Down the path2
on non-students forcing their way into class
- June 2 - Tiffany came in to borrow speakers. I said sorry, they were stolen.
- June 1 - Tiffany showed no sign of being cowed. I had to repeatedly warn her to stop talking about Brian Nunez and me. She kept telling the class we both had man boobs.
As class began I walked out to round up the stragglers and instructed my students to settle down and take out their books for SSR. I told students in front of my door to go to class. One young man, not one of my students, named Eric, attempted to force his way by me into the classroom. I told him to go to his class. Wanting to start my class in spite of the students wandering outside my door, I decided to close the door. Eric blocked the door, keeping me from closing it and he continued to do so after multiple requests to move away from the door and go to class. At last, exasperated by this intrusion into the learning environment by this unknown student, I placed my hand outstretched in front of me as I closed the door. Eric pushed against my hand forcing the door back open. I pushed back on him with sufficient force to move him away from the door so that I could close it.
The student continued to rant in a threatening manner from the other side of the door. When another student opened the door the student burst into the room in a threatening manner.
I asked the headmaster for intervention. I need to be able to start my classes without having students force their way into my room. I need to have students step away from my door when I ask them to. Even students we do not teach should be required to listen to teachers in the building and comply with a teacher’s request to go to class. In no case should a teacher or student be subject to threatening acts while in school.
grapes of wrath
boss: Students may have trouble reading a book that long
teacher: Some may, but all should be able to experience the beauty of the words.
boss: That is unacceptable. Students must read 4 complete books/year.
collective bargaining
I have been teaching for the last 5 years at a Boston District High school after building houses for 30 years. There seems to be a big disconnect between what I experience to be true about public education and what I hear in the media and from those with power.
I have not noticed anything in the little orange contract book that would block good teaching and learning for our students. My children all went to public schools and I know how much the quality of the teacher matters. In five years of teaching I have seen an administrator in my room about 8 times. I would suggest that it is an important duty of administrators to have their fingers on the pulse of learning in their schools. The lack of ongoing academic conversations between teachers and school leaders is more to blame than nefarious contract language.
Charter school teachers after 5 years make about $20,000 less a year than BPS teachers ~$48,000. A good carpenter makes more than that. The money Charter school teachers make as professionals is insufficient to live in Boston, to be able to buy a house, raise your kids, save for college, have good health care... Private charter school companies pocket the difference or 'redistribute' it. Do we really want to further erode a solid middle class in the Commonwealth so that consultants and investors can prosper?
This year my classes I am teaching 50% more students. Those students are in bigger classes for shorter class times. they have fewer books, less resources than in the prior 4 years. We have all taken a hit from the Wall Street fiasco and bailout. By voting for this bill you continue the erosion of public education.
Please vote against the bill.
You are welcome to see firsthand what is going on in our schools. Come visit my classroom
Tim McKenna
Timothy S. McKenna Humanities teacher Parkway Academy of Technology and Health, a Boston Public High School 1205 VFW Parkway, Boston, MA 02132 rm366 tim@sitebuilt.net, http://sitebuilt.net exp. course news on twitter, id: mrtmckenna http://pathboston.com/hum09 -class web site http://pathboston.com/hum Humanities 3 (under development) http://pathboston.com/poets class159 (under development) (857)498-2574 (mobile), (617)524-0938 (home)
differentiated learning
I have been asked to think about and identify the different types of learners in my classes with the intention of tracking representative students to see how well they are being served by the course and my teaching.
I could start with the star students or with those in danger of dropping out. There is an eerie similarity between them. The academic stars have been in their position for years. Often they work hard perpetuate of the myth that intelligence is inborn and they've got it so they are better than everybody else. A typical manifestation is when you poll the class on how long they studied for a particular quiz or test; the stars loudly tell everyone else that they didn't study at all. It is very clear to me that all the star students have had some fortunate circumstances, a good school, a rich environment, a teacher who they have connected with, their own hard work, something that has contributed to their success. Recently one of the stars came into a class about to take a quiz. She had not studied. Rather than take the quiz and get a poor grade she refused to take it at all. Saving the image of being the girl who never had to study was that important to her. These students have lost the sense of being on the edge of understanding by losing the habit of responding to and finding challenges for themselves.
The potential drop outs (PDOs) are the students who have pretty much checked out of engagement, they often are students who have attendance problems. They have decide that they don't like the game and they are not going to play.
There is another class of student who never miss a day. These are students who pretty much have played the game and done the kinds of activities that they have been asked to do in a standard class environment. They can fill out a KWL chart or any other type of graphical organizer. Skilled at answering the questions at the end of the chapter using highly developed skills of keyword recognition and text scanning nevertheless they may arrive at the last years of high school not really being able to read. Many of these students have passed the MCAS, they can narrow the choices, play the percentages and get by. They have the test taking skills of the lowest common denominator. If you tell them what a book is about and the trials the protagonist has overcome they can repeat it back to you, even write it down. If you give them a passage from the actual book that describes a trial of the protagonist, they have no idea what it is about. In math these students can practice a problem type and succeed when quizzed on a narrow method but they bomb the broader chapter test.
sofar this year
9/21 This year my Humanities classes have 30% more students and 25% less class time. With the shorter classes it seems as though I can get about 1/2 of what I used to get done in a class. I have yet to figure out the essential questions of the course or the source materials I will build it upon.
Initaitives from last year on vocabulary learning and precision in reading are way on the back burner.
on the new schedule
Dear Colleagues,
The new schedule that we received yesterday has teachers teaching 3 hours without a break for 2 days each week. The agreement between teachers and the BPS is that teachers don't have to teach continually; we get a break every 160 minutes.
The PATH administration was charged with creating a schedule that gave teachers a planning period before lunch. That was why we could approve the schedule change with only a 55% vote. The way things are now is that the schedule is in violation of the contract and any teacher can file a grievance.
It would seem our options are 1) Change the schedule so that teachers get a planning period before lunch every day, 2) to go through the grievance procedure and all of the uncertainty that that would engender, 3) re-vote on the schedule and hope to have 2/3 of the teachers agree, or 4) agree on some way to ameliorate the current schedule by perhaps letting teacher recover the two lost 20 minute breaks by being permitted to leave early on the day their planning period is at the end of the day (or come in late at the beginning of a day if they don't have homeroom duty). There is some precedent for schedule flexibility. I like option 4.
Perhaps there are other options I haven't thought of. Hopefully we can work out a resolution quickly and among ourselves.
All the Best,
Timothy S. McKenna
BTU building rep
Parkway Academy of Technology and Health, a Boston Public High School
1205 VFW Parkway, Boston, MA 02132 rm366
tim@sitebuilt.net, http://sitebuilt.net
http://pathboston.com/hum09 -class web site
(857)498-2574 (mobile), (617)524-0938 (home)
plea for my job II
9/1/9
Dear Dr. Hilton,
I received your recent email introducing two new Humanities teachers and noticed that Anna Portnoy was not on the list of email recipients. If it is indeed true that Ms. Portnoy is not returning then PATH has sustained a significant loss. Her students arrived at senior year with a love of words and countless other characteristics of young adults who are engaged.
Over the last five years we seem to take two steps forward and one step back as we churn through teachers, with turnover high particularly in Humanities and the sciences. As a teacher, it takes most of a year to adapt to teaching a new course, time required to find a connection to your material from which you can bring the motivation and energy required to fully engage your classes. Through these transitions our students are getting less than they should, they are the ones who are ultimately paying the price of these yearly changes.
Last year, after four years of teaching, I was able to keep track of and know something of the learning styles and struggles of not just some but of all my students. This allowed me to have not just some abstract high standards for students but high standards that I knew, and each student knew, were attainable.
The difference between knowing you can do it and actually doing the work required became the drama at the end of senior year. It was not that the students didn't have time or couldn't do the work, it was that they thought they could get away without doing it. The lesson was stressful for everyone but ultimately in the student's own best interests and in the best interest of PATH. I am thankful for the good work of the BPS in creating the Credit Recovery curriculum that shepherded fourteen PATH students to graduation this summer.
Our student have a much better chance of long-term academic success by having a transition from High School during which they continue to read, think and express themselves. Our students attending UMB and Salem State and a few other institutions are lucky enough to be part of strong transition programs. The fourteen students who attended Credit Recovery got that opportunity as well.
For the sake of our students and for PATH as an institution I ask that I continue to teach senior Humanities. Our rising seniors are ready for the challenge of attaining high standards in their Language Arts, in their understanding of the world and in their self expression. They will be aware of the experience of some of the class of '09 and will understand that there is no way around the hard work of learning.
I contend that I will be less able to establish high and attainable standards and in Humanities 11 at least over the short term and that the same will be true for the new teachers. By keeping me in 12th grade you keep some continuity and better serve the students. Instead of turnover in 3/4 of the Humanities program at PATH, only 1/2 of Humanities will be undergoing transition. For all of our success, we still track the rest of the District High Schools in many key indicators, in SAT scores and, I would bet, in college outcomes. Last years students proved to me that we can raise the bar and better prepare our students. The evidence is clear when you compare student work over the last three years. Please allow me to continue that work at least for the next school year.
Sincerely,
Timothy McKenna
plea for my job
6/26/9
Dear Dr. Hilton,
I am writing in a plea for my job teaching a world history based humanities class to 12th graders.
Our students leave PATH increasingly prepared for college level work in large part due to my work with them in 12th grade Humanities. Or results with UMASS Boston (UMB) are indicative. Our state universities are affordable and selective as opposed to some of the very expensive 3rd tier private schools that take almost anyone but saddle our students with untenable debt.
In 2006 while we could not get anyone into UMB and in 2007 one student got accepted. In 2008, 8 students were accepted and 7 attended. I followed them all but particularly 5 who were in the 6 week summer bridge to college program called DSP. At the end of that summer all of our students had placed into college level classes and were eligible to take ENG101. I have lost track of a couple of the students but all of the rest passed that ENG101 course although one student earned only a D. A Student who had an IEP in my class has been so successful at UMB that he has been given full scholarship to continue his studies. We have had similar successes in other schools including UMASS Dartmouth. This year I believe that our success will continue although I have not compiled the data on where students are attending.
Having students place into college level classes when they leave here is critically important and so our work here is critically important. Data from the Educational Policy Improvement Center tells us that if a student needs even one remedial class that student has only a 20% chance of ever graduating from college. But I have been collecting additional data from our recent graduates.
I know that to succeed in college you have to feel confident in your ability to write a 5-8 page paper. I have heard from our college students about their dismay at failing a final exam and failing a course that they were passing up to the last day. This data has informed my teaching. Students in my classes know from the very first day of senior year that you cannot pass term 3 and term 4 without completing the writing process and that the final exam is 20% of the grade for the course and encompasses the work of the year.
Students understand this approach. We begin our year and end our year with the discussion of what a high school graduate ought to know and be able to accomplish. There was no disagreement that a student should feel comfortable and accomplished in the writing process. Students also agree that they should be able to read an article in the New York Times or Boston Globe and make some sense of it. That process of 'making some sense of it' is the work of the course. The 'it' here is the world and their relation to it. Humanities is wonderfully suited to this exploration.
This is a competency based model with clear and attainable standards. This year, every one of my students was capable of reaching competency. This is a tribute to the entire humanities team.
Last year there were numerous students who did not reach that competency and failed the course. Many of them graduated anyway and I feel that process was arbitrary and unfair to students. The administration has promulgated a 70% to pass at PATH to its teachers and we in turn promulgate it to our students. When the administration then graduates students as long as the get over a 60%, as you did last year, you send a confusing message through the school community. The process has become arbitrary. A student, for example who had a 59% and thought 70% was passing, had she known that 60% was passing would certainly have done that work for the last point.
Once an arbitrary process is established we leave our students in an untenable situation. They may think that Mr. McKenna says I need to do x, y and z to reach competency and score over 70 but 60 was good enough last year so maybe I don't have to do x, y and z. So they 'try' only for a 60, and, human nature being what it is, if you try for a 60 you end up with a 57. The policies and procedures of the last 2 years have established a race to the bottom instead of an acceptance of high and attainable standards.
I knew this year's class was in trouble soon after the spring break. From May 13th to June 4th I cleared my schedule and begged students to come after school and knock out their paper, and then come after school and study for the test. Few students came and there was little evidence that any work was being done outside of school. Nevertheless with a class schedule cleared to allow 10 hours of in-class writing on the paper and 6 hours of in-class studying for the test almost all students were making some progress.
On June 4th I had the sobering confirmation and I spent the next 3 days in conversations with students and immersed in the data. I decided students could retake a different final and get 4 additional days to complete the paper. Students had to do both plus they had to attend seminars from 8-12 and continue working each day until the second late bus.
Since the beginning of PATH teachers have been encouraged to give students some kind of packet when they failed. The packet was always way easier than the original work. Our students are very bright and they soon realized this. They take their cues from the adults in the building. By establishing this practice we are implicitly saying what you do all year isn't really that important.
This year I tried to learn from the experience last year. Last year it was suggested that students should get more time in-class for writing and this year they did. There was and argument in favor of a portfolio based final assessment and this year I complied making 50% of the final based upon student selection and the polishing of their best work of the year.
I am not yet sure what I have learned from this year. I could have dropped the competency based requirements of the course and just passed everybody who worked hard this year. If you passed by my class you knew that everyone was working hard every day and that hard work translated into more than a grade level of improvement for almost all of my students.
The decision I made was difficult. I decided that when you leave high school you need to be a confident writer. Completing the writing process gives you that confidence and even if the writing is still poor and still needs improving, at least you know you can do it. A High school graduate needs to know the feeling of studying hard for an exam and passing it. That feeling will stay with you and when you enter the no-retake-the-final world it will motivate you to do the hard work again because you know what it takes and you have succeeded before.
I stand by my decision and would be happy to justify that decision to students, parents, fellow teachers, the administration and the School Site Council. The students who did not graduate are better off learning the hard lesson now than after they have signed the loan papers for classes at the next level. Credit recovery provides a soft landing and hopefully serve as a bridge program that keeps students reading and writing through the summer. The measure of our success has to extend beyond 'pass the MCAS and keep your graduation numbers high'. We need to remain committed to and connected to our students until they are in 200 level courses in college. It is our duty. The work of high school is far too important. We must have students realize that high standards are reachable for each student and help each student to set high standards for his/herself.
Last year I was told in the middle of the summer that I would be teaching tenth grade. Then on the first day of school I was told I was teaching twelfth grade after all. Some teachers found out that they were teaching a class they had never taught before. They found out on the first day of school. There seems to be a philosophy that teachers are interchangeable and that teachers can teach any topic on short notice. That and the idea that it is good for students that teachers can teach any Humanities class has been the stated rationale for moving me from 12th grade Humanities to eleventh grade. A recent publication from the 'New Teachers Project' challenges the philosophy that teachers are interchangeable widgets. It calls on schools to support the good teachers and classes in your building and work hard to make all teachers good. Treating us like widgets does not accomplish this goal.
I have spent over 1800 hours a year for 4 years to create a quality Humanities class. I am good at what I do and serve as an important right of passage for the students of PATH. I ask that you work more closely with me to insure that all of our students reach their tremendously unrealized potential and I ask that I continue to teach 12th grade Humanities next year.
Sincerely,
Timothy McKenna
reply to Anna
Dear Dr. Hilton, Ms. Onifade, Ms. Watson, and Mr. McKenna,
I’m writing because I’ve been thinking more about Yonealya Harris’s case as it relates to her eligibility for graduation, and I want to clarify my concern. (I had a conversation with Dr. Hilton and Ms. Onifade earlier this afternoon about the recovery process generally and Yonealya in particular, only because I have been tracking her progress very closely all year.)
First, I want to say that this is not about advocating for a student out of sympathy, though I have much of it. Nor is this about my personal investment in Yonealya’s growth, though it has been great. This is about the fact that the greatest achievement of Yonealya’s academic career at PATH—the 1800-word essay that she spent nearly a month researching, writing, and revising, the essay that represented the culmination of incredible intellectual growth over a two-year period, the essay that so powerfully declares her independence as a learner—did not count. It did not count toward her grade. It did not have value in the eyes of the institution (the power of which we cannot underestimate).
This strikes me as unfair to Yonealya. But more than that, it strikes me as an unfortunate distortion of our work as educators, because what do we value if not what Yonealya has demonstrated through the paper: hard work, genuine intellectual curiosity, research skills, writing and rewriting, increasing levels of independence, etc.?
I know that Yonealya is wise enough to measure her achievement by a yardstick other than the one the school has provided, strong enough to stay on course with her educational goals, humble enough to recognize where she went wrong and learn from her mistakes. I have complete faith in Yonealya. However, I do think her case raises critical questions (for all of us, myself included) about how we make decisions about WHAT COUNTS.
Thank you for reading this.
response
Thanks you for including me in your ongoing email correspondence concerning one of my students about her work in a class that I teach.
Aside from important conversations that we should probably have about how you've cornered the market on 'sympathy and investment' and that I represent somehow everything that is bad and 'institutional', there are important things that you should know about Yonealya's situation in my class.
In her submitted paper she lifted whole paragraphs without attribution from megaessay.com. The class policy is that you get a 0 for plagiarism and you get one shot at fixing it and resubmiting for grading. No further penalty is assessed. Student's know that fixing it is as easy as adding quotation marks and a citation.
We should also have further conversations about plagiarism. Aside from work very early in the year I have had only 4 cases. But students do enter the class thinking it is OK. You may want to review what you are doing with your students. We both know that one of the greatest gifts we can give our students is the guidance to finding their unique voices as writers. On the whole I am happy with the work of my students in that regard.
Yonealya never resubmitted that paper and never learned to put greater trust in her own voice as a writer. I feel like you have been irresponsible professionally in not consulting me so that we could together help Yonealya to finish her year. In neglecting your responsibility you contributed to her developing the head of steam that we both know is both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness. I believe it is you who has damaged the institution in this situation.
Sincerely,
Timothy McKenna
message to class of 09
It was a great honor to be your teacher this year. This is my ideal job. I wouldn't trade my students at PATH for any in the world. You challenge me every day with your wit, your skepticism and your honesty. Every time you tell me WTF, I get to think about how I could do things a little better next time. You are more instructive than any course I ever took from ED. schools; I owe you for making me a better teacher.
I have a vested interest in having you all graduate from college. You see, I would rather have you running the world than most of the people who are running it now. I like the idea of your hearts combined with minds that have risen to there they're their potential. You will bring a sense of fairness and an needed perspective and voice to the world.
Believe in yourself and fight for yourself as you make your way through college. Take risks. Your surest bet, the gamble that you have the most control over, is the gamble on yourself. Don't necessarily blindly follow your advisers. Often they either tell you what you want to hear or tell you what is the safe path. Follow the interesting path, the one that challenges you the most. Demand (nicely) the courses you want, the professors who are brilliant.
students whom I failed
All of you were capable of doing the work of Humanities 4. It is a tribute to you and to your teachers and parents that you could. There is a huge difference, however, between 'could have' and actually pulling it off. You were cheated if you did not write the papers and did not pass the final. You were cheated of the reward. You need to feel the reward so that in the future you will be willing take the risk of working hard again.
Your failure to complete the work of the course is my failure. I apologize for failing you. It is the responsibility of the adults in the building to provide you, as superintendent Carol Johnson directed, with "high expectations, high relevance, and appropriate support". If somehow you got the message that you didn't really have to understand and study and write about your relationship to history and the world, that doubt would give you an 'out'. It is not in the nature of a healthy 17 year old mind to do anything unnecessary. You would be crazy to. Unless the adults in the building can be crystal clear about our expectations you are cast adrift. If there is a history of saying one thing and doing another, where some kids get away with not passing and others don't, where the very definition of passing seems subjective and random, that is a problem in the institution. You deserve better.
on the seminar "for no apparent reason"*
I want to address the observation that "because of a high level of stress in the last few days, I ask Mr. McKenna not be allowed to to give make up work the week of graduation."* The reality is, I don't set the schedule. (see copy of 5/18 email from headmaster to teachers below)
I don't really like stress. On most days of the school year that is why I sit in 366 till 3:30 or 4:00 reflecting on the day just passed and planning on the day to come. I don't leave until I have figured it out. I hate waking up in the middle of the night stressing about the next day.
And so I sat every day from May 13th till June 4th. It was I quiet space to work, to write your paper, to get help. There were computers. I saw very few of you. I was a little bored because I had stopped teaching, allowing you 10 hours of in-class time to write your papers and 6 hours to study for your final. In retrospect, it was a waste of time. There were many more things I wanted you to experience, to read, to learn. We missed Neruda, Gabriel Marquez, Valenzuela. This class didn't read and perform one act plays in the park.
I think I told you on the first day of school that in order to pass the 3rd and 4th term you would have to write papers. I think I told you a scores of times.
The research paper assignment was easier than the year before, 10% shorter, with a wider variety of source material including more video, more help for your research, more structure for you to build your essay upon. Compared to last year's class, far fewer of you completed it on time. The valedictorian didn't. Some of the best writers didn't even pass it in since they knew they would pass anyway. I guess I failed to impress upon you the value that doing the papers would have for you.
I was not impressed by your lack of effort, upset since you all had the ability. Perhaps it is the school culture. It seems to be getting worse every year.
All of the students who were invited to the 4 day seminar this week had a shot at passing. Students were asked to leave for solid, well considered reasons, like not having made progress on their paper or failure to prepare their questions by rereading the articles, or failing the retest. They were living in a dreamworld where students don't really study.
Happy graduation. Conditions are such that is not likely that I will attend. Good luck.
*from former class president letter to my boss
May 18, 2009 from: Hilton, Pamela to: Mawakana, Yvonne, Tim, Maureen, Winifred, Anna, Jeanmarie, Zahida, Ivette, Steven, Jeanmarie, Matthew, Hamida, HamidaMerchant, Mark, Amy, Leo, Carole, Paige Dear ILT and Senior Teachers, .. In a letter about to go out to the seniors we have the senior finals as: May 27 to June 2 - Senior Finals June 3 - Make-up June 4 - Sign-out Usually we do it this way even in the past when we did not have as many snow days as this year. If we think this year will require more make-up time, we can adjust the schedule. Also we will allow seniors after June 4 with a final overall average between 60 and 69 a chance to do further make-up as we did last year and see if they can make up enough so they may 'walk' at graduation and not go to credit recovery for August graduation.
on high stakes testing
In spite of my best efforts, I never did figure out a way to impress upon you the importance of studying for exams. Even at the end of the year I would still hear "Mr. I don't study for tests. I never have. I do it from memory." This may be one of our biggest failures as educators.
It may well be another one of the unintended consequences of MCAS culture. The whole testing business is a flawed because it does not understand the human need for satisfaction, for feedback and for the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. We give a test and tell you how you did 3 months later. 'Who cares' is the only appropriate response. At BPS the MCAS seems to be the only test, the only bar to scale, the only challenge to overcome. Sure there are the city finals. Get a 50 and you pass. What a joke.
There are very good reasons for tests that count. The process of studying reawakens those neural pathways that may have only been faintly laid down in your original exposure to the material. In studying you reinforce those connections and what you learn becomes part of who you are. In taking a test after successfully studying for it, those connections light up in your brain but something else happens too. The reward circuitry kicks in. When you know you've 'got it' you get a flood of neurotransmitter through your brain giving you the experience of pleasure, using mechanisms strikingly similar to those of drugs. It happens again when you get the test back (if you get it back quickly). This is much better than drugs. This is earned pleasure. The human mind has evolved so that successful thinking is rewarded and it is that feeling that drives you to put in the effort that is required in order to feel it again the next time.
By creating a system where no tests count the BPS has robbed you of an essential human experience and left you ill prepared for the complex world we have evolved into.
