches.” I said.   She understood that excuses would not work so then she walked away.  The conversation about birds and geese became a distraction for Jessica and she walked to the window and we had a conversation about birds.  Eight minutes passed and I changed the conversation to the writing assignment in English.  I asked her which of the three prompts she wrote about.  This led me to without notice transition her back to class. 

What I expected from a tantrum was loud and chaotic moans or screams.  I imagined Jessica holding her hands over her ears and walking in circles.  I thought that if anyone touched her, she might hit them or violently attack them.   The YouTube videos taught me to anticipate tantrums and remove the child from crowds to a small and contained area.  That was all I really knew at that time.  I thought it was best to simply try to use as much preventive measures as possible.  This later came to bight me in the rear as I learned that Jessica was more of a teenage girl than some space alien who had some strange mental issue.  It is too bad that for my job, there was no training or any concern from one person who believed that it was important to train a person who would spend more time with a student dealing with autism than her parents.    

A Teacher's Aide's Journal #9

      The school year was only in the first three days and I could already see the signs of disaster:  A math teacher who will only teach for a short time before joining the administration team, a new teacher to replace him with no training, an English teacher who uses no teaching strategy, and a series of idle threats by the administration.   Looking at all of this, I had serious doubts that we would see very little improvements if any at all.  

Math

     The students were introduced to the process of the learning protocol that required them to use the technology of the Promethean board with their workbook, and discuss possible answers in their groups.  They worked on Fibonacci sequence as a way to learn inductive reasoning.  The process was impressive in the way it incorporated the technology to provide visual aids for geometry along with practical uses that include showing a bridge that used arcs, parallels, perpendicular lines, angles and bisectors.  I thought it was a good way to teach definitions in a way that is suitable for different learning styles.  Near the end of class a student named Africa entered tardy so naturally she had no clue what was going on.  She sat in the back of the class and squinted to see the Promethean board.  The Promethean board is also called a smart board.  The school has them spread out through the building in various classrooms but not all of them. In Jessica’s classes, there were three classrooms without them and three with them. She has seven periods including lunch.  The smart board is connected to the teacher’s PC and allows whatever is on the computer to synchronize with the smart board screen.   With the use of a special pencil, the teacher can draw or write on the smart board and at the same time, operate the computer.  Of course technology means nothing if a student is late and has no glasses.  I told Mr. Carter that Africa did not have her glasses on and she had trouble seeing the board.  He thanked me for the insight and told me to feel free to share anything that I noticed regarding students who may have problems with this program.

      I learned then that the math program was part of a program that the school purchased called Agile Mind.  It was something that Mr. Carter advocated for two years ago when he was the department chair for math.  He thought it would help raise math scores in the district, and although he was removed from the campaign for it, he was now finally able to see it come into fruition.   On the purchase of the math program it appears that the school did not plan or pay for training of the teachers and Mr. Carter said that he was the only one who was trained.  The irony in all of this is that he had also applied to become a student disciplinary dean and was recently approved by the school board and the finance committee.  He had hoped that he would start the school year as the disciplinary dean but for whatever reason, he did not and a new teacher was not hired to take his place.    He seemed comfortable with the program and had what appeared to be a definite strategy in teaching it and familiarizing the students to the concept.  He repeated often that he was not there to teach them, but that he was just a facilitator, and that it was up to the students themselves to learn through inquiry as opposed to traditional regurgitation of material.

Assembly

      We had an assembly during second period but before we were dismissed to attend, Ms. Martinez informed Jessica that she did well enough on the placement exam to be moved to the Spanish 2 class.  Jessica was a bit nervous about this because although she is Mexican, and her mother is an immigrant who speaks very little English, she speaks very little Spanish and claims that Spanish is her second language.    When we arrived at the assembly, we learned that it was only for sophomore students.  It was held in the field house where the school team played basketball.  At the assembly, the counselors introduced themselves and explained to the students that they had various resources such as a study table in the library and the career center.  They explained why some sophomores were still classified as freshman.  Apparently there were over 100 students who did not move from freshman status to sophomore status, even with summer school as an option.  The counselors gave them threats about what would happen when they are seniors if they did not study and get their graduation credits.  Next, the disciplinary dean came to the podium and went over the progressive discipline policy and the rules that she “will not waver” in enforcing.  Those rules were the dress code, rules relating to attendance, cell phone use, fighting, and bad language.  I learned then that second period was divided in half and that the junior class was to come into the gymnasium and have a similar meeting.   So after all of the threats were done, we were told to return to class for the remainder of second period.  I leaned that the problem with this schedule was that Jessica’s new class was made juniors and seniors.  She was one of two sophomores in that Spanish class.  This left the teacher in a bad position because she could not do anything in terms of teaching as half of her class was missing during the second half of the class. 

Looking back in hind sight, the threats meant nothing to the students.  In the end, the students were the victors being that they endured the first ten weeks of harsh rule by the disciplinary deans.  After those ten weeks, the discipline system broke down and things were back to the way they were.  The dean’s promise that she would not waver fell short.  I guess the lesson in this is that students will push the envelope as long and as far as they can.  Idle threats are just that … Idle. 

English Class

      I felt very disappointed in the English teacher this day.  She gave as an assignment for the students to identify the plot of the story. They read over a short story that was about 2 and one half pages long.  It took them 13 minutes to read it.  I noticed that seven students did not read at all.  Instead they put their heads down on the desk. I was also disappointed in that and also noticed that six of the seven sleeping students were African American.  As I sat in the back of the class, I could not help but to notice that the teacher had not taken time out to discuss the conflict or the inciting incident which separates the exposition from the rising action.  In my opinion this is a crucial point to make in a story, as there can be no story without a conflict.   I doubted that the students would ever understand what they are supposed to do or if they will show mastery of the assignment.  I began to think that she assumed the students already knew these things and she just used this assignment for a review.  If that was so, she was painfully wrong.  They did not know, and when I took a look at one of my football player’s paper, I saw that he wrote virtually nothing on his paper.  It was as I had anticipated; he did not identify or show mastery of understanding the beginning and the end of the rising action nor was he able to identify the conflict and climax.  

A Teacher's Aide's Journal #8

Building Meeting

Today started with a meeting in the little theatre located in the basement area of the building.  There I sat in the middle, as I was not the early bird who gets the prime seat in the back row while the late comers have to sit in the front.  I sat next to Ms. McElroy and our union delegate.  The principal made the first presentation.  He stood behind the podium.  On the podium was a lap top that was connected to a projector casting the lap top screen’s image on the large silver screen that hung over the stage.  He started his welcome speech with a cordial welcome and then he went on to mention the names of the teachers who were married over the summer – there were three, two ladies and one man.  He then spoke of the people who left due to resignation or finding other places of employment.  Then he told us that we were an official “Project Lead the Way” School.  This meant that we were a participating school in a program that was sponsored by someone to teach engineering skills to the students.  He told us that there were more new things that would be instituted.  He mentioned that we would get a writing lab, maybe a math lab, there would be programs during lunch periods to supplement classroom learning and that we had an intern who would be working in the I.T. department.  He explained that there would be a parent support project started by a group of parents who met and decided that the school needed an organized parent support organization.   He said that with the parent support project, he believed there was a need for a Latino Parent support group.  This idea came in response to surveys that indicated that the Latino student and parents feel disconnected in the building.  Their culture is not represented throughout the buildings in classes or in hallways.  He said that “We’re committed to including everyone.”  He mentioned the construction in the building – roof work in the field house, a breeze way to block the winter wind at one of the student entrances, and the ventilation work in the basement area where the driver's ed classes can reach ten degrees hotter than the rest of the building. 

After these things, he started to discuss the PSAE scores.  The Prairie State Achievement Examination was a test given to junior students each year for the last fifteen years.  He said that the scores had increased.  He showed us a graph comparing the 2013 scores to the 2014 scores.  The percentages of students who met state standards increased in reading by 3.1% and in math by 6.8%.  In light of yesterday’s race conversation, he pointed out that the Latino students who met state standards improved by 4.5% in reading and 10% in math whereas the African American students had a 1.9% gain in reading and a 4.2% in math.  When it came to science, however, the Latino students who met the standards improved by 6.6% whereas the African American students dropped by 2.7% He expressed concern for the negative number in the African American students science scores and the disparity between the two groups. 

With that, he started to talk about PARCC – the new test that will start this year.  The test will be systemic and given to elementary, middle school, and high school students.  It is a performance based assessment as well as an end of the year assessment.  The test will be given twice in a year – once when school instruction is 75% done and then again when instructing is 90% complete.  It was also mentioned that this would be the last year that the school will mandate A.C.T testing for graduation.  The state will no longer pay for the A.C.T and starting next school year, the test will be completely voluntary. 

The First Day of School

I punched in at 7:45 a.m. and walked to the teacher’s lounge – a ninety second walk – but when I entered into the lounge I saw that it was only 7:44.  The time on my cell phone also read 7:44.  By my estimate, the main office time clock was three minutes fast.  I went to the D ramp and waited for my student.  She arrived on time by way of a small school bus.  I didn’t know the girl or how she looked.  I only had the idea that she was Hispanic based on her name Jessica Jimenez.  Fortunately she was the only girl and when she entered the building, I called her by name and introduced myself. She had a schedule and revealed to me that it had five classes and six periods.  She was missing a seventh period class.  She seemed slightly bothered by that so we walked to her counselor to get the change.   Mr. Love, one of the senior counselors stood outside of the door to stop all students who came by in an attempt to change their schedule.  We slipped through and got to her counselor who was very quick to help but then noticed that there was a computer problem and she was unable to log in.  She told us to return at lunch time so we left and went to the student's locker. 

Her first period class was Geometry Honors.  Mr. Carter, an African American teacher stood about six feet tall and maybe about 220 pounds.  He was a fast talker and repeated two phrases until it became humorous.  He said that this was Honors Geometry at least twelve times, from when I started counting.  It was as if he was trying to make a point.  When Matthew did not have paper, Mr. Carter asked why and reiterated that this was Honors Geometry and that his expectations were higher than they were for regular geometry classes.  He said that he would not go over class rules except for the phone and food rules because there were many students missing.  Only twelve students were in class.  One student asked him if she could use the restroom his reply was “No, I don’t do bathrooms.”  Two minutes later, she tossed the cookies on the floor.  He then allowed her to go to the restroom and proceeded to clean the vomit from the floor.  The student returned and soon asked if she could use the facilities again.  This time, Mr. Carter said yes.  He asked if she needed the nurse, she said no.  The geometry class was made of five Hispanic girls, two Hispanic males, two white males, two African American girls and boys. 

Mr. Carter made a speech about the difficulty that the students would have with honors geometry if they did not have the algebra skills from the previous year.  Following up that speech, he proceeded to put algebra problems on the Promethean Board.  He walked around to get a sense of how difficult the basic problems were for the students.  In all, he put up nine problems that ranged in difficulty from the simple computation, to find the value of x, to multiplying radicals.  Although he did not want to go over the class rules, he continued to give information while the students tried to work their problems.  Once, after telling them to “have at it,” he walked around the classroom explaining that they would eventually get seating charts.   He spoke for the entire ninety seconds that he gave them to complete the problem.  He did this consistently and I wondered – after so many wrong answers - if the students got wrong answers because they did not know, remember, or because they were distracted.

The second period class was Spanish.  Ms. Martinez was married over the summer and her new name was Pibelar.  She explained that the students could continue to call her Martinez. She allowed the students to sit where they pleased, she asked them to remember not to have their cell phones out.  Within twenty minutes, she reminded them to not have out their phones.  Ten minutes later, she asked them to put away their cell phones.  In all she asked them four times during the first day.  She explained that they needed a notebook and binder for her class and that the notebooks would stay in her class.  After that, she gave placement tests to the native Spanish speaking students.  This was to see if they needed to take the Spanish 1 course.   If they did well, they would move to Spanish 2.  She spoke to them in Spanish as well and a few of them understood her.  She said that they would be rescheduled for a different class.  Afterwards, she gave everyone a printed out sheet of questions for them to complete.  They had the remaining 35 minutes to answer 12 questions. 

                                                                     Lunch

Jessica  was given 10:00 a.m. lunch that ended at 11.  The system was set up so that a teacher’s aide was assigned to the special ed students in the cafeteria.  There were seven of them who had autism or some other condition that made it difficult for them to interact with the regular students.  Jessica did not want to sit with them.  Instead, she wanted to find her friends and I waited inside the cafeteria for her to find them.  She did not and eventually sat with the other special ed students at their very own table which seemed to be waiting for them.  After I left her, I went to the store to purchase some canned tuna and mayonnaise to make tuna sandwiches for the football players who were allergic to peanuts.  We had to supply food for our football team, because it was assumed that their parents would not furnish them with snacks or food to eat after school.  Football practice ended at 7:30 and some of our children’s last meal would have been at 11:00 a.m. Coupled with the fact that we had instituted a mandatory study hall for all of our players, the football players would spend 12 hours a day at school and have only one meal.  With this in mind, we fed them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.   

                                                                English

The English teacher was a white female with a Spanish name – Ruiz.  She had previously taught in an alternative school.  Now she was the English 2 techer for honor students.  She did much the same as everyone else; she went over rules and expectations. Afterwards, she played a CNN news report on the Promethean board.  Jessica, after hearing that she would see and hear CNN spoke out.  “Oh you mean the ones who tell lies.”  The teacher was caught off guard and had a loss of words.    Then she asked the students if they wanted to play a name game.  After the CNN report the teacher decided to play the name game with the students.  There was a moment when the CNN report ended that a potentially hot conversation started.  Rashid made a statement about the police officer in Missouri shooting the innocent African American male.  The teacher abruptly responded to him.  “Were you there?”  She went on to explain that she was not trying to change his opinion, but he needed to consider that all of the facts have not yet been disclosed.  She mentioned that she was white and that the black students should have a more informed opinion before reaching conclusions. 

So much for race matters, I thought.

A Teacher's Aide's Journal #7

The District Meeting

                I expected the district meeting to set the tone for the school year.  The district has three high schools.  One is a selective enrollment school where the previous average A.C.T. score was 23 and the other two schools where thought to hold the left overs in the district.  Those two schools had an average A.C.T score for each of them was between 15 and 17.  The superintendent, Doctor West-Braxton addressed the staff with a welcome that was not very well accepted by anyone from what I could see.  Despite the halfhearted hand clap welcome, she spoke to us pointing out that the Hispanic students had the most gain in test scores.  She said that the Hispanics had gains in Science, math and reading whereas the black students had gains in reading but negative gains in math and science.  The white students who represent only 5 percent of the student population in the entire district had gains in math but no negative gains and the Asian students who represent less than 2 percent of the district population had gains in all three areas. She then pointed out that the construction crews did a good job on repairing the building.  They worked very hard over the summer making repairs to the building that caught fire at the end of last school year.  The fire took out almost 20% of the school.  She said that the building had a face lift – a paint job in certain areas and that the swimming pool had been repaired – it was destroyed 5 years ago when the river flooded due to nonstop three days of rain.  She mentioned that the financial oversight committee had approved the new teacher and support staff raise giving the support staff a 4% raise. She didn’t mention her $50,000 raise. She mentioned that the district had been given a B+ credit rating.  I wondered if anyone really knew what that meant.  I am fortunate enough to know that a B+ credit rating isn’t very good.  I do my share of investing in stocks and bonds and I wouldn’t invest in a municipality bond when the municipality had a B+ rating.  She said that there would be more funds for books this year and it occurred to me that while I worked the book room, just a few days ago, we had no math books to give students and there were no Chemistry books for the non-honors Chemistry classes.  This problem had been going one for a while and last school year the special ed students were given Honors Chemistry books.  Needless to say, they didn’t read them.  She suggested that this would be the last year that the state appointed financial committee would preside over the district spending.  The finance committee had the district under its thumb for some four years now due to poor financial management.  By state law, the finance committee had to take charge. 

       When she finished, she introduced a speaker who spoke to us for the next ninety minutes about race matters.  He played with the wordings to have double meaning.  He spoke of his personal truth and explained that everyone had their very own personal truth.  He began with a story about his experience as a child in school.  He started with an all-black school in the urban area of some east coast city.  He had photographs to showing his kindergarten, first and second grade classes.  He had photographs of his teachers as well.  All of the students and all of the teachers were African American.  He mentioned that there was a relationship that the teachers had with the parents in the community.  He mentioned that he saw his first grade teacher at the grocery store and there were teachers in the building who went to the same church that he attended.  He mentioned that when he went to the third grade, the school hired a white teacher and that was when behavior problems seemed to magnify.  He said that there were perhaps behavior problems in the previous grades, but he did not notice them.  He mentioned that the white teacher was very sensitive and the students found it laughable that she was very emotional and at some points she broke down in tears.  They were challenged each week with getting her so upset that they did not have to work due to her breakdowns.  He said that the white teacher had no connections with the community and he thought that she was an outsider.

      He explained that he was soon transferred to a different school.  It was a “smart school.”  In the fourth grade, he was one of just three black students.  He was suddenly the minority.  The teacher was white as well.  He spoke differently and as a result was not anxious to speak at all.  He felt very uncomfortable and isolated.  His teachers spoke about things that he did not relate to at all.  They talked about camping and he had never been camping.  They talked about skiing and family vacations all of which he had only heard of or saw on television.  He eventually made adjustments and went on to do well in his subjects.  He was accused of cheating once when he wrote a report for English because his grammar was perfect. 

I related to that experience as the same thing happened to me when I was a high school sophomore.  I did not have perfect grammar but when I was assigned by my English teacher, Mrs. Marx to write poetry following the fixed verse formats of Villanelle, Sonnet and haiku it was assumed by her that I plagiarized.   She was out to get me.  At that time, she did not have the help of the internet, but she used every resource that she had available to try to find the poems that I wrote.  She searched books and she asked her colleagues.  When she returned the students work to them, I did not get mine.  Mr. Hinkle spoke to me about the poems; he was my freshman English teacher and one that became a favorite.  He told me that Mrs. Marx asked him about the poems and he told her that he thought the poems were original.  He told me that he said to her “If he copied them, why would he miss-spell words?”  In the end, Mrs. Marx gave me a C on the paper.  She said that I did everything correct and the poems were “nice” but the C was warranted because of my mechanical errors. Mrs. Marx was perhaps in her middle twenties; she was German and had blue eyes.  When I latter returned to that school as a school teacher, she was still there.  She worked there for over twenty years and retired.

      After the speaker told his story, he presented a question to the staff.  He asked how many of us felt that we came in contact with racism between 0 to 10% of the time in any single day.  He asked them to stand.  There were ten people who stood, they were all white.  He went from 11% - 25% and there were more than fifty more teachers who stood.  In that crowd, there were two black staff members.  He went from 25% to 50% and by this time, every white person was on his or her feet.  Oddly enough, with a very small exception, just about every black staff member remained seated.  He skipped to 90% to 100% and it seemed like every black person who remained seated stood.  I was waiting for 75%.  It was obvious that the vast majority of black people believed or felt that they were subjected to racism in 90% to 100% of their lives.  He mentioned that 90% of blacks who were surveyed said that when driving, they felt apprehension whenever they saw a police squad car in the rear-view mirror.  That there are few times, if any do black people feel protected by the police.  He went on to discuss the relationships between teachers in class and students.  He suggested that unless the discussion of race becomes a common occurrence, there will continue to be a gap between black students and white teachers. 

I thought it was interesting that we ignored the fact that our educational staff was composed of more than 75% white teachers, 90% black or Hispanic support staff, and a 93% minority student body.  The superintendent is a black female, her assistant superintendent is a black female, the human resource department is 100% black or Hispanic female, and the board of education has only two white members.  In terms of the regional office, I have not seen one black or Hispanic face at all. 

      When we went to lunch I was informed that the support staff was to leave and go to Central for the second session.  I expected that this in-service would be more specific to our job and the training we needed.  I was told by Ms. Reed, the special services supervisor / chair that I would have a one on one with a Hispanic student who was dealing with autism.  Her name was Jessica.  I had the opportunity to speak with her case worker, Ms. O’Dell  and Ms. Yarbrough who worked with Jessica last year during her freshman year.  I was told that Jessica had no filtering system and she would say whatever came to her mind.  I was told that her mother did not speak English very well at all but that she could say “lawyer” in three different languages.  I was told that Jessica came from a racist family and was extremely prejudice to black men.  As an example, they told me that upon announcement of a girl who was sexually assaulted last school year, Jessica walked down the hallway and pointed to every black male student she saw saying that “He probably did it.”  She was afraid of bugs and she often had temper tantrums.  Initially, I thought this strange that she would be assigned to a “black male” one on one.  Furthermore, I had no knowledge of autism with the exception of Rain Man the movie with Tom Cruise and the story The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time that I read with my younger son when he was 13 years old. 

      The meeting was a disappointment.  We were taught to relax.  There was a guest speaker who came to tell us the importance of relaxing out mind and finding outlets to reduce stress from work.  We were made to do irritating ice-breakers that caused more stress than the job.  In fact, it was very stressful to sit there and hear all of the mess that she shoved in our ears.  What I did, to relieve the stress from the meeting about relieving stress was to get my android and play a couple of games of chess.  I realized that I would have to result to Youtube videos to teach myself ways to deal with or help a student with autism.  Then I would have to make a strategy to deal with her alleged racist views towards black men.  

A Teacher's Aide's Journal #6

     I had an interesting conversation with one of my co-workers and I asked her why does everyone seem so disgruntled at work? She explained that everyone is bitter due to past treatments.  The conversation came about when I noticed that it was approaching time to leave, but there were still people waiting in line at school registration.  The line started outside in the school parking lot.  At the entrance door was a security guard who waited for a call over the radio that informed him of how many people in that line he could allow through and into the band room where the parents were to wait in  a different line until we called them to our table.  It was near time to leave and the band room was filled with parents.  Every seat was taken.  This was the third day of registration and people were entering the building in droves.  The general consensus between the other teacher’s aides who worked with me was that when the clock struck seven p.m. they would leave with no regard to the people in line or in the band room.  Ms. Ware explained to me that there would be no overtime paid to us for extra work and that home was an hour away; therefore volunteer work was not an option.  Mrs. Hernandez said that she would consider volunteering her time, if she was not treated so poorly in the past.  It was mentioned that she would be assigned to a one on one with a student.   Aides assigned to one on ones were given a single student to shadow from the first period to the last.  That aide was responsible for getting the student to class and assisting that student in whatever way was necessary for the student’s Individual Education Plan that was created by a team of professionals. 

My personal thoughts regarding these teams are mixed.  Obviously I hesitate in making broad accusations and statements so with that disclaimer; I will say that in my personal and professional experience, the entire beast that I will call special education needs to be revamped.  First, I’ll start with my personal experience.  I have a child who has a hearing deficiency that came from a sickness during the toddler years. The sickness caused a fever that apparently damaged the developing hairs inside of the ear.  Such damage is irreparable.  My child is a three sport athlete, reads well, loves science, and does well in math. By all comparisons at worst she is an average child.  Due to the hearing issue in the right ear, it was determined that an Individual Educational Plan (IEP) was needed to give accommodations.  The accommodations involved seating arrangements in the front of the class or closes to the teacher and to the right side so that most audio could come at her from the left side.   With that being said, I found myself over the last three years of elementary school literally fighting with professional teams regarding in class treatment.  In my experience with my daughter, the professional team seems to do everything in their power to cripple my daughter instead of empowering her to self-advocate.  The go overboard with services even at one time suggesting that they force teachers to use a microphone in class to assist my daughter’s hearing.  This was far overboard as she had damage in one ea. When she played sports she does not use her hearing aids.  When she stands in center field, I’ve never saw her softball coach have issues adjusting her when he calls to her from the dugout.  I say all of this to say that despite the special education team’s insisting that my daughter have a resource class, microphones, and special ear pieces, she does well enough without them and she only needs two accommodations: sit in front of the class and a teacher that can keep the classroom quiet or at least free from disruption. I have many more examples of how the special ed team in this district does more harm than good.

      Mrs. Hernandez was very unhappy with the assignment and said that she would try to fight it. As a one on one, she would have to follow a student to every class and sit in that class to assist that student.  She did not like the fact that she would was assigned to the student at the bequest of a parent’s request that the one on one teacher’s aide have the ability of bilingual speech.  She believed that sense the student’s IEP did not mandate a bilingual one on one, she should have additional pay for her services.  She felt that she was given this assignment because she has a special ability and that was some sort of discrimination.  She felt that if she was given an assignment based on having a skill that other aides do not have, then she should be compensated financially.  So for this reason, she planned to fight the assignment.

     When it was 7:00, everyone at my table left, so did I.

                                           Freshman Orientation

    Today the Aides punched the clock and walked to the lounge.  I joined them there and did some research on the computer.  Then I made some hotel reservations for my son who was invited to Texas for a baseball show case.  We had some interesting conversations some of which I found myself getting involved.  First we talked about police officers.  Apparently there was an incident in St. Louis where some kid was in a fight with a police officer.  Ms. Thompson started to talk about that children should submit to the authority of the police.  Ms. Gomez the registrar came in for a few minutes and expressed her worries relating to her grandchildren regarding police harassment.  I shared the information that I told my children.  I told them not to talk back to the police officer and do not explain things to them.  I told them to first ask “Am I under arrest?”  If the answer is yes, then they are only obligated to state their name and where they lived.  If they are pulled over for a traffic violation, they do not need to get out of the car.  I also told my sons that if they are involved with a police officer, turn on the video recording of their cell phone and inform the police that they are recording the conversation.  The should ask for the policeman’s badge number and inform the police that when the recording stops the video is automatically sent to his online drop box account.  Ms. Thompson’s thought that what I told my sons were extreme and intimidating to the police.  She did, however agree that they should do whatever the police officer asks.   I shared two stories.  One story was about my oldest son who was approached by a police.  The officer asked him if he had a gun.  He said no and continued to walk away.  The police asked him to stop, he did.  Then he asked the police officer if he was under arrest and if so the charge.  The police officer did not answer the question and apprehended my son.  They got into a scuffle.  In the end, the judge dismissed the charges of resisting arrest due to the fact that there was no probable cause for arrest.  I shared with them a second story about a day when my youngest son and I were heading home in a taxi from the cinema.  The taxi was stopped by a police officer.  Then there were four other cars that came and surrounded us.  They pulled out their guns, made my younger son who was 12 years old get out of the taxi, lay face down on the ground and then they hand cuffed him.  I had just purchased him a new wooden baseball bat just before we went to the movie while we were at the mall.  They had me get out of the car and they went through all of my personal belongings – a briefcase.  They said that they drew their weapons because of the baseball bat.  They said that there was a recent robbery of a taxi driver in the area and that is why they stopped us; coupled with the idea that it “looked like,” my son was trying to slouch in the back seat.  After I started to refer to police officers by badge number, they changed their aggressive tone to a more apologetic one.  “We just came from the movie theater Star number 3218,” I remember saying.  All of these things and more happened within a few months.

Not by coincidence, my daughter had her softball bat taken from her by a police officer.  She had the bat in a softball bag that was a back pack.  The handle of the bat was visible and because of that, the police officer, holding his gun in hand, called my daughter to him while she walked from the high school along 5^th avenue.  He told her to give him the bat and she did.  It took me a month to get back the softball bat.  I was told that the officer took the bat because he was afraid that someone would take it from her and use it for a weapon.  I am over 40 years old and I cannot say with much certainty that I have any respect for a police officer.

      Mrs. Hernandez asked me if it made me felt safe because the treatment that my three children received from police officers was strict evidence that the police officers were protecting the neighborhood.  Ms. Thompson held firm that the police officers had the guns and for that reason alone, we should simply do whatever they ask.  I told Mrs. Hernandez that W.E.B Dubois once said that the police system was designed in the South to control slaves.  This is no less far from the truth in the North.  The police system in America is in no way designed to do anything more than intimidate, frustrate and impose American racism on blacks and Hispanics alike. 

     We had another conversation about the new contract.  Ms. Thompson pretended to be knowledgeable about the contract.  It was asked what happens to sick and personal days when or if one retires.  She said that the contract allows us to have our personal days and they will pay us full rate for them, but they will pay us $35 for each sick day.  I commented that that was a loss of money it was better to use all of the sick days, and then retire or resign.  Then Ms. Thompson said that we would get paid all of our sick days up to $2000.  By then, I realized that she didn’t know what she spoke of and I ignored the rest of the conversation. 

     When Ms. Willis entered, the conversation of her assignment from yesterday took command.  Yesterday, she was given a female freshman student who was dealing with down-syndrome.  Ms. Willis was the student’s one on one aide during the freshman orientation.  The student later was assigned to Trainable Mentally Handicap classes. The wording has changed suddenly to TST – but no one knows what TST means.   Ms. Willis told her story about how the girl was resistant to participate in the freshman orientation activities.  She did not want to enter certain rooms, or walk down certain hallways at certain times.  She did not want to write and she became at one point aggressive enough to hit Ms. Willis’s hand.  The conversation went on to critique the decision of bringing the student to school on an orientation day where mainstream freshmen were walking through the building on scavenger hunts, forming groups and teams for various competitions.  It was obvious to Ms. Willis that the activities and the environment were not good or safe for the girl or the mainstream students who had to come into contact with her.  Then the conversation veered into Ms. Willis’s lack of training.  In fact, she had not been given any special training neither had she been advised on what to do with a child dealing with down-syndrome.  She felt helpless.   

A Teacher's Aide Journal #5

                                                                    Day 3

     I worked a half day today because I had to appear in court this morning.  My ex-wife by help of a lawyer entered a petition asking the judge for permission to remove my daughter from the state so that they both can live in Georgia.  She believes that since I have a master’s degree and a few classes away from a second one, that I should earn more money and being that I am due for a downward support modification, she claims that she can’t afford to live in Illinois if the modification goes through.  Humorously enough, finding her own job does not seem to be an option for her.  At any rate, we were ordered to see a mediator.  This is very upsetting to me because I will miss 5 days of work in the next three months due to domestic issues related to an ex-wife who wants more money than I am paid. 

    When I arrived at the school, I saw that I was assigned to work at the welcoming station for the third day of registration.  There I was with two other aides, a secretary who works in the attendance office and a band instructor.  Our jobs were to give the registering people a printout of their registration progress, then check to see if the registering student was listed on the disciplinary dean’s list for mischief conduct or if the student was a freshman who had not taken the Explorer Exam.  After we verified that the student’s name did not appear on any of the two lists, we checked the paper work brought with them from home to ensure that the forms were properly completed and that the proper proof of residency information was in the parent’s possession.  They were required to have rental leases or property tax bill, utility bills, state ID or driver license, and a birth certificate.  The most common form missing was the birth certificate as it was not mentioned in the letter that was sent to parents to detail what documentation they needed to register their child.  At any rate, we were told to turn them away if they did not have the birth certificate.

     I remember an in-service from three months ago.  It was conducted by Mr. Frazier from the regional office.  He told us that it was unlawful to prevent someone to register if they did not provide a birth certificate at registration.  The way he explained it was that birth certificates were needed to show guardianship and that we were to allow parents to register their children and they would have a number of days to bring in the birth certificate so that it would be placed in file.  If after those days had passed, the student was to be reported to someone who would take it from there, contact the parent and do whatever their job required them to do.  I mentioned that we – the school – may be liable for turning them away, but it was not my call and I was here to parrot what I was told and not to think or to make sense of what I was asked to do.  Furthermore, I was certain that the parents who were here to register their children had no idea of the legalities involved.  We turned away twelve parents from the time I arrived. 

                                                                          Day 4

      When I started today, I was at the same station as yesterday.  I was the first line of defense, or the greeting team – whatever it was called.  When I entered the band room where everyone waited, I saw nearly thirty people seated and waiting.  I thought to respect their time and announce that if they did not have a birth certificate, they would not be allowed to register.  About five people stood and walked away.  I continued to make this announcement for the entire day until 50 minutes remained and Mr. LaSorda, came into the band room to explain that we could not turn people away for not having birth certificates.  He said that the returning students’ certificates were on file and that we could only hope that new students and freshmen would have the certificates with them.  He then went on to explain everything that Mr. Frazier explained months ago. For the last 50 minutes, we did not turn away anyone for not having birth certificates.

     There was a student who came to my table wanting to see her counselor.  She was already registered and had her books.  She was unhappy that she was not placed in Honors English and wanted a schedule change.  I tried to calm her by explaining to her that the counselors were all busy with registration and that the issue of schedule change was such a small one at this time that it could be resolved on the first day of school.  She left and in about two hours, I noticed that she had returned and was in the registration line outside of the school standing with her mother.  At this time the line was so long, that it was out the door and in the parking lot.  I stopped to talk to her mother and I repeated what I told her daughter.  The mother understood what I said, but she was unwilling to leave.  “I know these people,” she said and explained that sense she was already hear, she would wait and settle the matter today.  She was so adamant, that she was willing to wait the remainder of the day.  She said that she was not leaving until she spoke to a counselor.  I had security call Mr. LaSorda who came in a matter of minutes.  I tried to brief him of the problem, but he said that I didn’t have to.  Not feeling very comfortable with that, I simply said that I have a parent who is insistent on seeing a counselor.  We walked to the parent still in line outside of the door and I pointed her out.  Mr. Burks, the head of security showed his face accompanied by another security officer.  Naturally, security had their ears open to hear what the parent had to say, and when she explained that she needed to talk to a counselor for a schedule change, Mr. Burks turned to walk away saying to me that he would not have bothered to call Mr. LaSorda over such a matter.  I told him that she was insistent and that she said that she would not leave until she spoke to a counselor.  Mr. Burks said “Well, she has that right.” His suggestion that she could have waited as long as she wanted struck me as insensitive.  He continued on about his business and I went back to my table.  Later, I overheard Mr. LaSorda summoning me over the security radio held at the side of the one security officer who was in the band room with us.  When I went to LaSorda’s office, he asked me to have a seat as he finished his telephone conversation.  When he was finished, he told me that what I did was right and he wanted to let me know that he had no intentions of insulting me when he said that he didn’t need me to brief him.  He said that he didn’t want me to feel like it was my job to deal with disgruntled parents.  He said that dealing with disgruntled parents was part of his job.  He said that with registration going on, we tend to forget that we are here for other reasons and services.  I thanked him for saying what he said and returned to my station.

A Teacher's Aide's Journal #4

                I sat in the bookroom with nothing to do as I had already placed barcode labels in all of the new books and I had already stacked the books in categories based on subjects.  There was nothing left to do so I sat at a table towards the back of the room, took an American Literature Anthology in hand and started to read an Edgar Allan Poe’s short story.  It was at that time when a student named Haven entered the classroom.  She was a student in my class a year ago when I was a long term sub at the start of the year.  The story behind that is that the English department chair who was Mr. LaSorda now promoted to assistant principal was replaced by Ms. Jones - unofficially.   The board of education for some reason decided to make all of the coaches in the district along with all department chairs re-apply for their jobs.  Over the summer, the principals were given the challenge of re-hiring; then after hiring or re-hiring they had to wait for the board to approve of those selections.  The process took a while – much longer than the ten weeks of summer vacation.  So when the school year started, Ms. Jones was not approved for the English department chair’s position.  She was offered the job and began to assume the responsibilities of the job.  Being that she was assigned five classes, that she could not teach while working as the unofficial department chair, I was asked to come in as a substitute teacher until someone was hired as a full time teacher.  The full time teacher would interview after Ms. Jones was made the official chair by board approval. 

This was the way last school year started.  I was the substitute teacher for Ms. Jones who often felt it necessary to sabotage my classes by dropping in and teaching a lesson.  There were a number of things bad about that situation.  First, Ms. Jones was in the classroom on the first day and I was not allowed to start the class with my routine of establishing order.  Our styles were very different.  Ms. Jones started the first day by open discussion with the students about what they did over the summer and what she did over the summer.  She introduced me as her substitute and felt the need to explain to the students that she was going to be the department chair and that a new teacher would have to be hired to replace her.  She explained to them that if they had any problems that they should come to see her.  In the past, what worked for me when I was a full time teacher is that on the first day I would give the student an assessment that allowed me to have a clear understanding of their skills relating to grammar and writing.  When I had finished that, I established order by specifically detailing the expectations and routines.  It has never been my concern what the children did over the summer or what they would like to do with their lives – all of that would come out in due time.  As a result of her conversation with them, the classroom became too social and students tried to take advantage.  They went to her with complaints about my discipline procedures, they complained about my demands that they used Cornell Notes.  They complained to her about too much homework, tests or quizzes every Friday, and telephone calls home.  All of this, according to the students was “too much” and I was “just a sub not even a real teacher.”  One of the biggest complaints came when the students were assigned to write an expository essay.  A good number of them wrote a narrative.  I graded them a zero because they did not do the assignment.  I explained that those with zeros needed to see me after school for re-teaching and a second chance to re-write the essay for full credit.  I was asked to use the department writing rubric on their essays and by the standards of the rubric, points were given for simple things like Format – the student uses double spacing and one inch margins with the proper font. 

The one good thing that came from those two months of teaching Ms. Jones’s classes was that the honor students had an appreciation for what I presented.  She had five classes in all and two of them were honor classes.  I did not know the magnitude of the appreciation that the honor classes had until that day while I was in the bookroom wasting time.  One of my former students was a NJROTC volunteer working in the bookroom.  She explained to me that she felt that she learned nothing in English class from the time I left.  She said that I was the only teacher that taught grammar and who was motivational.  She asked me if I was going to teach again.  I told her that I didn’t think so because now I was not a substitute I was a part time teacher’s aide.  She said that the teacher that was hired and replaced me didn’t know what she was doing.  She also told me that she took the ACT over the summer as I had encouraged them to do.  She said that everything I taught was on the test.

Near the end of the day, another student from one of those honor classes entered the bookroom.  Her name was Divinity.  She was a very receptive girl and she as well as the other students in the honors classes showed me a lot of appreciation for the lessons as they felt that they were getting preparation for tests.  Admittedly, I spent more time motivating them with ideas of dreaming big and not making limits on the possibilities of success.  “If you can dream it, you can achieve it.” I used a lot of quotes from Napoleon Hill.  At any rate, Divinity explained that she liked the way I spoke to the class and she aspired to be a motivational speaker on an international level.

                Our conversation started with her explaining to me that she did not take the ACT exam over the summer as I had encouraged her to do at the end of the previous school year.  She missed the June test and she asked for advice; I told her about the October test that she could take.  She said that she had the ACT prep book and that she often studied.  I thought of other resources and when I saw Chief from the NJROTC walking in the hall I remembered that there was an NJROTC test prep site that I used for my children.  I asked him over to tell her about the site but he would not tell her unless she joined the NJROTC – she was not interested.  He went ahead to sell the NJROTC program to her with a long spill and I could see the blankness in her eyes - she had zoned him out.  Her body language was obvious that she was not interested.  She examined her nails, shifted weight, pointed her foot to the door, folded arms and made an occasional statement “I’ll take that inconsideration.”  When he finished and shook hands with Divinity’s mother who was with her, I took Divinity and her mother to the career center where I turned on a computer and pulled up the collegeboard.org web site. I explained that this was a good resource as I conducted a mock college search while asking questions about her future plans.  She was most excited about her plan to graduate a semester early and spend time with her dad visiting colleges. 

Eventually we started to talk about her dream and her passion.  Her mother was naturally pushing towards a sensible career option that would guarantee her daughter a chance of working and earning a living while she pursued her dream of being a motivational speaker.  I was not very comfortable with this, because it often occurs that people give up on their dreams while holding down a job that they really don’t want and Divinity valued my honest opinion so I could not agree with the mother.  I had to be tactful.  I eventually told her that she should stop saying that she wants to be a motivational speaker and she should begin to say that she is a motivational speaker.  If she believes that she is then the next step is to do.  She did not have to wait to start motivating people she simply needed to start doing it.  She had ideas about a communications major in college but I told her that such a major was for journalist and broadcasting people.  She then thought about psychology classes and studying the brain and I realized she was thinking of formal ways of understanding how to motivate people.  I asked her why couldn’t she just make speeches and put them on YouTube?  I asked her if she had google plus, twitter and such social networks that she could subscribe to and promote her motivational speeches.  I suggested that she could upload her speeches and videos while promoting them to the people in her circles.  She liked that idea.  I went one step further by giving her my email address and suggesting that if she wrote a motivational speech, she could send it to me and I would write one back to her.  Such practice and feedback should help her to improve.  She liked that idea. 

One of the things that I thought I would do when I became a teacher was to inspire and motivate students.  I thought that I would have an impact on the world forging a new way of thinking in the youth and cultivate that thinking into a thinking pattern that would make change in the world or at least the community.  Somewhere in teaching methods, curriculum, student discipline, phone calls home, lesson plans, college readiness standards, and ten miles more of shit piled on education, that idea of motivating and inspiring students was lost.  It felt nice to do what teachers are supposed to do and ironically enough I was able to do this more after I was no longer a teacher.

A Teacher's Aide's Adventure #2

The End of Day One

When parents came to register their students, just three days before the first day of school, they needed to stop at station one to show that they had all of the correct documentation: proof of residency, lunch form, and registration packet completely filled out. Station one was the band room where there were approximately 150 seats.  The parents and some of them with their students were asked to sit in rows in an order that reflected the order in which they arrived.  They snaked around the rows so that when security called for a number of them, that number of people would leave the room and go to the cafeteria where they would stand in line for station two. This could take up to 30 minutes before they were called from station one.   Station two was where the residency check was scrutinized.  The parents needed to have state ID, two utility bills with names that matched, and a birth certificate.  Then they were sent to station three with the registration packet that I was supposed to file after the people at my table checked to make sure that all of the information was properly filled out in the registration packet:  emergency phone numbers, medical information etc.  In what seemed to me like a terrible waste of time and double work was that as the people at my table verified the information, they inputted that information into the computer system.  When that was finished, the parents were sent to station four and the nurse would check their shot records.  Station five was where they paid their fees and station six was where they got their schedule.  Finally, they reached station seven which was the book room. With them they carried a form that was more like a check list to indicate that they had successfully passed each of the previous stations.

I sat at station three and spoke to the ladies at my table.  It was here that I continued my conversation with Ms. Roberts. It was obvious to me that Ms. Roberts was a devout Christian lady as she was willing to accept the injuries she received at work, while working, as the result her own misdoings.  She believed that the injuries to her wrist from the excessive typing were her punishment for the sin of not following the doctor’s orders.  After all, as she put it, God put the doctor in that position to help her and she did not follow his instructions.  Her actions were almost the same as not following God’s instruction.  When I asked her if she thought that she was justly compensated for her hard work, she mentioned that she works for God and not for the district or for the school.  She said that God would give her all the compensation she needed.  It was God, in her opinion that required her to be here for these children.

                

When lunch time came, the ladies were told by Mr. LaSorda to rotate but Ms. Warfield did not.  Due to the fact that I did not know the computer system and was not qualified to input information, Ms. Warfield felt that it was a bad idea for her to leave for lunch as the line had significantly grown.  My job was to simply file the registration packets by alphabetical order.  Ms. Warfield went on in a semi-grieved manner about how so many people waited until the last minute to come and register their children.  She mentioned that these people had the entire summer to register and she did not expect so many of them to be here at that moment. 

               

It was true what she said, the school district started registration for this school year at the end of the last year.  It was not June before the registration packets were given to students and parents had a deadline to make to receive a discount in registration fees.  After that deadline, a second deadline was made for mid-July.  The mid-July deadline was for a $100 discount on registration fees. 

Something about this strikes me ill.  First of all, I am appalled that it is required for parents to pay anything to a public school system.  The state of Illinois allows schools to make charges to parents for “supplies.” This is part of the state statutes.  However, the schools do not have to disclose what supplies the funds are supposed to cover.  This allows a variety of charges from all schools and districts.  I know of some Chicago school – the selective enrollment schools – charging over $300 per student.  I have a friend who literally had to pay over $900 to register three children in school.   The fact that the school gave $100 off for those who registered in July seems to prove that the registration fee was not going to supplies.  It just makes no sense to me because any business will estimate an operating cost before a fiscal year begins.  That cost, in theory, should be divided by the expected amount of children - it makes no sense that giving $100 off for an undetermined amount of students would cover the cost of supplies that are expected to be needed.  This makes me believe that the registration fee is used for something else.  In addition to all of this, there are fees to pay for students who join sports and students who take art classes, computer classes, and other electives.  If they have already paid $200 at registration, why do they have to pay more for these classes?

It was at that time during the influx that I had an epiphany.    I noticed that each person who came to our table took an average of eleven minutes to complete the registration process.  The ladies looked at the paper packets that the parents brought to the table and then the ladies double checked in the computer to make sure the information on the paper was identical to what was put in the computer.  In some cases, parents were irate and claimed that they did not have their registration packets because they mailed them to the school as the packet stated was to be done.  This meant that one of the secretaries had the tedious task of entering the information from the packets into the computer system.  Obvious there were errors for various reasons that ranged from incomplete forms to illegible handwriting.   At the same time, the information for returning students was already in the computer system and the ladies at my table spent time updating the information – telephone numbers were the most common updates.   At other points, the ladies simply asked questions as if they were reading a script from the computer.  I thought that this system could have been adjusted and perhaps easier if the information was completed by the parents online.  Some parents were disgruntled about having to physically bring in a birth certificate when there was one on file from the previous year as some of the children were returning students.  I heard Ms. Sims explain that she was not expected to go through the files and pull birth certificates to verify the required information relating to guardianship.  I am sensitive to the financial needs of the school system, but I could not help but think that if someone was to calculate all of the man hours used on that day and the salary associated with those hours coalesced with the man hours associated with physically receiving registration packets in person or by mail and inputting that information into the computer system – entering the wrong information and re-entering information factored in with the time to deal with disgruntle and irate parents ; it should have been more cost effective to pay for an online system to allow parents to input their registration information.  I mentioned this to the ladies who sat with me and we all eventually agreed that the district’s lack of foresight, ability to manage such a system, or whatever the reason was gave more personal benefit to us all as we were getting paid for our work and if the system was better, we would be at a loss of income. 

The Teacher’s aides were asked to start work three days earlier than their contracted days.  As a result, we were paid $120 for each day of work.  Obviously I may not have the calculations correct as I don’t know how expensive such a web based system would be for the school district.  However, the district has three schools and teacher aides to help at all three.  This would mean that the extra funds were to cover payments for approximately 25 teacher aides.  At that time, I did not know that most of the secretaries and registrar were 12 month employees so the district incurred no extra cost for them to work.  However, I continue to hold the belief that for the sake of accuracy and time efficacy, the cost effectiveness of an online registration system would prove its value.

The day was nearly ended when the NJROTC commander purchased pizza for the students who were helping out.  Master Chief ordered more pizza than what the students could eat and there was so much pizza left over that they, out of their kindness, shared the pizza with the staff members who were in the cafeteria, the security in the hallways and other teacher’s aides who were nearby.  We also shared with the parents who were registering as most of us were not hungry having already eaten lunch.  We were sensitive to the fact that most of the parents at that time were had been in the building for over two hours waiting to reach us. 

We did not know when we were supposed to leave for the day.  The general consensus was that we left at 3:00, but I stayed later because the letter I received in the mail indicated a 3:30 end time.  The other aides, with the exception of Mr. Ross, seemed to be unclear about the start and end times for the rest of the week.  Ms. Thompson and another aide indicated that they would have doctor’s appointments the following day since our work time was, according to the letter we received, from 11:00 a.m. until 6 p.m.   Ms. Hernandez expressed at that time her aggravation with being called in to start work three days earlier than originally scheduled from contract negotiations.  It was 3:15 and I had been filing paper work for four hours now and it was time to go.  I went to file my last two packets of paper work when The Special Ed secretary informed me that she was told by the main office secretary that the paper work gathered at my table was not to be filed.  I returned with the two packets and informed my fellow table co-workers of what I was told.  Ms. Warfield who was an academic counselor explained that she had given that task to me at the bequest of the Assistant Principal, Mr. LaSorda.  By this time, I needed to punch out so that I would not receive any disciplinary action for “milking the clock.”   

It was at that time that I received a text message to call the Track Coach at North High School.  Our school district is made of three schools.  North High School was the original one made and started in 1906.  South High School was built and started 50 years later and in 2002 the third school Central was opened.    Central is ironically enough the center piece of controversy in the district.  It is a selective enrollment school that accepts students based on seventh and eighth grade test scores as well as a school test for entrance.   I had been a volunteer coach for him three years at North High School as a track and field coach, although I work at South.  The assistant who was a paid coach for the track team at North, left for a different school system that paid more.  The district had previously fired all the coaches and everyone had to reapply.  I went the entire summer without an interview and at this time, the coach told me that there was an open position for a cross country assistant coach and that I should apply.  I felt uncomfortable in this as I had already spent two months with the football team as a volunteer and the cross country season started two weeks ago.  The cross country coaches at both schools are the sprint coaches for the track teams and although I am better suited for the job, I would be the assistant.  This would mean that I would have to leave the football team.

It perplexed me that when all of the coaches in the district were made to re-apply for their jobs, I was not given an interview at all.  I am baffled at what was in the resumes of the coaches who were hired.  At North, the boys and girls coaches had no cross country experience and never competed in one event.  At South, the female coach Ms. Green did run cross country but the boys coach never ran cross country at all.  On my resume, I not only ran cross country, I coached a championship team in the Chicago Public Schools.  I can’t imagine what in the world did three of the four head coaches say in their interviews that caused the athletic directors to choose them as head coaches.  Furthermore, two of the four coaches – the two at North – had coached collectively for 10 years as cross country coaches and in their times produced not one team to place higher than last in the conference.  That’s 10 collective years of last place, and after re-applying for their jobs they were given another chance.  I thought it was laughable that I was asked to be the assistant coach after the season had already began. At that point, I had already committed myself to coaching the football team as a volunteer defensive coordinator for the freshman team. I had no intention of going back on my word.

When I punched out, I noticed that all of the aides had already punched out at 3:00.  I gathered my belongings and then went to the field house where I waited for football players.  While doing my job at the bookroom as well as in the cafeteria, I actively promoted the football program to the incoming freshman students.  I invited them to a speed and agility workout that same day at 4:00.  I had previously informed the coaches that I would give this training Monday, Wednesday, and Friday because these were my early days for work – according to the letter I received.  I told the freshman and sophomore teams on the last day of summer camp and Mr. Ross, reiterated what I said.  He also told them that I was not getting paid for my work with them and that they should take advantage of my expertise as well as appreciating the extra time that I was willing to spend with them.  With all of that there were two of the three freshmen whom I invited and one second string lineman from the sophomore team who was by far the least talented of them all.  We did agility drills, sprints on the indoor track, and downhill sprints outside.  I talked to them about being tenacious and determined at everything they do for that will give them success in whatever they aspire to accomplish.  Then we ended practice.  

A Teacher's Aide Journal: The Beginning

I've taught in high schools for eleven years and now I am not a teacher but a teacher aide.  I often wondered about what makes good schools good and bad schools bad.  I've seen distinctive differences in them and before I decided to conclude whether the school district where I now work is good or bad, I thought it wise to journal my experience.  Here is what I experienced.

I arrived and punched the time clock at 7:30 a.m. and joined the other Teacher’s Aides in the hallway outside of the main office.  They were waiting for instructions and talking about their summer vacation when I joined them.  I stood for a while until I noticed that no instructions would be given soon; so, I left them to place my duffel-bag that I often carry with me in the teacher’s lounge.  When I returned, Mr. Ross had been given a small group of papers, each bearing the name of a teacher’s aide with working assignments.  He passed the assignments out to those aides whose names were on the papers.  Now, Mr. Ross is often full of jokes, so as he passed out the papers, he took on a slight air of a condescending aristocrat.  It was obvious that he was making fun of the administrator who gave the papers to him.  I was the last one called and when I read the paper, I saw that I was assigned to work in the book room.

Being assigned to the book room meant nothing, as there was no book room attendant hired for the position over the summer.  The door was locked and no one was around to give further instructions to me.  This dilemma held true for everyone else and so we all retreated to the teacher’s lounge until those persons who we were to assist arrived.   It was not until 9:00 a.m. that we were able to do work.  Until then, I entertained myself by looking up baseball statistics of minor league players while my colleagues were busy in conversation behind me.  The teacher’s lounge was a spacious room with two long tables, one smaller round one, a surplus of chairs around each of the tables, eight computers – only three of them were working – two six foot sofas, a copy machine, two bathrooms, a microwave, and two soda machines.  There are four windows in the room. One was opened so that the sound of the lawn mowers were heard easily and this caused my colleagues to talk loudly around the table -  so loudly that I could not filter them out and was pulled into listening to what they said.

At the risk of sounding condescending and arrogant, I do not generally find the conversations of my colleagues interesting and do not often participate in them.  I sometimes view their conversations as juvenile in nature and they rarely seem to show a higher level view point.  Sometimes they echo information that is the simple opinion of other people or hearsay, and they present this information as if it is factual.  There were three men aside from me as teacher’s aides: Mr. Ross, Mr. Horne, and Mr. Thompson.  The other seven were women: Yarbrough, Bailey, Taylor, Hernandez, Jenkins, and Dobbs. 

Mrs. Dobbs was married over the summer vacation and her name was changed to Dorsey, but since we already had a Dorsey – who did not report to work that morning – most people continued to call her Ms. Dobbs.  She did not even bother to change her email or computer log in which are both based on names.  They talked a bit about Ms. Dobbs’ wedding and then moved on to speaking about the last meeting we had together before the previous school year ended.  Mrs. Johnson – the department chair of the Special Services department -  had a bit of a conflict with Ms. Rush who told Mrs. Johnson that if she felt uncomfortable about the way some people treated her,  she should first look within to see the problem. What was strange about that meeting was that I expected it to be upbeat with flowered comments and promises about the future.  Ironically, it was just the opposite.  Mrs. Johnson complained to us about how we distract her secretary when we stop and talk to her.  She spoke about how disappointed she was with the aides not being where they were supposed to be and that on many occasions she had to go look for them.  There was one comment made during that meeting by Ms. Dorsey, who recalled a moment when she went to the bathroom to “take a dump” and she suspected that Mrs. Johnson followed her to the bathroom to be certain that she was honest about using it.  Mrs. Johnson also mentioned that there were times when we were in group conversations or in conversations with her secretary and the conversations came to an abrupt end when she entered the room.  She said that she felt disrespected when she asked someone to carry out a task and they did not stop whatever they were doing to do what she asked.  She said that she wanted things to be different in the next school year and that she was going to be more ready to document what she thought was insubordinate behavior.  I had only been in the department for 6 weeks when this conversation took place, so obviously it had nothing to do with me.  It was, at least, entertaining.  At some point during the back and forward bickering I tuned it all out, took out my cell phone, and started to play chess. 

 In retrospect, it is obvious why Ms. Rush felt free to tell the department chair, Mrs. Johnson to look within herself if people had a problem with her.  There was a rumor on that first day we returned to work that she would not be coming back, as she had a job in the next town to the east of us.  They moved from that conversation to speak of others who would not return – Mr. Ortiz who was a certified teacher in Mexico but for some reason was never able to get certified here.  They veered from that conversation to talk about the Color Purple characters which somehow led them to disclose their concerns regarding the dearth of teacher’s aides, especially since at least two people were gone and not replaced.  They were concerned that there would not be enough aides to work in the classrooms, what with Mrs. Johnson’s plans to have multiple aides working as one-on-one student supporters.   That led to a brief discussion of how Ms. Hernandez did not want to work individually with a student having Autism.  Somehow at the end of the last school year Ms. Hernandez was told that she would be assigned to work one-on-one with a Hispanic student whose parents requested that the assistant be a native Spanish speaker.  Ms. Hernandez thought that she should get extra pay for such an assignment because she was singled out.  She was determined not to accept the position and said that she would fight Mrs. Johnson and get union support.

Personally I thought this was uncalled for.  I’m sure that Ms. Hernandez informed the administration in some way by a check mark on the application or verbally that she was a Spanish speaking candidate for the job.  At that point, such information increases ones chance of getting hired and now she suggests that it is unfair for her to work with a student who speaks Spanish just because she is the only one of the aides who can do that job.  Her attitude seemed very petty to me and I thought it was a terrible way to begin the year – she was obviously disgruntled. 

When 9:00 came, I went to the book room to find three NJROTC students already there with assignments to pull books for registered students at the request of the Attendant.  The Librarian was also there, but she had a condition that would not allow her to lift heavy objects or scan bar codes into the computer.  She wanted to teach me how to do it and to perform the task under her code, but the Attendant said she would face disciplinary actions if she allowed me to use her code.  There were four other aides assigned to the book room with me.  They took on the task of placing bar code labels on the inside cover of the new books that were shipped to the school.  These were the new Algebra books; 90 of them with four people setting the labels inside.  I thought four people were enough so I did not help and instead, I waited for instructions to do something else.  There were fewer books than usual because most of the math books were now online.  I learned that the Chemistry books that Special Ed students use in cross categorical/ contained classes were honors Chemistry books.   I was told that the regular Chemistry book would not be used because it was said to be too hard for the children, and that book was also online.  When the labeling was finished, I moved a pile of Algebra books to the other side of the room and then sat down to look through the old honors Chemistry book.  It was at that time that Mr. LaSorda, the assistant principal came and told us that there was help needed in the cafeteria too.  I volunteered and went to the table where two counselors and the registrar were seated.  I was assigned the task of filing the paperwork they gave me. One of the ladies, Mrs. Roberts who I thought was a counselor, showed me her hands and the stitches in them. On her right hand, the stitches were in the palm.  She mentioned that the stitches were the result of working hard and taking few breaks.  I later learned that Ms. Roberts was not a counselor, but a secretary for the counselors.   I mentioned that she may have had a worker’s compensation case.  She did not agree except to say that her husband thought she should not come to work that day, and that she could only blame herself for the injuries due to her frequent refusal to take breaks and use a wrist brace that her doctor prescribed. 

I imagine that in some ways one might think that it is admirable for Mrs. Roberts to accept the idea that her injuries were the result of her own negligence.  I do not agree.  First of all there had to have been something wrong with her wrist before she went to the doctor and was given a brace.  Secondly, she does not consider the reason why she did not take her breaks as required by the support staff contract.  If she did not take her breaks, it seems to me that she felt overwhelmed with work.  I am sure she had some kind of supervisor who should have insisted that she take her breaks and not work through them.  I was astonished at the attitude that the injuries received at work doing the job she was hired to do were her responsibility.  Even if it was, those injuries occurred at work and she owes it to herself to take care of those injuries.  Furthermore, the job owes her just the same.