Matt Stamps is One of My Students and I Am a Genius (in my dreams)

This came as a great surprise to me, as no doubt it does to you all. I mean, I thought the guy was married and in the Navy thousands of miles away or something. But apparently he has lost about eight years of age and returned to high school. And he's taking U.S. History as one of my students. Oh, and he's changed his name to make it sound like he is of Greek origin. I suppose he thinks this is a clever disguise, but I see right through it.

To his credit, I didn't realize he was in my class until yesterday, when I was carefully eyeing students taking a quiz. I was monitoring cheating and all that. I had to do several double takes looking at this student. But as he was taking the quiz I decided he was practically the spitting image of Stamps, at least as I remember him in the days when he was around my part of the country! Uncanny. Strange. And I believe it is the first time I have seen a reincarnation of someone outside of my teaching life placed into a school room context. Now I eagerly anticipate seeing other reincarnations of friends and family in my class! Who will be next, in years or months to come? Classmates from BS? Neighbors? Cousins?

In other news, I have decided that genius has evaded me, except in my dreams. I dream clever things. Last night it was a new scene from Mr. Bean. I have not watched Mr. Bean anytime recently, and little in general. But I dreamed of a very clever scene of Mr. Bean counting change he took from his pocket, then proceeding to eat a hard boiled egg, which he partially shared with another person (while trying to eat it). Now I'm wondering if I have seen a scene like this before, or if I should start to hire my services out to the Bean writers in exchange for very clever and hilarious scripts. Actually, I'm not sure how hilarious it was in my dream. It seemed a little gross...

This has not happened recently, but I also find my vocabulary is immensely expanded in my dreams. Again, it must be my inner genius bottled up, only to spill out when in dreamland. Each morning that I wake up to an alarm, I wake up to the radio. Don't like the annoying screeching sound. Much prefer some announcer or advertisement to bring me out of my sleep. Anyway, on past occasions, shortly before the alarm (radio) turns on, I have dreamed that I am hearing the radio and the morning news. It seems very real. Except in these news reports are various complex words that I never use in common language. It's the most amazing thing. It's like my verbal IQ is through the roof or something. Where do these words come from? And if I recall correctly, they are not gibberish. They make sense to me in my sleep.

Now I'm slightly irritated to think that I cannot share all of this inner intelligence with the rest of the world. Why does it elude me in my waking moments? Frustrating. If only my expansive intellect and creative genius were not confined to moments lying on my mattress...

Big Papi, He's the Man!!!

Enough said. Go Sox!

In other news, I have students from Bosnia, the Ukraine, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran (a student's parent is from there at least), and at least one more country that escapes my mind right now, all in my Mid East class. How cool is that?

It All Blew Over

For anyone wondering how the meeting with the administrator I referenced in a previous post went, it ended up not being a big deal! I explained my case, explained how difficult it was to get as low a grade as the student had, explained how low the grade was one marking periods, and gave some whopping numbers on assignments that student missed over the semester, to explain the low grade (it was somewhere in the vicinity of 20, no joking!). I was not grilled or lectured to as I thought I might be. I was thankful.

In other news, the school year has started and is about to move into full gear. Or has already. I have what feels like mountains of work to correct already, as my AP class had a summer assignment due the first day. I was disappointed not to get some students I was really hoping might be in my classes, but am trusting that it will all work out for the best. Some movement in class makeup is quite likely in the next few days, though I'm not holding out a lot of hope there. What I am a little more concerned about are the small numbers signed up for my AP class. The roster was cut in half from the original signups, mostly due to scheduling conflicts. I'm not sure whether to blame this on school inefficiency (inability or lack of willingness to juggle teacher's schedules to accomodate the greatest number of students who want to take certain classes) or the fact that there is only one section of AP, so such scheduling issues are more likely to occur. I'm currently placing a little blame on both facotrs, though perhaps a little more on the former.

Anyway, because I have significantly smaller numbers to start the first semester (which is required for most of them in there), the current signups for the second semester (needed to prepare for the AP exam) are even smaller (the second semester is not a requirement). I've been told that, as is, the class probably will not continue second semester, so I should see about increasing signups. That I have been doing, both internally to the current class by pitching the AP curriculum and last year's success rate in desperate hopes that most of them will stay, and I've started to hunt for others currently not in the class who might be able to take it. And I am hoping that a couple more students whose schedule wouldn't allow it at first will be able to juggle things in order to get back into the course.

I see a tremendous irony in this kind of battle. While I love teaching AP, it is way more work than a typical class. My motives in keeping it are because I like working with brighter students, but also because I believe our school should be providing more AP offerings in the Social Studies. There are 6 or 8 AP exams in Social Studies, but only 2 courses besides my class are offered at my (very large) school. So it seems silly and a real shame that given our size we do not offer more challenging courses. Students benefit from such courses. And it gives them more options for classes that will increase their chances to impress and do well in future colleges to which they may apply. So I find myself fighting hard to give myself more work! Sometimes I am really attracted by the idea of just giving up on it and teaching a class that is much easier to prepare. I think the positives for ME would be more than the negatives for ME if such a thing happened. But I believe the negatives for students were that to happen would be greater. So I see great irony here. Why should I be the one to struggle with administration (or the system) to help students? But such is my state.

Airheadedness Gets You a TV Job

I know it's not always the thing to do to criticize the hometown announcers, but sometimes I am astonished by the airheaded questions Tina Cervasio asks Red Sox players on NESN. And she gets paid to do this? Ok, maybe few of you actually watch NESN. Let me give you an example. After a recent Sox win, a question she asked Kevin Youkilis: "So, what do you think about Jon Lester's 7 inning shutout performance?" Duh. Is there any answer but to praise such a performance? Why ask a question if you already know the answer? The utter inanity of it all!

I wonder if TV interviewers for other home teams ask as stupid and airheaded questions? Probably. I guess they have to sometimes, because when you interview a player after every game some games may not have any exciting things to discuss. But that was not the case with this game. A more interesting question of Youkilis might have been something like "If a full fledged brawl had broken out after Cabrera beaned Pedroia, which Oriole would you have targeted and taken down first? Tejada? Or would you have targeted someone scrawnier, like maybe Brian Roberts? Who do you think Big Papi would have gone after? Would anyone have dared to take him on?" Now those kinds of questions would be worth tuning in to hear the answers to!

Any NESN viewers out there have similar thoughts on this? I get tired of drivel sometimes...

I'm So Happy and Here's the Reason Why

I refuse to be unhappy despite the Sox recent skid, and despite a little unpleasantness I'll have to deal with next week (I'll explain later). My week was made recently and I am feeling happy! And we all know it's all about the feelings, right?

Why so happy? I'll explain. I went into school to work on getting a jump start on classroom setup, etc. Our official first day is a teacher day upcoming, when we'll have time to work on things like that. But I wanted to do a little prep work before prep day. So I go into school. And I check my mailbox. I get back to my classroom and take a closer look at the mail. One of the items was the sheet of AP World History (hereafter APWH) test scores my students earned on their May exam. My jaw dropped. I shouted in delight. I clapped. I practically danced. I could have hyperventilated. (It's a good thing I didn't, as I was alone on that floor!) ALL MY STUDENTS PASSED!!!

Whoop dee do, right? So they passed. You might think that any competent teacher should get all his students to pass. So what? If you are thinking these thoughts, you lack context on AP courses, and my particular situation. I'll give a little context to help.

1. Only 51 percent of all test takers in 2006 passed the APWH exam. No typos here: again, 51 percent. I don't know what the percentage nationwide was this year (figures aren't out yet), but the percentages have been trending downward over the last four years, as more and more students have enrolled in APWH and have taken the exam (instead of only the "smartest" taking the exam, thus lower average scores are to be expected). I'm guessing the percentage of those who passed this year will be 49 or 50 percent. So I was pretty happy with a 100 percent pass rate!

2. The APWH exam is considered by some teachers to be harder than at least one of the other AP history exams, that of U.S. History. Don't have any proof of this, but it sounds good to me! Even if it isn't more difficult, it is still a rather comprehensive exam. It literally covers highlights from the entire world over the last 10,000 years or so (emphasis on "or so." Feel free to be skeptical on the year range. But you get the point. It's a lot of stuff over a long period of time.)

3. While I encouraged my entire class to take the exam at least for the experience, I was very afraid at least two of them would not pass. It took some armbending to convince them to try and take the exam. So it was a small victory just to get my entire class to sign up for the exam.

4. We had no AP level textbook the entire year. It was the first time the school offered the course, and the first time I had taught it at that level. So no adequate textbook. I believe this was a serious obstacle the students and myself faced and had to overcome. I had to lecture a lot more than I would have preferred, to cover the material. And I had no training on how to do this. No workshops to help me. I joined a listserve with other WHAP teachers, which helped. Still, I was a greenhorn.

5. At least one student misidentified a section of the world when he was asked to write an essay on something. In case you want a taste of what kind of stuff you have to do on this exam, here was the essay question:
Analyze major changes and continuities in the formation of national identities in ONE of the regions listed below from 1914 to the present. Be sure to include evidence from specific countries in the region selected.
Middle East
Southeast Asia
Sub-Saharan Africa

Anyway, his mistake was to pick Southeast Asia as his region, and then talk about India. Big mistake. India is not in Southeast Asia. It's considered South Asia. Wrong region entirely. Vietnam would have been a good country to discuss if he had been correct in his geography. So I believe his score on that essay, which was one-sixth of the entire grade, was a zero.

6. I asked my students to email me their grades over the summer when they got them, so I would know. I only heard from one student. A bad sign I thought. I realized there could be a little laziness or forgetfulness going on with some, but I suspected it was also an indication of failure for some.

7. Though I could be wrong, I believe there are undercurrents in my school among some teachers, who think that teaching an AP class to sophomores (this class was primarily sophomores) is too early. Like they can't handle it. Like they shouldn't be challenged to take a course of this nature (college level work). And I think those undercurrents would have increased if the scores had been low. So I was dealing with this challenge in the back of my head along with everything else. Of course, I think such thinking is ridiculous. Statistics say so. Seventy-five percent of those who take the APWH exam are sophomores. But anyway, that's some of the ethos out there at my school (again, mostly impressionary).

Ok, enough context. I hope my happiness makes sense now. AP scores are given on a range of 1-5, with 3 and above being a passing grade. 3 is considered "qualified," 4 is "well-qualified," 5 is "extremely well-qualified." Half my class got 3's and the other half got 4's (including the student who wrote about India)! Imagine what might happen with a new textbook (which we're getting this next year)??

Ok, on to the unpleasantness. I also got a note in my mailbox from an administrator questioning why I failed a student, and asking me to see her/him, since that student passed the fourth quarter and the final exam, but failed the third. So next week I'll have to go and explain details. I already know the conversation is likely to run something like the following, so I'm dreading it:
Administrator: Why did you fail this person?
Me: The student failed to turn in numerous assignments, had a terribly low third quarter grade and a grade that wasn't strong enough in the fourth quarter to get him/her anywhere near passing.
Admin: What was the third quarter grade?
Me: (Insert very low number here.)
Admin: Why so low? I don't like it when teachers give zeros. Students then get into such a hole they can't dig themselves out. Don't you think you could give this student a break based on their performance in the fourth quarter and on the exam?
Me: I agree that a high failure grade should usually be given if a student hands in something of poor quality. In fact, it is very difficult for students to get lower than a sixty on any assignment they turn in on time. But the student has to give me something to work with, otherwise it will be a zero. The student earned multiple zeroes because they failed to turn in multiple assignments, including two worth two test grades. It wouldn't be fair to give the student a 50 or 60 for an assignment they never submitted when someone who does poor work and submits an assignment gets the same mark.
Admin: I'm just trying to see how we can bring up the number of passing grades in your class. X number of students earned an F in your class, and that's really too high.
Me: I agree that I would like more students to pass, but again I have to emphasize how difficult it is to fail my class. Students usually have to fail to turn in multiple assignments to fail. This was the case with this student.

If the conversation is any less unpleasant than this, I will be pleasantly surprised. But I'm fearing the worst. I'm also annoyed that I have to deal with this kind of questioning from administration. It is so easy to pass my classes! Why do they have to ask me about it, as if it is my fault? Maybe I have a character flaw in dealing with authority. I trust I'll have the grace to deal with this. I wish I had only read the first piece of mail and not the second! But despite it, I am too happy to let it get me down too much.

Ok, no more. Finis.