What is my job, really?

A math problem was posed to a number of math teachers in early November. I was at the AVID Write Path Conference at a school in Melbourne. The math problem was as follows:

You roll a piece of paper to make a cylinder. Which way do you roll it to get a cylinder with the greatest volume, the 'hot dog' way or the 'hamburger' way?

The presenter gave us a couple of different options and asked us to stand in different corners of the room. This group of math teachers was split. To me, the question was simple. But, in a group of people teaching the children of Florida math skills, half of them got this question wrong. All of these teachers teach math all day, and half got this math problem wrong. I'd really like to be in a place where all the math teachers understand that numbers grow more quickly when they are squared than when they are not. It's tough to learn as an educator and grow into a better teacher in such an environment where we don't even get the basics right in the first place...

Our school is an F school. That's part of our lexicon in Florida, you refer to your school with the letter grade that the state designated to you. That's the state's way of telling Clewiston High School that despite all of the mitigating factors we still should keep up with other schools. The state is indicating that even though we pay less than all surrounding counties, we should still attract quality teachers that enjoy having next to nothing to do outside of school. That's the state's way of telling us that the quality of the feeder schools is irrelevant. The state, along with the feds, want us to do more with less. I absolutely agree with the state. I believe that our students can do much better then they have in the past. I know that what is standing between our students and a "C" grade has nothing to do with everything that I mentioned above. But after putting our students through our schools, I'm not surprised that the kids don't give their best effort. All schools disenfranchise students... Some schools just do it better than others.

But how do you make a change? Many of us are just complacent, doing things mostly how we've done before... We want to teach better, but we're not sure how. The only change that we really cannot make is in our teaching staff. No one would replace us. It's nice to have job security, but at what cost to the students? At what cost to this community?

I hear a lot of talk about "good people" in education. When I hear anyone start to refer to a teacher or administrator as a "good person" it's usually followed with a "but." Now, this is not just in education that we hear language like this... But I hear it all the time. We are more worried about saving our own hide than helping kids. Who cares if someone is a nice person if they are not effective? who cares if they're mean if they are effective? I don't think anyone cares if Bernie Madoff was always nice enough to bring a veggie tray to the holiday party.

I'm sick of working hard. There's got to be an easier way of doing this. I want to work smart. I want to work efficiently. I want to achieve more with the same or less. Great teachers can do this. I want to learn from some great teachers how to do this.

Googling doesn't seem to work to find these great techniques... Most of the resources I find are for elementary teachers. Not many resources are out there for creative ways to teach algebra 2 students to complete the square. We spend a lot of time in algebra 2 simply teaching techniques. Learning that a combination of two slashes makes the letter "t" isn't really interesting until you discover that reading can be done. Learning the fundamentals of algebra is not interesting until you discover calculus is done. If my Algebra students would trust me like kindergarden students trust their teacher my job would be much more productive.

It's not always really a matter of the fancy stuff, either. If I could just get them to take notes, that'd be great. I have students who scored a 5 on the math FCAT (the highest score possible) and get an F in my math class. I explain that there are a few steps they need to take to be a good student. Surely there must be a way that I can inspire more of these kiddos, right? STEP ONE: WRITE THE STUFF I WRITE!!! No? you're not going to do it? OK, that's all right. Just get out your crayons and hope for the best. I probably only have 40% taking decent notes. I don't know how to better tell them rules 1 and 2 of math class...

I think the main source of my frustration is that I have a large number of students who were placed incorrectly. Right now, I'm teaching honors level classes, also called Pre-AP. My goal for my students is that they will be able to pass a math AP exam. While I would like them to aspire to be engineers, I do understand they they will want to work in other fields... But if they want to take AP exams and get college credit, they should at least have that chance. Right now, kids don't have that chance. We haven't had a student pass the Calc or Stats AP test in a few years. So, my goal is to get that number > 0. Well, I guess a goal shouldn't be lame, so I'll try for getting the number > 20.

Eventually... But building that kind of program takes some time. It takes a spine. It takes a spine of steel from the elementary teachers to the Calc teachers, from the teachers to the principals to the school board. If everyone works together it will happen.

The way to do this is not to make math class easier. It's to expect more. This process usually starts in lower grades, where we filter out some of those kids who aren't quick enough or aren't wiling to try. As harsh as it may sound, if a 6th grader isn't willing to try to learn something in school, there's a slim-to-none chance that that person is going to make it as an engineer. No, Einstein wasn't a terrible student... We read the report card wrong and invented stories about him being slow to inspire children. It's a bunch of nonsense. I know this is unique to mathematics. What you learn in the algebras is fundamental to math-related jobs. Freshmen English? Not so much... You can bomb that and still become a psychologist when you grow up. Algebra is not so disposable.

Where was I?

So, the process that should have started a while back now falls on me. More than half of the freshmen class signed up for honors algebra. More than half. Let me say it again... My school district let more than half of the students in the 8th grade last year sign up for honors math this year. They anticipated that more than half of those students would be able to take and pass the AP Calc or AP Stats exam. They really, really must have thought that. Right?

Well, wrong, I think. Ultimately, I just don't think that anyone was paying attention, which is a much more acceptable form of neglect. And I got every one of the "honors" freshmen. Now that they are with me, I am separating the wheat from the chaff. And it hurts... The biggest problem is that I can't fix their schedules if I wanted to. When your class sizes are over 30 on average, you can't do that many schedule changes. For example, if I wanted to change the schedules of just the students who got F's and D's, I couldn't do it. There is not enough room in the regular Algebra 1 classes to accommodate them. I couldn't even switch half of them. So, I really don't know what to do about that, and, in the end, I'll do nothing about it.

There's nothing I can do about that. There is no room.

I do encourage my students to either sue the school or find a "non-F" school to attend. They have yet to do either. How sad is that? I guess they weren't taking notes then either. It is really important to write stuff down, you know?

DAVE