Day 179: Closet

Period 1: 1 Student
Period 2: 5 Students
Period 3: 3 Students
Period 4: 2 Students
Period 6: 0 Students
Period 8: 13 Students


I had an extremely productive morning!  Yesterday, the other physics teacher and I tackled the supply closet, throwing away 3 dumpsters of old, broken and confusing materials.

Someone had kept a box of tangled slinkies.  It was on the shelf above the burned-out light bulbs!

Today, wiped the shelves down and began organizing.  All of the sound equipment is on the top shelf.  Optics go just below that.

There is something very satisfying about bringing order out of chaos.

It went very well until the shelf holding the weights broke, spilling hanging masses, transformers and light boxes all over the floor.

I totally didn't crap my pants.

We're getting there.  Working on it tomorrow and Monday should see the whole thing organized before we leave for the summer.


The number of Uno games that were being played around the school today must have numbered in the tens of thousands.

Day 178: Prisoners

I've been thinking about prisons recently.

We, as a society, have decided that when someone breaks the law, it is necessary to house that person away from the rest of the population.  However, reasonable people often disagree about the purpose of prison.

Penitentiaries were designed to be the adult equivalent of "go to your room and think about what you've done" and comes from the same root as penitent, meaning one who repents for their wrong-doings.

By removing the offending person from society, modern prisons serve two purposes: to give the offender time to think about their crimes, and to protect the rest of society by removing the offender.  There are arguments to be made about the effectiveness of our current prison system to accomplish either of these goals, but that's not what has been in my mind.

I've been thinking about the responsibilities of prisoners.

Prisoners are compelled to be in prison.  If they refuse to go, they are forcibly taken.  Once there, they need to follow certain rules for the duration of their sentence.  Should they break those rules, there are various penalties, including placement in a more restricting environment or even an extension of the sentence.  If they follow those rules for many years, then just maybe their sentence will be shortened.

Once they are released, many have difficulty finding jobs as a direct result of having a criminal record.  Of those released, more than half are rearrested within a year, with the 3-year and 5-year rates of recidivism being 68% and 77% respectively.

Is it the responsibility of the prison to rehabilitate these people, or simply to remove them from society for a designated period of time?

What are the responsibilities of the prisoners in this system?


What about students?  What is the responsibility of the students in school?  We tell them that they are part of a community, but very often don't give them a meaningful voice for change.  Much of that lack of voice is due to state or federal regulations about what must happen in a school and by no means the fault of local districts.

But how often are students involved in discussions about graduation requirements or district policy?

Students are compelled by law to attend school.  For most, this means the district in which they live.  Yes, their parents get a say in policy by voting for or against members of the school board, but this seems like a remarkably small voice considering that students will spend up to 17,550 hours in school.

This is 2 full years of their lives.

There are, of course, those who can shorten this time period by excelling academically or, more likely, take extra classes during the year or over the summer, essentially trading childhood for early graduation.

For most students, this is not a possibility and schools are not designed for it to be.

There is, however, a much easier way to shorten the time that a student spends in school: break the rules.  According the United States Department of Education, 130,000 students are expelled from school each year.


The benefits to taking advantage of educational opportunities are often abstract and far in the future.  We tell students that if they work hard now, they will be able to work hard in college and then get a job.  Schools have elective courses to give students a modicum of choice when it comes to what they study, but many districts don't offer meaningful choices until junior or senior year.  Those choices are often usurped by schedule conflicts because of classes that need to be repeated.

Early choices and consequences have tremendous ripple effects that students can't begin to understand at the time when they are made.



What appear to be simple steps to outside observers can become insurmountable.


Even for students who stay on track with grade-level expectations, school can often feel like something to get through rather than something from which to benefit.

The education system is not the prison system, but to many students, it can feel that way.  I won't argue whether this is a valid analogy or not because I don't think it matters.

If students feel like prisoners, then that's what they are.

In the compulsory educational system, what are the responsibilities of the student?  If they don't fulfill those responsibilities, (or if we don't convince them that they should) who suffers besides them?

It seem to me as though it is the responsibility of the student to do well for the betterment of themselves on the small scale, but for society on the large scale.

Young Adult Fiction is chock full of stories of teenagers whose lives are determined by their choices on a single day.

"I choose...the Crippling Student Debt Followed by an Unfulfilling Career faction!"

"Work hard for the betterment of society" is an upsetting message to be foisting onto children.

Day 177: Homeroom of 2

Some of the physics groups did an amazing job with their playgrounds.

I've begun the process of organizing this blog into themes.  I'm not enjoying the process and my writing style seems to be counter to the goals of organization.

I'll pay someone in hug and pizza to do this for me...

Day 176: Sparse

The biggest class that I had today contained 5 people.

I was able to catch up on some paperwork.

Day 175: Playgrounds

I'm going to start running again.  Yesterday was a tipping point for me and writing about it was extremely cathartic.  I went to the doctor and spoke to some friends and I'm feeling better today.

But not better enough to think that I'm alright.

Three years ago, I ran a half marathon.  I'm going to sign up for another in the fall and set up a running schedule.  I already have new shoes.  Now I just need to make the time.


With grades for seniors finalized this morning, the school has taken on an air of a summer camp.  There were torrential downpours and those, in combination with closed grades, meant that the population of the school was at around 50%.

My astronomy classes watched Cosmos and 2001 while various other students came to borrow from my collection of games.



We finished the playground presentations in Physics and some of them completely blew me away!

Day 174: Open Fear

I think that this will be the last year that I keep this blog as daily reflections.  I hope (and plan) to keep writing when the spirit moves me, but I'm tired.

This year, my writing has received more scrutiny and has more concerns expressed about it than ever before and, while some of the complaints may be valid, it has made me feel as though I can't be as honest and open in my writing as I want to be or, more accurately, as I need to be in order to derive benefit from it.

I no longer feel safe.

Here's the kicker:

I fully recognize that the majority of my discomfort and fear is entirely in my head.

My administration has been supportive of this blog since I started writing it.  I have been told that "I think your blog is awesome and it's good to reflect in writing."

No parents or administrators have complained to me about my writing.

But I still live in constant fear.


I will write that again because it's such a huge portion of my mental state and how I interact with my students.

I am afraid almost all the time.


I believe in what I do, in my goals, my methods, my outcomes.  I'm also not sure that I'm acting on them correctly.

The practical side of me says "yes, you have provided them with constant opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and have tried to inspire them to be the best version of themselves."  It tells me that this small piles of notes and messages from students thanking me for being their teacher, for encouraging them to work harder, should help to uplift me and remind me that I'm doing good and right by my students.

The groups of students who come back to see me week after week, year after year, let me know that I am making an impact.

The student who failed my class for the year and still came to thank me for everything that I did for him and how much he appreciated it.

Perhaps that makes it worse.


I took my children to the playground this weekend.  In addition to the gaggles of young kids running around, there were 2 sisters and a friend of theirs, all between the ages of 11 and 14.  This older group was running around, playing, having a good time.  A woman stormed over the playground with a small flock of 5 year olds and began screaming at the teenagers for picking on her kids.

The teens immediately started apologizing, and claiming that they weren't picking on anyone.  I could see their defensive postures from 200 feet away.

When the woman finished screaming at them, they went back to playing, but the joy was gone.  It was obvious that they were done and just wanted to go home and, within 5 minutes, they left the playground, talking and walking slowly.

They had been yelled at, but they didn't get in trouble in any meaningful way.  There was nothing that the angry could or would do to them, and yet the adrenaline had been pumped, the nerves had been shot and the fun was ruined.  No matter how much fun the rest of the day had been, they were only going to remember being yelled at.

Each time I get an email from a parent or administrator, a stab of fear goes through me.  This is COMPLETELY irrational, but it happens nonetheless.

The camouflage of positive confidence keeps me from looking like the shivering mouse that huddles just below the surface.


I recognize that teachers receive more scrutiny than many other professions.  On one hand, we are shaping the future for society and for individual students, but on the other hand, we are people.  It seems as though teachers are not allowed to make mistakes, that we are expected to be experts from the day we graduate from college.

No one explicitly says this, but the expectation is there.

Every teacher knows another teacher, either personally or by anecdote, whose career was ruined by a single bad interaction with a student, parent or administrator.  Every teacher also knows hundreds of teachers for whom that in't the case at all.


I have seen teachers who are horrifically ineffective with both content and behavior management.  They go about their days (seemingly) without a care in the world.

Each time a student earns a grade lower than what they feel they deserve, I am terrified that it will spiral into administrative meetings and the end of my teaching career.

One of my graduating seniors has asked me to jump the cumulative year grade from 78% to 80% because it effects scholarship options.  I don't feel comfortable doing this but I fear that refusal to do so will have lasting repercussions for me.

I have no evidence to this end, but the fear is there, warring with the argument of integrity stating that said student, even knowing what was resting on the final grade, didn't do everything possible to get there.


Even without including students names, or even genders in most cases, I struggle writing about my negative interactions with my students.  Even though the goal of my writing is, and always has been to help me think through the situations and improve my own teaching practice.  Even though I have put Herculean effort into NOT allowing this blog to be a place where I complain, but rather analyze my own actions so as to improve.


I can't derive the benefits that I need from this blog if I feel as though I'm surrounded by Tommy DeVito.

The whole point of having this blog be public, having my Twitter feed, be public is to keep me in check, but I'm starting to feel as though there is no longer balance.

I could make the blog private, but I know that many other teachers are gleaning benefit from the sharing of my thoughts and struggles.  I also know that making the blog private, or not writing at all, won't solve the anxiety problem that I have.

At the same time, writing as much as I do (almost one million words since August 2013) is both physically and mentally exhausting.



There are 6 days left.

Day 172: Better

We finished the review for the Astronomy final.  The Physics kids put the finishing touches on their playgrounds.

I had a nice note in my mailbox to start my day and I was invited to a graduation party for one of my seniors.  I have more I could write, but I'm going to simply enjoy this.

I have no idea who wrote this, but thank you