Yo Mista!

A long time ago it was inherently assumed teachers wanted the best for their students. It was assumed teachers develop their own systems, procedures, assignments and grading policies. As a principal, you didn't tell teachers to track kids' progress. You didn't tell teachers to assess student skill levels on the first day and then teach accordingly. Times have changed. Today, New York City teachers are told what to do and how to do it, even when we are already doing what we're being asked to do. It's as if principals now assume teachers only want to be teachers for the pension, which by the way is shit, you could do a lot better in the market on your own. If a bulk of principals think this way, I can only imagine what the people above them think of teachers: a greedy bunch of fat cat bums that assign problems out of a textbook and merely grade them. This type of thinking is toxic and unproductive, and only hurts the kids in the long run. It starts with preparatio...

After years of contemplation, I've come to the conclusion that birthdays are a lot more fun when your age hasn't hit double digits. I have few good memories of my childhood, and of those, my birthdays seem to dominate most of them. It makes sense: December 20th rolled in right before Christmas break. Yes, I said Christmas break, because back then, nobody said, "Happy Holidays." You fucking said "Merry Christmas" or you didn't say anything at all. There weren't too many Jews or Muslims where I grew up. Right around my birthday, school started slowing down. Instead of learning new material, we'd make decorations for our respective Christmas parties. Or maybe we'd go see a school play or watch It's a Wonderful Life . I would bring in some cupcakes on my birthday and we'd be set - coloring with crayons, using scissors, putting shit together with Elmer's glue, and eating chocolate cupcakes. It really didn't get any better for ...

Last Wednesday marked the beginning of a new trimester at my school. Naturally, this was a high attendance day, as most students come to school to pick up their schedules and renew their free NYC MetroCards. Sadly, some of these students will never show up to class for the rest of the term. I began day one with a brief lesson on perimeter and circumference, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two students passing a note back and forth to each other. I looked away and grinned: this was going to be too easy. I progressed through the lesson and as students continued to do a problem on the board, I pretended to make my way around the classroom, checking their answers. As I made my way around to the students writing the note, I quickly snapped it out from in front of them. Then, I began reading it out loud to the entire class: Exhibit D: Actual student work. Do note the somewhat decent penmanship. As you probably guessed from the racial slurs, this exchange was between a H...

Nobody's perfect. A few months ago, I wrote a post about how happy I was that Mayor Michael Bloomberg was launching a Young Men's Initiative for New York City. Then, he went ahead and said this: What irritated me most was not his comment about "firing half the teachers." It was what he said after that: "Double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students." Uh.... No. It's not. Doesn't matter if you're fucking Jaime Escalante . Any teacher knows there is a direct relationship between the number of students in your class and how productive your class will be. Not to mention all students learn differently, and so if you increase the number of students, you lose the ability to work with all students one-on-one at some point in class. This holds true for college and university as well. For my undergrad at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I honestly learned very little material in my "lecture-sty...

Today is the last day of the first trimester. It also happens to be a Friday. Only now, in my third year of teaching at a transfer high school, I finally know what to fully expect on days like this. Note: If you don't know what to expect on days like this, you haven't read this . Or this . Grades were due to the administration today at 9 AM. Since my Algebra classes culminated last Wednesday with a final exam, I decided to wrap-up the remainder of the week with Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Yes, I do realize this movie portrays Holmes engaging in numerous fist fights. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle readers: I do sincerely apologize for the heart attack this may have caused you.  Before you judge me for showing the Hollywood version of Sherlock Holmes to my students, consider this: in the movie, Sherlock not only uses his superb reasoning skills , but he also comes off to be somewhat "cool." Downey's version of Holmes is mainstream enoug...

What am I thankful for? I imagine elementary school teachers across the country are getting their students to answer that question this Thanksgiving holiday week. My answer to this question never changed from year-to-year: I am thankful for my family, my house, my friends, school, food, money, and video games. Pretty standard. Of course, I wasn't really thankful for my family, but I couldn't really say that without consequences. It would be quite awkward to be the only second grader in class who didn't put family on his "What am I thankful for" list. I knew better. I was aware of the things that raised flags in the eyes of others. And so every year, I announced to the world that I was thankful for my mother and father with a big smile on my face. No Mrs. Robinson, those aren't fingernail gouges on my arm. Surely you're mistaken. I just fell into some bushes playing basketball outside.   What an idiot , I thought. You can't play basketball at my h...

Thomas Edison once said, " I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."   I'm going to be honest: it's only midway through November and I think my school is on the verge of falling apart. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but it seems as if we're trying to go out of our way to make things more complicated, pointless, and ultimately, not fun . School should be a fun place for teachers and students. As it is being run right now, it is not. Over the past week, I've spent a considerable amount of time during my off-periods wondering what the hell happened. Three years ago, this place started with such a great culture and attitude. That feels like a long time ago. There's a long list of things that have been eating away at me and everyday, something new gets added on. Decisions are being made without foresight. Things that I thought would obviously be implemented have not been implemented. I thought we would have figured out at ...

A recent study finds 8th grade math and science students perform better on tests when their teachers spend more class time lecturing rather than providing group-work or other problem-solving activities. More details about the article and study can be found here . Well, this is not a shock. Factual material (and in particular, foundational material) is best presented through a lecture, especially with the content that's currently taught in middle-school math and science. Additionally, these students weren't asked to apply the concepts they were taught, i.e. the research was completely based on the results of a standardized test. I guess this is breaking news to some people: if you desperately want students to pass a test, teach to the test. In other shocking news, hard-working teachers aren't paid enough.

"So like, what do you win?" a student in my class pessimistically asked last week. My jaw fell to the floor. I was speechless. Some students raised their eyebrows, others snickered, and a few patiently waited for my witty comeback. Mista always has a witty comeback , they think. Any student in my class will tell you that it's damn near impossible to get the last word with me. But I was stupefied. This kid got me. Of course, I was speechless because I had just finished explaining the concept of raising money for charity. More specifically, I was explaining why most of the male staff and some male students were growing moustaches for the month of November (i.e. Movember ). I had pulled up our team page on the SMARTBoard and was going through all the contributions people had made from around the world. It was a proud moment for me. Well, until the "what do you win?" question. What the fuck do you mean, what do you win? Thank goodness for brain-to-mouth filt...

I'm twenty-six years old and in my third year of teaching. I can hardly say I know anything about the profession or make broad generalizations about my student population. It's very tempting to try one-size fits all strategies and assume they will work for everyone all of the time. Lately, my teacher colleagues and I has been trying to figure out why our students as a whole do shit throughout the semester, and then expect a "make-up packet" at the end of the semester that will save them from failing the course. Every semester, shit tons of students (most of whom I haven't seen all semester in school) decide to show up to class and ask if there's anything they can do. "Seriously? Like, what do you mean, if there's anything you can do?" I ask. "You know, like, make-up the work yo."  Exhibit A : My response. FYI-I do eventually stop laughing. Since the beginning, I've instituted a no make-up work policy. Well, technically I...

This November, I will be raising money for prostate cancer research by participating in the global movement known as " Movember ." Movember began in Australia, where a group of men grew out moustaches (mo's) for charity. Today, Movember marks a month long commitment for men to grow out a moustache (no beards allowed). Supported by women and other men, the point is to seek out sponsorship and raise as much money as possible to support prostate and testicular cancer research. It's like walking for charity, without the walking. I've already registered online and started my own team: it's pretty damn cool. Several friends and colleagues have joined. It's going to be super interesting teaching in my school, where most of the male staff will look like 1970s porn stars by mid-November. Who wants a moustache ride? Supporting a good movement always gets me excited, but what really blew my mind was that my campaign has garnered my male students' intere...

I received the following e-mail tonight: from: Keenan Joseph (keenan.joseph@randomschool.org) to: Yo Mista! (yomista@randomschool.org) date: Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 9:02 PM (58 minutes ago) subject: Assessment Hey, I forgot to hand in the quiz from earlier but I have it completed. Can I hand it in to you first thing tomorrow morning? I don't want a 0 to jeopardize my overall grade for the class. Such initiative. This is the kind of feel-good-shit that makes a teacher at a transfer high school feel great. Unfortunately, I think I'm growing a little jaded. I've seen so much of this honeymoon motivation over the past two years, that it's become predictable. Clearly, Keenan is a new student at my school, who probably came here to be different. To get away from his friends who acted as a distraction. To stop feeling so pressured to chill out without focusing on school. To graduate. On time or about time. In the coming weeks, Keenan will most certainly continue to domin...

I teach the last period of the school day this trimester, and surprisingly, it's quite fun. I think it's because of the particular mix of students I have in the class. I have taught many of these students before; they simply need the class for a credit they're missing. Even though it's seventh period, some of them actually show up on a consistent basis. They're also big personalities, which I like and work off of well. Today, I taught graphing multiple equations on a coordinate plane. Mid-lesson, I put up a problem on the SMARTBoard and asked the class to graph the lines. Leo and George immediately raised their hands: Leo: "Can I do this problem on the board, Mista?" Me: "Sure Leo, why don't you wait two minutes to let everyone else copy the problem down? Then you can step on up to the plate." George: "Mista! He just did the last one! I swear to God Leo, if you get this wrong, you're out of the math club. Like, completely ba...

I have a process when it comes to my job. When this process is executed to perfection, life is smooth. I get time to think about how the day went and how the lesson worked. Or how it didn't work. I'm not always perfect. But I like being close. My lesson PowerPoints are pre-uploaded to my school's e-mail from my Macbook Pro the evening before. The next morning, I arrive to school early and download them onto the Dell piece-of-shit-desktop computer connected to the SMARTBoard. In mere seconds, my lessons are open, ready and waiting to be presented. Quizzes and homework assignments are pre-downloaded to a USB thumb drive (also the evening before), which I simply plug into the Xerox printer in the main office and print. I always print five additional copies of whatever I need as I have learned from the past that having more copies of material is always a good thing. I don't lose things, but I guess students do. Humans. All quizzes and homework assignments are graded b...

In fifth period Algebra yesterday, we wrapped up ratios and proportions with an in-class activity exploring the Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio. This was one of those lessons where I thought my students would actually learn something useful, as neither the Fibonacci numbers nor the golden ratio are actually on the Integrated Algebra Regents Exam. This makes me a terrible teacher because I am not training my students to be test-takers. Obvi . I thought it'd be cool to show my students how the golden ratio is utilized in architecture, art, design , nature, etc. I highlighted how cosmetic surgeons often use a facial mask with proportions based off the golden ratio for their patients. Basically, I was setting them up to understand that proportions based off the golden ratio appear to be more pleasing to the human eye. Then the activity: I would partner students up and give each pair a ruler to measure each others' faces, hands, arms, feet, and legs. They then divide t...

This year, another school opened it's doors in the same building where my school operates. However, this new school isn't another high school, it's an elementary charter school run by a popular charter school network. With the opening of this charter school, there are now six schools operating in the same building. Of these, four are public high schools, one is a public transfer high school (where I teach), and now we have an elementary charter school on the ground level. Of course, these new kids on the block don't have to go through the metal detectors every other student has to go through in my building, they have their own entrance. I'm not bitching about this, no children should have to go through metal detectors, young or old. What I am going to bitch about is the glaring difference between how their school looks and operates versus my own. I went perusing through their hallways last week and was shocked to see how much their school reminded me...

Teaching the last period of the day is the worst, especially in a school like mine. During this time, I'm completely exhausted and for good reason: I've been on my feet all day explaining, lecturing, discussing and entertaining. I would much rather have this period off and use it to recharge my batteries than to have to deal with a 25% (or less) attendance rate. Most students in my school decide it's okay to ditch 7th period. You know, because staying an extra 54 minutes is just asking for too much. Last Wednesday, four students who I know for sure were in the school building didn't make it to my 7th period class. Instead of simply letting it slide and hoping the administration does its job, I decided to take the law into my own hands. I paused the class mid-lesson, hopped onto my computer, logged into my e-mail, and began crafting this in front of everyone: date          Wed, Sep 23, 2011 at 2:45 PM subject     ...

I've really been enjoying my third year teaching thus far, but lately it seems all the fun ends the moment the bell rings and I check my work e-mail. Lately, we've all been getting bombarded with e-mails concerning new policies, procedures, and other 1984 Orwellian-style control mechanisms. Every single meeting we've had as a complete staff has been about keeping us in check, rather than what we as a school can offer the students. A recent school initiative now requires teachers to "sign out" when we leave the building to grab lunch during our own lunch period. The day we receive a ball-and-chain free blackberry, I'm going to quit. I left investment banking because the job owned me and made me feel like there was always an eye in the sky. If my blackberry buzzed at two in the morning and I didn't respond, my cell phone would ring. If I didn't pick up, I'd get another ten e-mails. Eventually, I would get in deep shit with my deal team and then ...

Hello kiddies, I'm back. First of all, Iceland was amazing. We spent two weeks there: the first week driving around the island and the second week entirely in Reykjavik, the capital. The picture below pretty much captures the coolness of the trip. Nothing like a gigantic waterfall to quench the thirst. Although there was some hiking involved, Iceland definitely refreshed me. Some of the nicest people on earth reside in that country. I think it's safe to say we'll be back at some point. So now my third year as a teacher is underway. I'm excited because I don't have graduate school this year, so I can actually think about how I teach. I was really getting sick of thinking on the run and coming up with lesson activities while showering or napping in the subway. This year, I'm also teaching advisory for the first time. Advisory is basically a "life-skills" course offered in high school. I'm pretty sure this is just a New York State thing, a...

Before I take off for Iceland this week and check out their penis museum (no seriously, check this out), I have to recommend you read The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch.  This book provides an excellent history of the education system in the United States and offers some critical analysis on the new direction reform is taking. Honestly, reading this book was an eye-opener at times: I have seriously begun to question some of the people and things Teach for America supports (Joel Klein for one).  Anyone in the trenches of teaching can appreciate this book's critique of teacher accountability and high stakes testing movements. Ravitch herself admits that she was once on the testing and accountability bandwagon; she then explains why she changed her mind and why she hopes it's not too late for others to do so either. It's a book for both sides of the debate to read.   If you're even interested somewhat in education, get this book....

I know I'm supposed to be on hiatus, but a lot of people have been asking me my opinion on Bloomberg's recently announced Young Men's Initiative (read about it in the New York Times here ). In-depth detail on the initiative and their goals can be found here . To summarize, the program has approximately $130 million to use in a variety of ways to help reduce the " disparities slowing the advancement of black and Latino young men." This targeted strategy wiill include establishing new fatherhood classes, mentoring and literacy services , opening job-recruitment centers in public-housing complexes, retraining probation officers to help those who have been incarcerated from repeating criminal offenses, and finally, assessing schools based on black and Latino students' academic progress. Overall, I'm very excited that we're finally not taking a "one size fits all" strategy to fix education.  In my two years of teaching thus far, I probably...

August has to be my favorite month of the summer: it's not too hot, there's always a nice breeze, and fall-time television is right around the corner. And by fall-time television, I'm talking about the upcoming sixth season of Dexter . What am I going to do when this show ends?   What makes August even more significant is that it kicks off "back-to-school" season. I can almost smell it in the air. It reminds of me of carrying around a school supply list at Wal-Mart while my mom pushed a shopping cart full of one-subject notebooks, folders, pens, #2 pencils, markers and of course, a new lunch box that indicated to the world what cartoon I was into at the time. Cowabunga, dude.   In September, I'll start my third year of teaching high school mathematics at a transfer high school serving over-age, under-credited youth. From now until I return to the classroom, I'm going to maximize "me" time. I'm talking Christian Bale in American Psycho styl...

Around this time last year, I remember getting excited about the upcoming school year. I was starting my second year as a teacher: I was hungry to implement ideas I'd thought about over the summer. I was eager to consider taking a different approach with certain topics. I was excited. I'm excited for next year as well, but I'm also a little uneasy: in the last four nights, I've had the same dream, twice. I rarely dream, so dreaming the exact same thing twice is a new experience. In my dream, I was back in the classroom during my third year, but things were very different. I was finding it hard to enjoy being in the classroom because my school's administration was making life difficult for me. Some of them were minor things, some of them were major things that really bothered me. From what I recall, I was no longer allowed to teach my personal finance course. Why? Because the kids don't really "need" this course on paper. Why would kids need to le...

New York School test scores are in folks, click here to check out the results via the New York Times. Before you start examining the data, please note that this data summarizes the performance of nearly one million students. Of which, 66% are classified as poor (see top of page). The ethnic breakout is as follows: 14% White, 15% Asian, 31% Black, and 40% Hispanic. Pretty generic, but I guess that's the best we're going to get here. I want to first write specifically about the test my class took, the Integrated Algebra Regents Exam. From the data provided, it seems our students scored pretty miserably with a 58% passing rate (compared to about an 80% passing rate for the rest of New York State). Only 7% of students who took the exam scored high enough to master the material ("advanced" column), which is also the lowest mastery level on any exam available. Don't worry kids, this is like golf. Lowest score wins. We win! The final column ("Prev. Standard...

Check out this informative infographic via focus.com. You'll have to click on the graphic to view it enlarged. Not that most educators needed to see this, I think a lot of us are actually pretty exhausted of making the argument for college. What I find most compelling though about this graphic is the lifetime earnings category in the first graph. Does it truely pay to pay though, as in, is paying for further education now with loans worth the salary in the long term? Stay tuned, in twenty years from now I'll ask my friends with doctoral degrees how it's worked or not worked out for them.

Check out this interesting op-ed in the New York Times about the recent reform movement for schools in the United States. A well-written piece teachers and non-teachers should read. Go ahead, click the link. It's Monday, work sucks, you're still wondering where the weekend went and you have nothing better to do in your cubicle anyway. Unless you're unemployed, then all I can say is, well done.

I was on the pot this morning and doing some heavy thinking. Actually, I was doing some stinking as well, but yes, thinking too. For the readers that do not know me, I am not averse to talking about the act of pooping. I'm actually quite shocked that it's taken this long for that to hit the blog. I think pooping is pretty cool; I do some of my most critical thinking during and after the process. In fact kids, some of my best lessons have come straight out of the loo. So go ahead, thank my shit for your test results. So as I sat there, feeling lazy about the actual clean-up process of pooping, it dawned on me that I had just completed my two year commitment with Teach for America. Holy time travel Batman! Done and done, just like that. Of course, I'm sticking around and teaching next year, but there are others within my Teach for America "cohort" that are moving on and doing other things: consulting, investment banking, business school, law school, the list goe...

Over the weekend, I went to Lucia's high school graduation party in Brooklyn. I never thought I'd get actually invited to a student's graduation party (being a teacher), but there I was, dressed to impress and ready to pretend that I am not awkward. Lucia is special to me, because she's the other student I spoke about here . She's a work horse, scoring some of the highest grades at our grade on all the New York Regents Exams. She's incredibly motivated. I'm quite proud of her: she'll go to a community college for a year or two and then transfer out. As we sat at our respective tables enjoying the company, I remembered what it was like when I was in my students' shoes in this moment. Graduation right around the corner, everyone thinking this was a big deal. My thoughts during my graduation process: Hmm. Well, I don't feel any older... I wanted my high school graduation to end as soon as possible. I didn't want to go to a "formal...

One of the best things about being a teacher is that Facebook, YouTube and Gmail's chat functions are blocked on all Department of Education (DOE) computers and wireless networks. This means, on a day like today, when there's absolutely no one in the building and no one taking state exams, I am literally bored out of my fucking mind. The school feels like a ghost town. One of my esteemed colleagues has taken it upon himself to enter my room any time he has to rip some serious ass. In the past four minutes, he has entered my room three times, and cranked out four (maybe six, if you count the little ones) loud, solid farts. Although, it might be more appropriate to say liquid farts judging by their sounds: some of them might've been a little wet. Pretty impressive, I'd say. Graduation is not until next Monday, so tomorrow looks to be more of the same. It's depressing: my room is barren, all the other classrooms are barren, and there are no gangster-wanna-be studen...

A friend sent me this link , and it pretty much explains everything.

A few days ago, I had an interesting conversation with Kareem, who as many of the blog readers know is a student of mine set to graduate soon. Kareem asked me about my opinion on several get-rich-quick schemes he'd heard of or thought of. Kareem is an interesting student who spends a lot of time trying to come up with business ideas in order to "help people get even lazier" as he says. He goes through these random phases sometimes where all he can think about is money, getting rich and making more money. "I've just been thinking a lot lately. Will Smith's kid. He's got it made. He's a have . I'm a have not . That's so unfair. All the opportunities he's already had and is going to get." At first, I was shocked I was having this conversation with him, because I thought he knew better by now than to simply say life is unfair and do nothing about it. I told him sure, life is unfair but his definition of "have" and "hav...

Two school days left until the June Regents Examinations begin. I remember last year, my first year of teaching, I was a little freaked out around this time. I didn't realize some students would still prioritize other things over school, especially in such a critical time. It's hard to generalize with my student population: some have legitimate problems going on in life while others are playing XBox live and thinking about what to get for munchies ( funyans maybe?). These are the same students rarely show up, but always come to school on Friday because they know other pot dealers don't (at least they have some business acumen). Friday is as good a day as any to buy drugs. This year, I'm a bit more prepared, professionally and mentally. I've already provided my students with comprehensive review materials. I'm coming into school Saturday for a couple of hours, making myself available to students willing to come in and prep for the test next week. I'm b...

Check out Stephen Colbert's interview of Salman Khan, the founder of Khan Academy. I'd previously written a post about Khan Academy here . His lessons on YouTube have had over 57 million views. Pretty incredible stuff. The Colbert Report Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes , Political Humor & Satire Blog , Video Archive

We're talking about stocks in my personal wealth management class this week and I have to say, the kids like this shit. The ability to do your own research and "bet" on something you believe in really resonates with them. Especially since they now know they're earning jack shit from their savings accounts. Inflation also pisses them off. Anyway, as I was trying to drill home the idea of dividends, I kept getting interrupted by students asking thoughtful questions. These were great questions, so I answered each one with a lot of detail. So at one point, Arturo, who is a very promising student, blurts out this gem: "Alright, y'all stop bein' rude and askin' all these questions. Seriously, we're trying to get through a lesson here and I need to know all of this shit. [Pause] Haha, no just kidding, ask. But, let's get through the lesson too..."