BHL week 7

Friday, April 23 was my 7th time going to BHL. I went on a Friday because of CRCT testing. This was possibly the most interactive day I've had yet - I actually got to (attempt) to teach. It was rather messy though...

Since the science CRCT was the day prior, Mr Corley used his classes to prepare for the math CRCT, which students must pass in order to graduate to high school (and the numbers weren't looking so good; barely half of the students are expected to pass, which means that the requirements will probably be changed to pass more students... I'll get back to that in a minute).

On this day, students seemed particularly wired. Before first period even began there was already a fight. ELT was given free time to read or play chess or whatever, and that was fairly uneventful. Second period was a bit of a different story.

First of all, the students were pissed off because they were expected to actually do work that day (they all seemed to expect a free day since the science CRCT was over). When Corley passed out the Math CRCT coach books, everyone was groaning and complaining, which sent Mr Corley into one of his little outbursts. Mr Corley was trying to go over the basic mathematical concepts that would be tested, but kids wouldn't shut up. Admittedly, it was kind of hard to follow the lesson. Mr Corley would call out something, and then the students would try and figure it out, but then Mr Corley would have a different answer, or would have not said what he meant, and then the students try and tell him but it just comes off as them yelling, and then Mr Corley yells back, and everyone is pissed off again. This is pretty much how third and fourth period went as well.

About half way through the classes, Mr Corley would get exasperated and give up, so I got to attempt to teach. I showed them some different ways to do things, like when trying to find the slope of a line, draw a right angle and just count the steps. They agreed that this method was far simpler than (y1-y2)/(x1-x2), which they didn't understand what that actually meant. It amazes me how little these students actually understand, and though they could shut up and listen, its not all their fault. There is too much material to cover in too little time, so students barely understand a concept before another one is thrown at them. I helped one girl individually, who finally realized how exponents work. She explained that her math teacher only briefly explained it, and that she got a 70 on her test but since that was passing, she never reviewed the material again.

Lunch was interesting, there was a brief meeting with the 8th grade teachers. They discussed the fact that the student are claiming that they don't have to do anything in their "other classes", which upon discussion turned out to not be true at all. Mr Davis pointed out that you have to take everything they say with a grain of salt. After the meeting, a few teachers stayed talking about teaching. They have pretty much all convinced me to further explore my options, that was a common factor from all I spoke to. They wished they had gone further and did something else, because as Mr Joiner is proving, it's very hard to start over at 30 years old when all formal training is in education. Plus, students get worse and worse each year.

The last period of the day was by far the craziest. During "connections" classes (electives), there was a March of Dimes fund raiser where kids could pay to play outside, have free time, buy concessions like candy and soda. Mr Slovert went down there briefly during planning and said it was chaos, there were no teachers controlling the kids and they were going crazy. So when they had to go back to sitting in a desk for over an hour, things didn't go well. This on top of the fact that Mr Corley had already been worn down all day did not mix at all.

Immediately as students were coming into the classroom, one said something so Mr Corley marched him to a different classroom. With him briefly gone, I warned the class that he was on edge and to try and be good... it obviously didn't take. They could barely stay in their seats, much less close their mouths for more than 5 seconds. Still, Mr Corley and i attempted to review math material. I stood at the board and dictated what Mr Corley called out. The problem was, Mr Corley would say one thing and mean another. He called out an equation, and then students were trying to answer and he got all mad, and freaked out saying they hadn't payed attention to math all year, and went to go get their math teacher. While he was getting the math teacher, I finally was able to understand the students yelling, and they were in fact right. Mr Street came in, looked at what I had on the board and what the kids were saying, and it was correct... Corley, slightly embarassed and very frustrated, retreated to his desk and let me teach. Kids know how to raise their hands, but they think that once their hand is raised they can talk. They were yelling at me all trying to get me to explain something different. Eventually 3:30 rolled around and I was free! I grabbed my bag and escaped while I could.

And yeah, I'm pretty much over the idea of being a teacher.