I GOT PAID TO TEACH!

Another week of teaching is finished. Here are some highlights and lowlights:
• I got paid. So after three years of not getting any significant salary and attending school, Monday was my first New York City Department of Education Paycheck. It wasn’t too small either. I can live on what I get paid. I know teachers don’t make a ton of money, but I’m not here to make a lot of money, I’m here to make a difference.
• I had to talk to my Assistant Principal (AP) because I am having some difficulties teaching my CTT class. First of all I think that the 27 of them are wonderful individuals, but some of the personalities are difficult together. I spoke with my AP about the co-teacher in my room. She tends to yell at the students and I wanted to get advice on what to do. He asked me if I was comfortable in talking directly with her about the yelling, and I said I was. So I did sit down with my co-teacher and we did talk about classroom management style. I asked her to never yell at the students and if she felt that she was at a yelling point to get my attention, and I’ll take over. She hasn’t yelled at them since, and has started using other strategies with them, such as raising her hand and counting to five. It works well for them; they sit down and quiet down. Also, the principal came in to observe us as well as my math coach. They are all trying to guide me into helping my co-teacher into doing what we need her to do in the math room. So I felt proud that I had an issue early on and addressed it and showed my administration that I can handle difficult interpersonal issues professionally and positively. I made sure that I they knew I needed my co-teacher and I just want to help both of us to work together to teach these students.
• I had two notes from students. One respectfully asked me to change where she sat, which I did. The other was a note of admiration from a student. She realized that the noisy students in our class were a challenge and she appreciated and how I handled them. That was a great note to receive. I call it my first “love note.” The students respond very well to me and this is what I was hoping for.
• I had parent information night on Thursday. I met many parents and saw hope in them that their student will be successful. I hope to help them. My advice to the parents for homework help was to ask the student to show them their notes from class. I did however feel this strange feeling. It’s the feeling that many white middle class female teachers feel. It’s almost like we are part of the problem as we are trying to be a part of the solution. In the auditorium on parent information night, the only white women there were teachers. We have two teachers on staff that probably call themselves African-American women. I feel that I’m making a difference, but I wish there were more black and Hispanic teachers and role models in the school for these students.
• The SETSS teacher (he is a Para-professional in one of my 6th grade classes) gave me wonderful compliments at parent information night and told the parents that I could teach to all of the differing levels and skills in my class. I felt hopeful. I think that this teacher is a good support for my students and he has already seen from me, the skills that I have to get each student to participate. However….
• I started doing participation points this week. It constitutes 25% of the students’ grades. I have to keep track of hand raising, cooperation, compliments and things like that so the students can get really high participation points to help with their grade. I also track behavior warnings and detentions. So far the majority of my students max out their participation points each day.

So, it’s been a busy week. I administered exams to my students on Thursday and Friday and now I need to grade all of them. ICK. However, Andrea and Dan are here from Boston for the weekend and I’ve hired them to help me! We are going to go be tourists in Manhattan today and that should be fun.