ziasudra

Finally! NEA to challenge 'No Child Left Behind'

It's been years and years of hearing from my teacher friends, and from seeing it for myself when teaching the kiddies, that "No Child Left Behind" only works if you're already in a decent school district with a stable source of generous funding. Like a lot of things that the Bush administration cooks up, the intention behind the act may have been good, but reality has never worked more against what's intended. In my inner city middle school where a large percentage of the students are either immigrants or children of immigrants, their parents aren't going to be able to afford private tutors to get their kids up to par with school districts that don't have security officers patrolling about and guarding every entrance of the school. Not to mention that there are Special Ed kids, ESL kids, and various other kinds of students with different educational needs. To fail an entire school based on one group of students' failed test score is simply discriminatory.

I really hope the NEA will get the victory they need for a thorough reform. It's about time.

Current Mood: hopeful

I was passing out flyers for a new charter school soon to be opened for enrollment in September. A charter school is a school that intentionally hires very good teachers and limits class size to ensure good student-teacher ratio. It admits students by a lottery method (in order to keep class sizes small) and enrollment is only available for children living in the vicinity of the charter school is, which makes it the opposite of a magnet school.

The conversations I had while I was passing out information flyers were very illuminating as to how un-ideal the local school district is:

1.
Ziasudra: A new charter school is opening on the Lower East Side. Are you interested in learning more about it?
Parent A: Is it free?
Ziasudra: Yes. It's a free public school, a chartered one.
Parent A: *eagerly takes flyer*

2.
Ziasudra: A new charter school is opening on the Lower East Side. Are you interested in learning more about it?
Parent B: Will my kids get a better education?
Ziasudra: The goal of the school is to provide quality holistic education. A similar school in Long Island has had great success. [yes, we have "suggested" lines to parrot.]
Parent B: You mean they're going to get a better education?
Ziasudra: The chances of a better education are high.
Parent B: *grabs a flyer*

3.
Ziasudra: A new charter school is opening on the Lower East Side. Are you interested in learning more about it?
Student X: Will this give me a better education?
Ziasudra: *not wanting to diss the school she currently teaches at* If you get in you'll get very qualified teachers and fewer number of classmates per class.
Student X: I want a better education. Our school has too many gang members. They were fighting just there *points at street corner down the block* today. The cops came and someone punched a cop in the face.
Ziasudra: ...
Student X: I want a flyer. Can I have another one too? I want a better education.
Ziasudra: *heart breaks*

The truth is, while no one said it outright that the local school district is bad, it was everyone's uncontested assumption. And by "bad" I don't mean that the teachers are bad—they're wonderful, most of them—but other factors like local gangs and students' English language handicap make it impossible for teachers to pass on much knowledge to the kids. These hindering factors are what I'm hoping won't get carried over into the charter school when it opens. A school with good teachers? Yeah, my middle school has that. Just having good teachers alone isn't enough. I hope the smaller class size and the focus on holistic education (rather than trying to meet New York state's various test standards) will really make the charter school work.

If you're interested, read more information about the charter school here, and about the institute here. (FYI, if you come across the name Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, he's a prominent scholar on the issue of immigration and education, as is his wife, whom I interviewed last semseter for my illegal immigrant article.)

Current Mood: pensive

Today was the big day for my kiddies—they found out which high schools they got into. It's disheartening to see history repeat itself: last year, only one of my students got into a "good" high school. This year is the same. One of the girls got into Baruch High School, while the others all got assigned to mediocre schools when I know they have the brains and ability to succeed in better schools.

Ah, well. I have a few more months with my kiddies. Maybe I'll get to drill more knowledge into their heads before they forget them all when summer vacation comes.

And in case you're reading this...

Happy Birthday, Yee-Doi!!!

March Madness update:
Villanova (1) def. Boston College in OT, 60-59. *sobs*
George Mason (11) def. Wichita State (7), 63-55.
Florida (3) def. Georgetown (7), 57-53.
UConn (1) def. Washington (5) in OT, 98-92.

Current Mood: tense
Current Music: UConn vs. Washington

What do you write in response to a student's journal entry that talks about being asked to go into the closet because she was sick and coughing too much? Or that he's a good-for-nothing because he's been told all his life that he's stupid and he truly believes that? Sigh. Grading writing journals is not as much fun as I thought :\

If you go to the Livejournal main page, you'll see that

baaaaabyanimals is being spotlighted. While I'm not a member of this community, I highly recommend visiting once in a while to get your fix of cute baby animals. *g*

Roommate A is back from her trip to Duke, so now our apartment is full: me, roommate A, roommate D, and former roommate J. Um, I suppose I should go hang out. Or something. :)

Current Mood: writing
Current Music: Roommate D playing the guitar

Olympics
Women's snowboard cross not winning a silver, but losing a gold, wtf?!? I feel soooo bad for Lindsey Jacobellis. She's only 20, and this was the first time the Olympics had the snowboard cross event, ever. I find myself wishing that it's 2008 and Jacobellis finally winning a gold to shed herself of the "losing gold last-minute" image she now bears. It's unlikely, though, knowing how fast the champion turnover rate is for the X Sports.

On the other hand, Seth Wescott and girlfriend Tanja Frieden will both leave the Olympics with matching snowboard cross gold medals. I find that kinda cute :)

Field Trip!
So, today was the day 30 middle school kiddies went to the Jewish Immigration museum. It was chaotic, it was fun. The students were a lot more attentive to the tour guide than I expected, and I'm convinced that some even walked away learning something. Score one for middle school education!

The most fun part for me was herding 30 hungry teenagers into a McDonald's. Boy, can those kiddies eat! Well, the guys, at least. Some of the girls are getting to that health conscious age when they wouldn't want to eat anything (though boxes of fries still graced their tables). I had a filet-o-fish meal. Don't know why, but I've been craving greasy, deep fried slabs of fish lately.

So, at the end of the day, I'm alive, and all 30 kiddies are happy, well fed, and generally well. I'd be interested in taking them on another field trip again :)

[ETA: Philippines landslide... I have not words :( :( :(]

Current Mood: incredulous

Middle school can be traumatic.

Case #1: Kiddie J is normally the class clown. He's funny, overly energetic, and can charm his way out of any lunch detention. But today, he walked into the classroom with his head drooped low, dragged a chair into the corner and sat away from the rest of his classmates, and was really, really quiet.

In the middle of the class, he asked to go get a drink of water. When he didn't return after many minutes, I went outside to check on him. I saw a visibly upset Kiddie J dragging himself back into the room, with some boys not in my class yelling very mean words after him. For the rest of the class, Kiddie J sat in his chair in the corner, crying. My heart broke for him :(

Case #2: Kiddie S is adorable and has much style. I can totally see him as the heartthrob of all the girls when he gets to high school. Kiddie C is a cute girl—Hispanic, long hair, and a round face. She's also crazy about cars: NASCAR, Daytona, etc. Just think Vinny's girlfriend in My Cousin Vinny, only a sweeter, more pleasant version of her.

Anyway. There was a Valentine's Day dance at the school tonight. I don't know why, but Kiddie S waited until today to ask Kiddie C to the dance. Unbeknownst to Kiddie S, Kiddie C was holding a grudge agaisnt him because he had insulted her at some point in the beginning of the school year. So she said no.

Unfortunately, the story didn't just end there. Kiddie C and her friend, Kiddie J, spent reading class saying mean things about Kiddie S. Loudly. By the time I realized what was happening and got the two gossiping kiddies to shut up, Kiddle S had already heard too much. He spent the rest of the class sulking.

When I walked out at the end of class, I wanted to cry.

Current Mood: sad

Rambling about my kiddies. Move along if you're not interested...

Reading + Noises = anti-OTP
Somewhere along the process of assigning classrooms, someone thought it was a good idea to place the Reading/ESL classroom right next to the Music room. What kind of an idea was that? My kiddies are good though, they'd usually tough it out with the likes of Mary Had A Little Lamb blasting in the background.

But today, on top of tunes from the music room, the Chinatown community decided to have a lion dance right next to the school. The main teacher was having a read-aloud of S.E. Hinton's The Outsider, fighting to not let the drums and cymbals and firecrackers drown out her reading voice. Suffice to say, by the time we got to small group time, during which the kiddies were supposed to write journal entries to tie in scenes from the book with their personal experiences, half of them had no idea what happened in the pages that we read.

Reading + Butt = OTP
The highlight of the school day was reading The Day My Butt Went Psycho with Student A. Butts are fascinating indeed. Student A usually wouldn't touch a book with a ten-feet pole, but after I read the beginning of the book with him in class today, Student A asked to check the book out so he could continue reading at home! I love psycho butts... ;)

Current Mood: ditzy
Current Music: Animal Crossing music

Today was the last day of school for the kiddies before their winter vacation. This meant no one was willing to sit quietly in class to read, which was expected.

In one class, we got a movie going while the main teacher and I fed hoards of hungry teenagers chips, cookies, Skittles, and soda. Afterwards, they still went to lunch and ate more food. Kiddies = endless food repository.

In another class, we 1) attempted a read-aloud only to be interrupted too many times by over energized, bouncy kids who couldn't keep their mouths shut for the reading, 2) tried to enforced quiet reading for, like, five minutes, and 3) eventually gave up and let them have free time for the remaining 20 minutes of the period. As soon as free time started, the girls huddled around into two groups to either draw or read a puberty/"about my body" book while giggling with each other. Some boys whipped out their Gameboys right away while others took out their stacks of Yu-Gi-Oh cards and battled with each other.

Naturally, I watched the boys play Yu-Gi-Oh. Comparing their decks with the virtual deck that I have in my GBA Yu-Gi-Oh game, I think I might have a chance of winning if I play my deck against theirs. *g*

No kiddies for the next three weeks. It'll probably take them three days to forget my name :p

Random news link: BBC - Scientists find 'mass dodo grave'
Serious news link: Washington Post - Rumsfeld Announces U.S. Troop Reduction in Iraq

Current Mood: Yay, done with school and work
Current Music: Evita -- Oh What A Circus

So I looked at the calendar today, and it's Nov. 18, which means I've been in the U.S. for 16 years! Well, minus the month(s)-long vacations I used to take to go back home during summer and winter holidays. *brings out champagne*

( Kiddies Update, I Saw GoF! )

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Peter, Paul, and Mary -- One Tin Soldier

Kiddie stories!

The Good

After a month and a half working with this year's groups of kiddies, they finally recognize me! I still get questions like: who are you? where are you from? But I'm now a legitimate teacher in their eyes instead of "that girl who shows up randomly in our class one day."
There's this cuuutest little girl in my Monday 6th grade class, C. She's the heartthrob of all of the teachers. She does all her work, socializes well, is an amazing anime artist, and chases this hyperactive kid named J (who causes all the teachers major headaches) down the hall. I find the last thing amusing ^_^
I got a hug today!!! This adorable little girl, S, gave me a hug before she left for her next class. *melts*
I shouldn't be so excited when one of my kiddies read, seeing how it's reading class that I'm teaching. But today, among all the manga and Shonen Jumps, this little sixth grade boy told me that he finished reading the autobiography of Walter Dean Meyers, and liked it! He then asked the main classroom teacher to direct him to more WDM books. Wow, kids read.

The Bad

The eighth grade class wasn't so nice today. We had to give up doing a read-aloud because they were making too much noise. It was too bad, because I was getting into the story and wanted to find out what happens next!
SpongeBob SquarePants mad lip for the seventh graders didn't quite work. A few people never bothered doing the activities, while some were doing the mad lip while reading the story, so it ended up being a fill-in-the-blank exercise. *eyerolls* And we had to make some kids white out their adjectives and nouns because they were "inappropriate words." Aiya!

The Ugly

Fight in the hallway between two Chinese students.
Screaming student, M, during eighth period.
Hyperactive students who chased each other around the classroom at any random moment, throughout eighth period.
More hyperactive students during eighth period, trying to sneak out of the classroom, whom I had to physically bar from escaping and push them back into the room. *flexes muscles*
Said students ended up going to the water fountain twice and the bathroom once. A very long bathroom trip.
Students from item 3 shoved student from item 2. Student from item 2 rolled on the floor and screamed some more.
One of the students from item 4, A, went around the classroom and tried to kiss his classmates on the cheek. He failed with the girls, but ended up kissing an unsuspecting boy, who was totally grossed out and looked like he was going to have a meltdown. A claimed he didn't kiss anyone.
Two minutes before period eight ended, the entire class crowded by the door waiting to rush out. I was the... er... bouncer type person. Apparently the kiddies didn't grasp the concept that they needed to back away from an in-swinging door for it to open. So when the bell rang, I was literally squashed between the door and massive kiddies trying to fight their way to the (still closed) door. I had to push them all back *flexes muscles some more* yanked the door open, only to be stampeded as 289543 kiddies stormed out of the classroom.

As you can see, my eighth period 7th grade class is quite a challenge. My co-teacher and I came up with an analogy for this class: they're like animals in a zoo, some of which you should never, ever put in the same cage together, but they are :\

The conclusion? I love my kiddies ^_^

Current Mood: loved
Current Music: Animal Crossing

So I wrote a reponse to the Times Online article on the effects of religion that I briefly ranted about in this post a couple of days ago. My article is more aimed against Gregory S. Paul's methodology than on the Times Online article itself, and there's also a whole lot of personal ranting somewhere toward the middle/end.

I sent it as a "hey, I wrote something, whaddaya think?" e-mail to my professor. He looked at it, liked it, and now it's published!

*squees*

Here it is -->
We Are the Others
"The generalizations used in the new 'Religion is bad for society' study are a step backwards for social science."

It's probably the most polemic published piece I've written to date. I realize that my own arguments are incomplete (thus problematic in their own way), but I'm happy for what thread of argument that remains after I cut 20% of what I initially wrote.

( On a different note, my kiddies... )
.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Matchbox 20 -- Unwell

I started working with the kiddies again. Possibly a younger bunch this year, seventh grade maybe. My work schedule isn't set yet, the principal just shoved me into whatever classroom that needed my help today ;p

I spent today working with an adorable Spanish-speaking little boy who hardly knew a word of English. He had to do two panels of a PowerPoint presentation. We communicated enough to get him to write simple sentences such as: "I like tv" and "I have two brothers and one sister." The majority of the time was spent looking through the art folder for basketball pictures ("I like basketball," he also wrote.) *g*

If all goes well, I'll be able to work around 10 hours a week and finally get myself some much-needed income.
.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: news on the radio

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Dear Bush: see all the kiddies left behind in my classroom?

Conversations in front of the middle school

If I can buy you a future

Kiddies, baaaaabies, and roommies

Snowboarding & Kiddies

Kiddie Woes

Kiddies Update

Crazy Kiddies? Feed them more sugar!

A Collections of Thoughts

Never a Dull Moment

I used Edward Said for something other than theory-heavy class discussions

Kiddies Update

Profile

January 2011

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