Yo Mista!

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...