9 posts tagged “mississippi”

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multiple guess

multiple guess
multiple guess


Imagine for a moment that you read on a seventh-grade level.


Justify the author's decision to make the revision by selecting the statement below that accurately evaluates the effect of the connotation of the word vow on the author's purpose.


This is question 14, a typical question on Mississippi's 80-item multiple-choice Subject Area Testing Program state-mandated test. It's preceded by a five-line excerpt from a poem that substitutes the word vow for promise in its first line as a possible revision. The four distractors (what we call the ABCD choices in test-world) suggest ways that the word vow might or might not affect the mood or tone of the poem, along with several iterations of possible author's purposes. Passing the test is required for high school gradation.

You are a high school sophomore who has most likely passed your English classes by memorizing rules and learning by rote; taking multiple-choice tests that involve simple identification or recognition. You sometimes get confused about which is the adjective or noun in a sentence.

You are largely unable to read silently for more than 10 minutes at a time. Perhaps you simply know how to call words. Most of the test reading items are poetry or nonfiction about such topics as bat-keeping or igloo-building. Most are three to five pages in your 8.5 x 11 test booklet.

You probably had Hot Cheetos and Gatorade for breakfast. Or perhaps for dinner, and then skipped breakfast because you were too tired, because your mother asked you to get up at 5:00 to iron the uniform she wears to serve at the Piccadilly.

So no, giving multiple choice tests is not a cop-out. I give multiple choice tests in my English II class because it's the only way my students will learn how to unpack questions like this one. I also have them plan Everest expeditions, and  make news-cast videos about parrots who find treasure after house fires.

2 comments Tags: testing, teaching, test, reading, mississippi, students, mississippi teacher corps, teaching tests …

bueller? bueller?


Following my recent screed on the evils of averages, allow me to present a few:


Today, my assistant principal asked teachers to complete a chart that included the data in the first four columns. But of course, that only tells half the story. Administrators are fond of quoting a conventional wisdom that if a certain percent of a teacher's students are failing, it's the fault of the teacher, not the students. That might hold true in some schools. But we aren't teaching in some schools.

In a recent publication on the crisis of school attendance, the U.S. Department of Education reports that about 8 percent of students are absent on any given day in U.S. public schools. "Chronic absenteeism" is defined as missing 10 or more days in a school year. Note in my chart that my school uses a 4x4 block, with essentially an 89-day school year. For perspective, simply double the days missed per student to extrapolate for the typical 180-day year.

A November 2008 article from the TCPalm (a regional newspaper of the Port St. Lucie area in central eastern Florida) reports that Florida defines chronic absenteeism as 21 or more days in a 180-day school year.  A Johns Hopkins study labeled Port St. Lucie -- with 14.5 percent of high school students "chronically absent" by their standards -- as a "dropout factory."

At this rate, it's a miracle that my failure percentage is as good as it is.

Learning Strategies class
Learning Strategies class
English II class
English II class
But enough about averages. As I said, I teach individuals. Here (click to enlarge) are the individual absentee (Ab=absent, T=tardy) statistics for two of of my classes this semester, in which we've had 41 instructional days so far. (Total figures are slightly different from those on the big chart due to a recording lag.) 

You get the idea. I have some very successful students, and I have some abject failures. This English II class, for instance is skewed by students 4266 and 2008. While student 1510, not surprisingly, has a 102% grade for the first 9-week term. Only one student is failing this class. Seven of the 14 in the Learning Strategies are failing. 

What I do with these data, I honestly don't know. 

My worry, with the school budget cuts and impending staffing cuts, is that teachers with lower failure rates will be given preference when contracts come around in April. You might not be surprised to learn that many teachers pass students along to avoid looking like they can't teach, and/or to avoid filling out the failure documentation paperwork. I guess I can use these figures to support my case for renewal.

Also:

SOME STATE TEST FACTS:
Last semester, the district pass rate for the English II state-mandated test (required for graduation, and used in rating the schools' AYP) was 35%

My students' pass rate was 48%

If I include students who missed passing by 1 or 2 points, my pass rate goes up to 58%

So I'm doing something right, and at least the students who show up are benefitting.

Meanwhile, could someone with a numerology fetish please explain why I continue to fail a 7-1-7 pattern no matter how many students or which classes I teach? 

Post a comment Tags: student, statistics, mississippi, achievement, students, absentee, attendance, mississippi teacher corps …

living in the median





[ASSIGNED: READING RESPONSE]

This entry is an assigned response to the Executive Summary of A Portrait of Mississippi: Mississippi Human Development Report 2009 published by the American Human Development Project.

If my hair is on fire, but I'm standing in a bucket of ice water, I will be -- on average -- comfortable. Talking about medians and averages in income, human development, education, or health paints an equally skewed picture of reality, and certainly not one on which policy can or should be made. How can we effectively discuss individuals living lives of "choice, value, and dignity" unless we discuss individuals?

A short aside: While none of these statistics is likely to come as a huge surprise to most of us in MTC, it's fair to say we are not the intended audience. The audience for a such a report is policy makers, many of whom probably have a one-dimensional view of rural life, poverty, and the unendingly complex role of race in a place such as Mississippi. And while we're at it, let's go ahead and acknowledge that we're really talking about a few specific regions of Mississippi here. As one of our guest speakers said in a first-year class (sorry, I can't remember who or exactly when) if we subtract the Delta counties from Mississippi's well-being statistics, while still not exemplary, our state falls in the lower third of the nation rather than dead last. Ahead of a dozen or so other states that do not suffer the same indignity. Sure, there are pockets of urban poverty and its attendant woes in and around cities such as Jackson or Greenville. But that's true of all states with urban centers: Chicago, Detroit, Newark, Oakland, etc. and it's mitigated statistically, much like my flaming hair, by the suburbs and viable smaller towns. 

In the Delta, a place ever haunted by extremes, there is no average. Almost no one exists at the median.

So, all that being said, what do we do? I think we need to start by looking past the averages and medians. Using such figures gives the false impression that there is a gradation. Living and working in Washington County, the seat of the county group that has some of the highest white and lowest black incomes, and lowest HD index, I see the results of a cluster of wealth, a cluster of poverty, and a huge gap in the middle. That gap, that missing middle, is the story of individuals, not averages. And there lies the problem with reports such as this. They spent a pretty penny on gathering facts, paid a designer five or six grand to produce a book that is probably printed on glossy premium paper, and we can pat ourselves on the back for bringing these issues to light. Like we didn't know this already in our guts?

And then what? "What will it take to improve Mississippi's ranking on the AHD Index?" What, indeed? 

These are lofty recommendations, to be sure, and well intentioned. But they smack of what journalists refer to as "the no-shit lede." Well, fine then, let's improve the health of African American men. Geez. Why hadn't I thought of that before? Hey, let's improve the quality of public education. Now there's a new idea! Connect at-risk boys to school. Ok, sure. And could you please do something about the humidity, too, while you're at it? And water my tomatoes while I'm in Oxford this June? These sorts of bromides help us feel like we're doing something, but I don't see any substantive information on how these things will be accomplished.

water tank delta
In looking through the full report on the web site, it appears the "What will it take ..." section of the executive summary suggests something the report does not deliver: There are no recommendations, no policy guidelines, no pathways, no suggestions. Granted, the AHDP's stated mission is to "stimulate debate about political and human issues." I'll give them that. But to "empower people to hold elected officials accountable for progress on issues?" Not so much. Without offering policy recommendations or guidelines, how can simply presenting facts make elected officials more accountable? I worked for an education policy non-profit for 18 years. I didn't make policy or set editorial standards, but fish don't create water and they get pretty wet during the course of their days. One thing I took away from my years there is that it's very easy to present facts, to wring our hands, and rend our garments. It's another thing altogether to recommend, create, or enact policy; to live and work where the statistics live and breathe; where averages become individuals; to, you know, make a difference.

It's so easy to point to Mississippi and its glaring deficiencies. It's so facile to point to the gaping discrepancies between white and black, rich and poor, and decry the status quo. But few who have not lived here or have no roots here can ever understand the deep complexity of these issues. They go far beyond simple minority/majority. (In my town, I'm a minority. There is no diversity. My language and culture are marginalized.) 

"Choice, value, and dignity." Easy terms to throw into the wind. Frankly, I find the opening paragraph of the "What will it take..." so full of jargon and feel-good buzz words it angers me. I've sat through enough of those meetings crafting the perfect mission statement that includes every conceivable piece of empty rhetorical claptrap, and can recognize the product.

I made a living producing reports and books just like this. Now I teach children. I teach individuals, not medians.

3 comments Tags: economics, culture, race, poverty, statistics, mississippi, delta, mississippi teacher corps …

racism, and the talk



My students accuse me of being racist.


It's a common response to disciplinary actions. I teach in a high school with nearly 2,000 students, about 8 of whom are white. There are maybe 4 Hispanic students. The rest (and all of my students) are black. (No, I don't use African American. My students, as most of the population in the Delta does, self-identify as black.) The accusation of racism is a knee-jerk reaction to perceived unfairness. It's one that might work in some situations, but not in this one. "You only punish the black kids," doesn't cut it here.

Today, after being accused of racism by both students and parents over the past months, I gave each of my classes my talk. When I was finished, they applauded. Second block stood up to applaud. Several came up to me privately later in the day to apologize for my having to hear the accusations.

Roughly, this is the talk:

First, let me say that if I happen to catch your eye as I'm speaking it doesn't mean I'm speaking to, or about, you individually. I'm talking to the class in general.

Several of my students have asked me if I'm racist, or have accused me of being racist. It happens that those students are also ones who have had several detentions or office referrals. They seem to think that these discipline actions are based on race. If I were treating them differently because of their race, that would be racist. Look around. Is their race what makes them different from the students who are not getting discipline actions? If someone accuses me of being racist just because I'm white, that's racist.

When students have asked me if I'm racist, I usually ask them, "If I were racist would I have come to Mississippi to teach in the Delta?" The next question they usually ask is, "Then why did you come here?" 

Let me tell you why:

The county I lived in before I moved here from Virginia, Fairfax County, is the wealthiest county in the U.S.  Now I was hardly among the wealthiest people there, but it did mean the living was pretty good, especially the schools. I could have stayed there. I could have taught there. If I had taught there, I could have taught a bunch of lily-white spoiled rich kids. English II there means teaching Shakespeare and poetry, reading long complex novels: the stuff English teachers love to do. It could have meant teaching in a school where over 90 percent of students score advanced on state tests.

I did leave another job to come here. The paycheck I got for that job was almost four times the paycheck I get here.

And there was one reason I did it. I did it to prove that people who are racist are wrong.

People who are racist have told me that the kids in Mississippi can't learn. That they don't want to learn. That they don't care about school. That I'm wasting my time. I know I don't have to tell you the kinds of things I heard. You've heard it, too. 

I'm here to prove them wrong.

I'll tell you this: When you act a fool [a specific term of art here in the Delta]; when you tell me you don't care; when you disrespect me or give me your street backtalk; when you deface your school; when you steal supplies; when you cut class, cheat, and lie; when you can't walk without holding your pants crotch up; you are proving them right. 

I'm working as hard as I can. I left my family, my friends, my home, and a successful career to prove some haters wrong. When you try to use racism as an excuse for your behavior choices, or to avoid facing consequences of your choices, you're proving them right.

It's your choice who wins.

6 comments Tags: teaching, race, racism, mississippi, discipline

horseplay ensued

Dan Fram ponders in which century he belongs
Dan Fram ponders in which century he belongs

It started -- as most near-disasters do -- innocently enough: A plan hatched a few weeks before for three friends and a newly acquired Expedition to head out of the flat Delta and into the north Mississippi hills on some family property to shoot at things after Saturday classes in Oxford. Things like cow patties and clay pigeons. A little target practice and some skeet shooting with a variety of firearms.

As most plans do, it morphed and grew as the day's classes dragged on; soon it was eight people, three vehicles, and an excellent lesson on the differences among firearms, general firearm safety, a guitar solo I wish I could remember, and some preparatory target practice. (Note here that I was shooting straight: hit my targets on the first shot with both the shotgun and the pistol.)

And then: Horseplay ensued.

Time to set off the moving targets. Who'll shoot first? Being older, female, wanting to play those cards, and having demonstrated pretty good skills, I jumped up. But I was to be thwarted by a Fram. The next thing I knew my arms were pinned to my side and I was running backward as Fram was running forward on wet slippery ground. Just as I was thinking this was not really a sustainable plan, I saw the ground coming toward me.

BONUS. Extra Credit DOK 3 Question: Explain why snowshoes are more successful than crutches or high-heels when walking across fragile snow.

I have only one bruise on my body. Fram has none. The bruise I have is on my left hip. The impact of our combined weight -- admittedly only about 260 or so --  was taken by my left hip.

That would be the hip that's broken.

on the left side, just like mine
on the left side, just like mine

Realized pretty quickly I was hurt, and couldn't stand. I remember having my arms over Fram's and Tabitha's shoulders, then the next thing I knew I was stretched out quite comfortably across the back seat of the Expedition.  Relieved at not having said anything embarrassing or wet myself while out cold, I agreed -- after much persuading -- to stop by the hospital. Perhaps some Vicodin and Flexeril would be nice before heading back into the Delta and surely we would stop at Chamoun's Rest Haven as I usually do for Kibbe and grape leaves along the way home. Molly supplied a large ice bag, and with Beethoven's 7th blasting Austin led the convoy to First Baptist Hospital in Oxford.

Scooted myself out of the truck, into a wheelchair, and suffice it to say that the whole waiting room adventure deserves a blog entry of its own. You'll hear the stories someday. There had been carpool arrangements involved, so we ended up as a small crowd watching the UNC/Louisville game, eating Sonic, and generally disturbing the peace. Clearly the theory of a natural release of endorphins following traumatic injury is true.

Fast forward through a hellish night: Once the X-ray tech torqued my leg to get me out of the wheelchair and I felt the bones grind, I believed it might actually be broken. Endorphins gone. Gimme the morphine. Tabitha spent probably 30 grueling minutes helping me carefully take off my jeans and my first-issue Daring Fireball t-shirt. She and Fram both stayed by my ER bed, holding my hands, patting my head, and coaching my yoga breathing until I was finally stable enough to be moved to my room. Dani bought me a new phone charger. Lisa gathered up everything I might need from home for the 5-day stay. Tab took a day off to bring things up to Oxford. So many people did so many nice things. People in uniforms drugged me and tied me up in traction.

Went into surgery Sunday morning: three screws and a washer. (A washer?) Dr. Lamar gives me about a 2/3 success rate on this repair. Success being the blood supply to the ball of my hip is not compromised and the ball doesn't die. If not: Full hip replacement in about a year. Plus I'm thinking that when your surgeon's name is the same as the street the hospital is on, you're in pretty good hands.

Hospital stay is a blur. People came to visit. Thank you. Sorry you had to look at all the various fluid bags and tubes running in and out of me. The food was good. A nurse threw all my flowers away.

Hospital etiquette tip: Don't pull your sheet over your face to block sunlight when napping during the nurses' shift change. It tends to freak them out when they walk in and see you like that.

Home Thursday. David and Michael carried me up my back stairs like Cleopatra on a porch chair.

Emily will stay here to care for me until I can get myself into and out of bed and maybe use a cane instead of a walker so I can carry things like plates of food. In-home physical therapy three times a week. House-bound until April 25 when I'll find out whether I'll teach again this school year. [Reality check update: Probably not. But will be able to do my MTC work in June.] Still have some minor vision problems in my right eye from general force of impact (no direct hit to my head) and am now an expert at giving myself subcutaneous blood-thinner injections.

Those of you around (who are still reading) I'm always home, so stop by. It helps the time pass even better than drugs. The back door is unlocked -- just holler when you come in.

UPDATED: May 8 posted here. Includes a cool X-ray.

3 comments Tags: guns, accident, injury, hospital, gun, farm, surgery, mississippi …

it's leland

Leland.
Leland.

I was having lunch last Thursday (a duck and pheasant pot-pie, but that's another story) and got a phone call from 662 area code so I decided to answer.

"Hi, howya doin?"

"Um, fine. Who's this?"

"Scotty, [or John, or Dave, or whatever. I can't remember] your FedEx guy. I have a parcel [yes, he said "parcel"] here for ya, but you're not home. You gonna be home later?"

"Actually, I'm in Virginia, and will be home very late tonight. Can you leave it on my front screen porch?"

"Wow. Well ... it needs a signature so I shouldn't really do that. I'll bring it again tomorrow."

"Great. I have an appointment at 1:00 but will be home by 2:00. Is after 2:00 OK?"

"After 2:00. No problem."

Nice enough, you'd think. But wait. There's more:

It's noon. I'm at Cicero's enjoying the crawfish salad and get a 662 call again.

"Hi, howya doin?"

"I'm good, thanks. Who is this?" I ask, vaguely aware that I should know who it is.

Yep. It's what's his name. He's at my house and I'm not there, what with it being not after 2:00 and all.

"Well, look, I don't want you to have to make another trip. Just leave it on the front screen porch and it'll be fine. I'll be there in 2 hours."

"Well. I'll hide it behind this slate-top table, OK?"

Knowing this is better than hiding it among the pansies, I agree.

So, yeah. The package is there when I get home. My AppleCare documentation. Tucked nicely behind my table.

Here's the clincher:

Around 4:00 that afternoon. He called back to make sure I'd gotten my parcel.

1 comment Tags: christmas, life, leland, mississippi, fedex, rural, town …

like drowning every day

[REQUIRED BLOG: EDSE 600 FIRST SEMESTER REFLECTION]

It was yesterday and it was a million years ago that I started this blog to chronicle the immense changes I was about to undertake.

Change was what I wanted (thus the name) and I got it. Pretty much the only aspect of my life I recognize lately is the smell of my shampoo (which I now buy online because no place in the Delta sells it). I wanted a challenge, and I certainly got that, too. But how do my expectations match up to the reality?

I'm not sure at this point I even know what "the reality" is. Using the single article assumes there is, indeed, only one reality. And of course there isn't. When I read over the anticipatory entries, I realize that I had no idea how all-encompassing the experience would be.

It's like drowning every day.

Every day I am completely immersed in the reality of the Delta, the reality of teaching, the reality of what my life (oh, it was so nice just a little while ago) has become. I thought the year without an actual job would be a challenge. It was, and I suppose that by meeting it, and by learning to live with a lot of uncertainty I was preparing myself for the challenge of teaching in the Delta. Surely getting up at 4 a.m. to unload a truck gave me the physical stamina I've needed to get up and teach every day. I had never before appreciated how physically demanding teaching would be.

Other expectations -- cultural, professional, social -- were also shaken. The Delta culture is even more extreme  than I'd anticipated. I remember being fascinated by the way the powder-fine soil worked its way into my skin the first time I visited here. I wrote about it, trying to get my head around it, but even then I didn't understand the full power of that metaphor and how completely the Delta would become a part of every piece of my life. From the nightly pesticide-spraying trucks in the summer, to the damp barren fields of the winter, I know I'm in the Delta by the smell and weight of the air. I'm drowning in it.

Professionally, I'm still struggling with whether it was wise to make a move like this, but I do think I'm succeeding as a teacher. What has amazed me most is how quickly I feel like I've been doing it a long time. I remember those days in summer school (remember those lesson plans with every second stage-directed and planned?) thinking I'd never be comfortable and confident in front of a class. How would I remember where I had set things down? How would I know everyone's name? And now, I'm completely at ease. It seems so natural to be there. And I know, it's a cliche, but really love those moments when my students "get it" -- even if it's only a few. In a way, that makes it all the better.

Students have told me, directly and indirectly, that I'm different from other teachers; that I make them work but in a good way that helps them learn. OK, some hate me, but if none did I wouldn't be doing my job.
 
Several others in this program have written about the shock of realizing the enormity of the challenge. I think I had a head start on that having been a parent and knowing what it means to have a daily challenge that doesn't end when a given hurdle is cleared. I've expereinced the false horizons and learned to continue to put one foot in front of the other.
 
What I did underestimate, I think, was the depth to which some of my students don't care about school or about anything, for that matter. I remember thinking I didn't care about school, and I remember hearing other kids say they didn't care. But what we really meant what that we didn't care at that moment about school more than we cared about some other urgent adolescent matter. So many of my students truely don't care a lick about school or anything that happens here -- except, perhaps, the free meals and socializing. There is simply no way to make any curriculum relevant to someone who doesn't care about his or her own life.
 
The hardest realization has been that I will, in the end, leave some behind. But not without a struggle.

And once again, I'm drowning in it. Every day. Weeks go by when virtually every conversation I have is about teaching. With one welcome exception, every person I interact with on a regular basis here is a teacher or somehow affiliated with a school. I know, or I hope, that at some point my life will begin to have some balance again. Workin' on that. But it's hard. I'm immersed. I have to force myself to leave school and teaching behind occasionally for a few hours.

Can I extend this metaphor? Can I tell you how the cycle of planning, teaching, adjusting, planning, grading, adjusting is like the waves that simply never let up?

Can I tell you I don't actually know how to swim?

2 comments Tags: teaching, school, schools, failure, reflection, student, nathan, education …

between the wolf and the dog

[REQUIRED MTC BLOG: TWO QUESTIONS]

Entre chien et loup
Entre chien et loup

What is my favorite time of the day, and why? I think I have to say it's setting my room for the next day. I know, I know, you're thinking it's because it's the end of the day and I'm about to go home ... but that's not it. Yes, it's the end of the day, but it's also the beginning of another.

It's the time between. A threshold. Entre chien et loup: Between the wolf and the dog. The French idiom for twilight, when the light is just dim enough that you can't distinguish between a wolf and a dog. It's also used in a more symbolic sense as a threshold between hope and fear, the familiar and the dangerous. And that's kind of where I am in that time.

At first, I would get my room and the boards all set just out of a sense of responsibility, thinking that I should close the loop between that afternoon and the next morning. The old publishing production habit of eliminating all possible variables because something you haven't thought about yet will surely go awry.

But now I find a wonderful sense of peace in that time. I've written before about Camus' essay on the Myth of Sysiphus -- probably one of my favorite pieces of nonfiction writing --- and I think this hour or so in my classroom is when I feel closely tied to its spirit. There's the obvious metaphor: returning each day to repeat what seems like a futile mind-numbingly difficult task. But Camus was interested not in the struggle to get the rock up the mountain, and not in the tragedy of its repeated descent, but in the moment of Sysiphus' turning, his moment of awareness of his fate.

At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.


I feel that strength each day at this time. I feel stronger than, and ready for, anything that will happen in that room.

robin & gelisia
robin & gelisia

The other question: Why should someone apply to Mississippi Teacher Corps? I'll tell you why not to apply: You're not sure what you want to do next, and this seems like a good way to kill two years while you decide. You've never been in the South and are curious about it. That's like saying you're curious about mountains so you're going to climb Everest.

I will tell you that you should really want to do this before you get here. You should be passionate about what you want to do here, and at the same time ready to admit that you will probably not be able to accomplish that goal. But you will find a new goal that you've never dreamed of yet. I've done a few more things in my life than most of my colleagues here, and I will still say, as they do, that this is right up there with the most difficult. (Considering that giving birth did not last 2 years with a one-month break next July)

Please visit first if at all possible. See the Delta. (There's room in most of our homes for you.)  Read the blogs and talk to us. Invest in a really good 3-hole punch.

Read Sysiphus.  




2 comments Tags: favorite, teaching, dog, south, mississippi, everest, advice, wolf …

about | the name | the blog

the road down
the road down

Everyone comes to a crossroads whether by choice or by circumstance. I've chosen.

This blog is to chronicle my experience in the Mississippi Teacher Corps, a 2-year alternate certification program in which I will also earn a Master's in Curriculum and Instruction. I will teach English in a critical-needs Delta school.

Part of the program's requirements will include keeping a blog with some assigned entries. Since teaching is by its nature a reflective practice, this seems like a good idea, and I hope to use the blog for reflection on all aspects of this experience.

I'm not just moving to the Delta: I am leaving behind an 18-year career as art director and production manager for American School Board Journal and other publications at the National School Boards Association. I'm leaving the majority of my 50 years of living in and around Washington DC.

This is a change I've worked hard to earn. I'm scared to death.

I'm hoping to learn from your comments as well.

UPDATE:

Circumstances are that I will be delaying the move to the Delta until 2007, but it will happen. Meanwhile, I find myself with a liminal year. While it's not exactly what I'd expected, it's still a crossroads. It's the time that exists between my two lives. I don't, however, intend for it to become simply some time I spend while I wait for a new life to begin. It will have a life of its own and will serve to help me define myself in the context of movement forward.



Post a comment Tags: change, mississippi, about, delta